Excerpts from "The Real Auschwitz Chronicle"

[billybob]

I'm new here, and just as a preface, I am mostly won over to the revisionist position, especially on the topic of gas chambers in concentration camps. I've recently been skimming through "The Real Auschwitz Chronicle" by Carlo Montogno and am impressed by thoroughness of it, however, there's a few troublesome quotes I found that appear to support the orthodox position. I'll start with this one:

January 5th, 1943:

I am punishing you in accordance with D.B.O. for mobile condition § 8, Para. C,
Item 2 with a severe reprimand because you acted contrary to existing orders and regulations during your leave.
Justification: During your leave in December 1942, you conversed with soldiers and
party comrades about the Jewish problem, and in doing so made statements about the
solution of the Jewish question* in Auschwitz. Through this behavior, which under
certain circumstances was likely to cause unrest among the population, you acted contrary to the orders known to you. I have refrained from a more-severe punishment merely because of your up-to-now impeccable conduct and otherwise favorable assessment, and I expect that this incident will serve as a lesson to you for the future.

The note is annotated as: "Letter from SS-Obersturmbannführer and Commandant Höss to SS-Sturmmann
Ludwig Damm, headquarters staff Au. CC, Auschwitz" with an additional comment: "See entry for May 22, 1943".

While this quote doesn't mention anything specific, it's phrased in a way that easily leaves room for ominous interpretations. The revisionist position still accepts the Jews were subjected to a brutal resettlement program with high mortality, so perhaps this note is in line with that. But the general German population would have at least known something about that already, at least I don't think the deportations to the "East" could have been concealed. Is there any possibility that a source exists that provides a more clear interpretation of this? I'm not optimistic since all these men are dead, and I'd be surprised if any written document exists of them being interrogated about it.

As to the entry for May 22, 1943, we find this:

Central Construction Office. File memo:
“Subject: Meeting with the head of Office Group C SS-Brigadeführer and Major General of the Waffen-SS Dr. Ing. Kammler.
Reference: Visit to Auschwitz on 21 May 43 10:00 a.m.
Participants:
SS Brigadeführer and Major General of the Waffen-SS Dr. Ing. Kammler
Obersturmbannführer Höss
ʺ Möck[e]l
Sturmbannführer Bischoff
Hauptsturmführer Dr. Wirths
ʺ (F) Prinzl
Obersturmführer Grosch
Untersturmführer (F) Kirschnek
from the Reich Ministry of Armament and Ammunition
Mr. Desch
Sander
from the GB-Bau Breslau
Mr. Schulz
ʺ Jason
Meeting Report:
After welcoming remarks by the Brigadeführer, Ostubaf. Höss gave a brief report on
the origin and purpose of the overall CC plant here.
In 1940, after the evacuation of 7 Polish villages, the Auschwitz Camp was built in the
estuary triangle between Vistula and Sola by developing the grounds of an artillery
barracks and many additions, conversions and new buildings, using large quantities of
demolition materials. Originally intended as a quarantine camp, it later became a
Reich camp and was thus given a new purpose. The border location between the Reich
and the G.G. proved to be particularly favorable because of the ever-worsening situation, since the filling of the camp with manpower was guaranteed. In addition, the solution of the Jewish question was added in recent times, for which the prerequisite for
the accommodation of initially 60,000 prisoners had to be created, which grew to
100,000 within a short time. The inmates of the camps were mainly intended for the
large-scale industry growing in the neighborhood. The camp contains in its area of interest various armament factories, for which the labor force is to be provided on a
regular basis.”
“2.) Large-scale PoW camp
[…] Due to various epidemic dangers, however, it is currently essential to take special
measures to improve the existing facilities. […]
The garrison physician Hstuf. Dr. Wirths explained in addition that the great danger
of epidemics could not be fought properly due to arrivals from the east and the low
possibilities of control due to lack of water and lack of allotments for the necessary
drainage facilities.
In addition, there is the danger of the spread of the epidemics for the large industrial area through the contact of prisoners with civilian workers. The need for material for
the new construction as well as for the maintenance is very great. The daily births of
about 50 children in the gypsy camp, the treatment of 10,000 prisoners without the
most primitive hygienic facilities, especially water, do not allow any alternative possibilities. For the most-necessary delousing facilities, the allotments are missing in order to be able to carry out a systematic and promising epidemic control. For the former small number of prisoners, the condition of the hygienic conditions was already
bad; with the many new arrivals and the imminent increase to over 100,000, without
the provision of contingents, the danger of such outbreaks has grown in an unforeseeable way, and responsibility can hardly be borne

While this clearly indicates some sort of resettlement (or preventative detention) policy, I'm not sure if its connection to the January 5th statement is that solid. One could argue this is a case of them using camouflage language and not being specific about their true intentions.

