the translated Sassen papers

[bombsaway]

as part of my forthcoming 'Best Case' essay I’ve completed a virtually complete translation of the Sassen papers with AI (it was unable to translate handwritten text and some words were illegible)


I believe this is one of the strongest pieces of documentary/witness evidence for the Holocaust, due to the apparently non coerced aspect of it.

I doubt there will be serious questions about the authenticity of the document, rather revisionist objections will center around Eichmann lying about physical extermination / gassing / the existence of death camps etc



It’s not enough to just say it’s possible that he lied. The document has been supplied now in full, so revisionists have to provide some kind of rationale for this



Past criticism about the Sassen tapes/papers focused on him trying to scare and impress Sassen for egoistic or monetary reasons w false Holocaust stories. There are many reasons why this doesn’t make much sense, but I would point to the anti semitic and anti zionist vviews that Eichmann expresses. It’s easy to see, and Sassen makes it explicit in the papers, that Israel and Jews drew benefit from the Holocaust story. With regards to something like resettlement, Eichmann would have possessed information about where Jews were sent, how they were treated, etc. Such information, if disseminated could have opened up huge questions for orthodoxy, given revisionists ample leads to follow etc. 



But he didn’t do any of this. Therefore one should say if Eichmann was lying about the Holocaust logically he was also lying about his feelings towards Jews. By turning things completely around and affirming a false story story he would doing an incredibly philo semitic thing.

Here we move into cartoon conspiracy territory. Eichmann was part of the conspiracy in some way -- he was given a story to tell by some intervening power and played the given role well. I predict revisionists will ultimately settle on this, mechanically they are drawn towards these sort of unfalsifiable assertions...

https://sassen-reading-room.pages.dev/

[Archie]

I doubt there will be serious questions about the authenticity of the document,

The authenticity and reliability of the Sassen transcripts have been questioned from the beginning.

I would recommend taking a look at sessions 72-74 of the Eichmann trial where the prosecution attempted to enter the Sassen transcripts into evidence.

Eichmann's lawyer Dr. Servatius argued that the transcript was not reliable. "I shall be able to prove that he [Sassen] twisted matters in accordance with his own tendency. After all, he wanted to publish a tendentious book. It will be possible to prove how he changed matters." (72)
https://www.eichmanntrial.com/session72

Servatius wanted to call Sassen as a witness but it never happened since the fanatical Israeli prosecutor said he'd have Sassen arrested if he came to Israel. He further noted that Eichmann distrusted Sassen and that there had been an agreement (apparently not honored) for Sassen to use only pages that Eichmann had reviewed and signed. He reiterated in the next session: "And again, in regard to the document, it is not a complete document and, hence, I contend that it is a falsification. The last pages, which are written in the Accused's handwriting, are not complete, and a lot is missing from them. These are statements that can be submitted, since, in these parts there is nothing like the strange matters which appear in the typewritten parts." (73)

Ultimately the court decided to admit into evidence only the handwritten portion (File 17) and excluded most of the typewritten transcript.

Decision No. 79: We have decided, by majority vote, to accept in evidence, from the document which has been called by the Attorney General the “Sassen Document,” only that part which, in the expert opinion of Superintendent Hagag, is described as “File 17,” that is to say, the photocopies of the comments which were recorded by the Accused in his own handwriting.

https://www.eichmanntrial.com/session74

[Archie]

When I've looked for the transcripts in the past the only thing available was the Yad Vashem source which is an amazingly bad scan and basically unreadable. If this is "one of the strongest pieces of evidence" it's a bit weird that they don't seem to want anyone to be able to read it.

The first public version of the Sassen material was the Life magazine article. This is the most convenient introduction to this material.
https://books.google.com/books?id=0U0EA ... es_r&cad=1
https://books.google.com/books?id=900EA ... es_r&cad=1

"But we sat around peacefully after our Wannsee Conference, not just talking shop but giving ourselves a rest after so many taxing hours."

"I was so close that later I found bits of brains splattered on my long leather coat. My driver helped me remove them. Then we returned to Berlin."

"When I reported back to Müller in Berlin, he chided me for not having timed the procedure with a stop watch."

"When he was with me, Kastner smoked cigarets as though he were in a coffeehouse. While we talked he would smoke one aromatic cigaret after another, taking them in from a silver case and lighting them with a little silver lighter. With his great polish and reserve he would have made an ideal Gestapo officer himself."

It's hard for me to take this material seriously. Too self-aware. Too much irony. Too much of a fictional flavor. And Life publishing it as being "by Adolf Eichmann" was absurd. According to Servatius the material was sent to Life only 8 days after Eichmann was abducted.

[bombsaway]

So what are you saying exactly re authenticity/reliability?

The contents (or just the incriminating contents, which are profuse) were typed up by some third party?

[Archie]

So what are you saying exactly re authenticity/reliability?

The contents (or just the incriminating contents, which are profuse) were typed up by some third party?

I think I was pretty clear. You said the authenticity was beyond doubt which I thought was a surprising comment given the discussion of this at the Eichmann trial where Servatius argued the contrary. Moreover the Israeli court itself seemed to accept Servatius's argument that the typewritten passages couldn't confidently be attributed to Eichmann.

What are you talking about with this "third party"? Sassen! That was who prepared the transcript.

[bombsaway]

How do you explain Eichmann's handwriting being all over the transcripts? Before his capture he was given them to go over.

This handwriting is now available for revisionist scrutiny and can be matched with other handwriting by Eichmann.

How do you explain the existence of the tapes? Are the tapes perhaps non-existent, or were also fabricated by Sassen? Is Stangneth, who claims to have listened to the tapes, also in on the conspiracy? Are the recordings released thus far fabricated?

Moreover the Israeli court itself seemed to accept Servatius's argument that the typewritten passages couldn't confidently be attributed to Eichmann.

It's true 2/3 judges didn't initially accept the evidence (one did), but they did so because of a rule of evidence, not because they thought it was fake. Under Israeli law, a transcript of a tape recording isn't evidence on its own; someone who actually heard the words has to testify to them. The prosecution never called that person. As the judges put it: "The primary evidence which the Prosecution should have submitted is the testimony of Sassen".

And after Eichmann was cross-examined on the transcripts, the court ruled: "We admit those passages from the transcripts which contain corrections in the Accused's handwriting", as material for evaluating his testimony about those passages.

[Wahrheitssucher]

…Is Stangneth, who claims to have listened to the tapes, also in on the conspiracy?…

Bettina Stangneth’s book on Eichmann is a hopelessly biased source.
I think I read perhaps two-thirds of her book. It appeared to me to be a classic example of narrating and interpreting everything through a lens of pre-determined confirmation bias.

A critical, intelligent, impartial observer might wonder who sponsored a woman with a degree in philosophy to write a history of Eichmann.
Die-hard true-believers will not give such a thing a second thought.

Others with a less gullible approach will be interested to learn that Bettina Stangneth wrote her dissertation on Immanuel Kant and the concept of ‘radical evil’.
She has also written widely on ‘anti-Semitism’ in eighteenth-century and National Socialist philosophy.
She appears to be a German who knows what subject matter will help her to make a lucrative living.

She and her ‘research findings’ were previously discussed here: viewtopic.php?p=25481#p25481

[Archie]

How do you explain Eichmann's handwriting being all over the transcripts? Before his capture he was given them to go over.

This handwriting is now available for revisionist scrutiny and can be matched with other handwriting by Eichmann.

Here's what they said at trial (Session 72):

His conclusion is that all the handwritten material, comprising 83 pages, is identical with
the Accused’s handwriting, in accordance with the opinion which is already in the Court file, or,
more accurately, there are two opinions—one of 10 April 1961 and the other of 17 June 1961. He
compared the handwriting which I gave him from the transcripts, those 83 pages, and found that
it was the Accused’s handwriting, basing himself on the handwriting he had received from
Bureau 06—that is document T/36. T/36 is the affidavit of Inspector Hagag, in which he
identified the Accused’s handwriting; Inspector Hagag finds that all the material written in
handwriting in File 17—as we shall call it, for the sake of convenience—consisting of 83 pages,
was written by the Accused.

Inspector Hagag finds further, on the strength of the indications that he mentions in his
opinion, that the various alterations which appear in the transcript, both those parts that were
typed on the one machine and those typed on the second machine—and there are 86 of these,
which he can identify with confidence—were made in the handwriting of the Accused. There is a
further substantial number of alterations, on which Inspector Hagag will testify, that provide him
with data for identification, but he cannot be certain in determining the identity of the
handwriting. In these, there are no counter-indications concerning the Accused’s handwriting.
In order to complete the picture, I would say that in a number of places some other
handwriting appears—in a few places only—not in order to change the text, but, as is evident, in
order to supplement what was said, either because the words were not properly recorded or
because the typeprint was not good enough; this is not an alteration, but supplementary, and in a
few places only.

You seem to be indicating that the vast majority of the transcripts contains authenticated handwritten annotations by Eichmann, but my impression from the discussion at the trial was that it seemed like it was a more limited set of pages.

I haven't spent a lot of time with the actual transcripts (since like I said the scan is hard to read) but from browsing the first few pages I don't see any annotations at all. And I definitely don't see any pages that have been signed or initialed or anything like that (which Servatius claimed was part of the agreement).

To be clear, this is a high bar and I don't necessarily demand full audio + signed transcriptions to consider this material as a source. But these are basic questions that should be asked and which I feel like you glossed over completely.

How do you explain the existence of the tapes? Are the tapes perhaps non-existent, or were also fabricated by Sassen? Is Stangneth, who claims to have listened to the tapes, also in on the conspiracy? Are the recordings released thus far fabricated?

Be specific. Here is what Stangneth says about "the tapes" and the transcription process (~page 241):

The tapes were typed up relatively quickly by various helpers, then recorded over. New tapes were expensive, both in Buenos Aires and elsewhere, and they weren't easy to get hold of. Today we have around one thousand pages of the transcript (including the pages of corrections) and twenty-nine hours of recordings, including doubles of tapes that were copied later. Not only do they prove that the transcripts are an authentic source; they are also a window into the year 1957--and the front room of the Sassen house.

They reused tapes, so most of the audio is lost. "The tapes" that still exist cover only a fraction of transcript so there's no way to independently check the accuracy of the transcription. She says there are 29 hours including duplicates. So a subset of that (maybe 15 hours) is unique audio which I believe is something like a fifth of the transcript material. And they refuse to release the audio so only a very small number of people have heard it. Only select clips have been made public.

Stangneth judges the transcripts to be "authentic," which I would interpret to mean that they are reasonably accurate transcriptions of the recordings. If her assessment is correct, then the rest of the transcriptions would probably have a roughly similar level of accuracy, though there would be no way to confirm this. However, even she makes clear that there were limitations with the process, i.e., it was a bit amateurish and not professional stenographic quality. And she does seem to grant that Sassen was not entirely reliable, especially with the book and magazine projects, although she distinguishes between these and the actual transcripts.

It's true 2/3 judges didn't initially accept the evidence (one did), but they did so because of a rule of evidence, not because they thought it was fake. Under Israeli law, a transcript of a tape recording isn't evidence on its own; someone who actually heard the words has to testify to them. The prosecution never called that person. As the judges put it: "The primary evidence which the Prosecution should have submitted is the testimony of Sassen".

And after Eichmann was cross-examined on the transcripts, the court ruled: "We admit those passages from the transcripts which contain corrections in the Accused's handwriting", as material for evaluating his testimony about those passages.

Courts have rules of evidence for a reason. It's true that the rules are typically looser for history, but it's wise to exercise some caution with sensational material coming from unreliable people.

[Archie]

Can anyone find where it talks about the gassings at Majdanek with a Russian submarine engine? This is in the Life magazine article, so I would assume there's some basis for this in the transcripts.

It's on page 102 of Nov 28 issue.
https://books.google.com/books?id=0U0EA ... &q&f=false

[Stubble]

The film of Eichmann talking about the Soviet submarine engine is on YouTube IIRC. I'll go look for it. The clip is also in 1/3rd of the Holocaust IIRC.

[Archie]

The film of Eichmann talking about the Soviet submarine engine is on YouTube IIRC. I'll go look for it. The clip is also in 1/3rd of the Holocaust IIRC.

That's at the trial in Jerusalem. I'm talking about in the Sassen transcripts in Argentina. He tells it multiple places. It's in interrogation transcripts, the trial transcripts, and the Life magazine articles, with some variations. And it's presumably in the Sassen transcripts but I've never seen that version.

[bombsaway]

You seem to be indicating that the vast majority of the transcripts contains authenticated handwritten annotations by Eichmann, but my impression from the discussion at the trial was that it seemed like it was a more limited set of pages.

According to AI:

The accurate line is that Eichmann's corrections appear on roughly three quarters of the tapes, along with 83 pages of his own handwritten commentary keyed to the transcript. That shows he worked through most of the material, even though most individual pages are untouched.

If you're alleging the "incriminating portions" are inauthentic, you should work through what actually happened.

Incriminating portions are on tape, eg when Eichmann says he would have been happy if they had killed 10 million Jews. The tape matches up completely with transcript here

And now, in conclusion, I must tell you: first, I regret nothing; I do not crawl to the cross in any way. In the four months in which we have now taken up the whole matter, during which you tried to refresh my memory, a great deal has been refreshed.--- It would be too easy, and I could make it cheap, in today’s view, to act as though I were somehow playing a role in which a Saul became a Paul. But I tell you, I cannot do that, because I am not prepared to, because my inner self resists saying that we did anything wrong. No,--- I must tell you quite honestly: if we had killed 10.3 million Jews, the number Korherr gave, as we now know—10.3 million Jews—then I would be satisfied and would say: good, we have destroyed an enemy.

Now, since by the perversity of fate a large part of these Jews remained alive, I tell myself that fate wanted it so; I must submit to fate and providence. [Underlined in the source and marked with handwritten Xs:] We would have fulfilled our task for our blood, for our people, and for the freedom of the peoples if we had destroyed the cleverest mind of humanity living today.

The existence of the above (tape + transcript) alone gives us high indication the transcript is reliable. To weaken this piece of evidence, you have to make a cogent argument for why it is isn't. Otherwise you're just saying "well maybe". At this point it's a strong piece of evidence that has not been addressed by revisionists.

I have not seen anything about it that suggests it is inauthentic except for your very subjective assessment it has a fictional flavor etc. Like duh, you deny the existence of a mass killing program and gassings. You're going to believe it's fake. It's saying impossible things, in your world view.

Do you find it plausible that Eichmann could have just been pulling Sassen's chain, and if so is this indicated in the text?