I'm not optimistic that we will find more information on this specific quote, but just in case I thought I'd post it here for others to see. It's at least good to be aware of potential anti-revisionist arguments.

[Wetzelrad]

Hi, welcome. Mattogno's purpose in pointing to the May 22 memo is that it included Höss (who wrote the aforementioned letter) and it explicitly laid out the meaning of "solution of the Jewish question in Auschwitz". That meaning was the accomodation of 100,000 Jews.

Is it possible that the phrase could have other meanings? Sure, and perhaps you're right that we have to live with some amount of uncertainty, but not very much in my opinion. We have a lot of original documents that tell us what "final solution" meant, and to my knowledge nearly all of them make explicit reference to emigration, evacuation, deportation, or colonization such as in Madagascar.

Supplementary to the task already delegated to you with the order of Jan. 14, ’39, of bringing the Jewish problem to the most favorable solution consistent with the circumstances and in the form of the emigration or evacuation, I hereby charge you to effect all necessary organizational, practical, and material preparations for a total solution of the Jewish question within the German sphere of influence in Europe.

Hermann Göring, 31 July 1941

The progressive conquest and occupation of the far eastern territories can presently bring the Jewish problem in all of Europe to a final satisfactory solution within a very short time. As is seen from the cries for assistance by all the Jews of Palestine in their press to the American Jews, over 6 million Jews reside in the territories occupied by us during the last weeks, especially Bessarabia – that is, one-third of World Jewry. During the new organization of the eastern lands, these 6 million Jews would have to be collected anyhow and a special territory presumably marked off for them. It shouldn’t be too big a problem, at this opportunity, if the Jews from all the other European countries are added to this and the Jews presently crammed into ghettos in Warsaw, Litzmannstadt, Lublin, etc. are also deported there.

Carltheo Zeitschel, 22 August 1941

Another possible solution of the problem has now taken the place of emigration, i.e. the evacuation of the Jews to the East, provided that the Führer gives the appropriate approval in advance.

Adolf Eichmann, 20 January 1942

In the meantime, the war against the Soviet Union has provided the possibility of making other territories available for the final solution. The Führer has consequently decided that the Jews will not be deported to Madagascar, but to the east instead. Thus, Madagascar no longer needs to be designated for the final solution.

Franz Rademacher, 10 February 1942

After this realization, Reich Marshal Göring charged Gruppenführer Heydrich on July 31, 1941, to make all necessary preparations for a complete solution of the Jewish question in the German sphere of influence in Europe with the participation of the German central authorities involved in the issue. [...] the Führer had now approved the evacuation of the Jews to the east instead of emigration.

Martin Luther, 21 August 1942

The Reich Marshal charged the Reichsführer-SS and Chief of the German Police a long time ago with preparing the measures, which will serve the final solution of the European Jewish question. The Reichsführer-SS has entrusted the execution of these tasks to the Chief of the Security Police and of the SD. Initially, the latter promoted the legal emigration of the Jews overseas by special measures. When, on the outbreak of the war, the emigration overseas was no longer possible, he initiated the gradual clearing of the Reich territory of Jews by their deportation to the east. Moreover, in more recent times old peoples’ homes (old peoples’ ghettos) have been established within Reich territory for the admission of Jews, e.g. in Theresienstadt.

Walter Maedel, 14 December 1942

For more see Treblinka: Extermination Camp or Transit Camp?, especially Chapter VI.
https://holocausthandbooks.com/book/treblinka/

"Ominous interpretations", as you say, is what it all comes down to. Only by denying the literal meaning of these documents can they be read as secretive allusions to killing.

Does it make sense that Damm would be punished for discussing events in Auschwitz with unauthorized parties? Sure. It could be that he mentioned the mortality rate, or the forced labor, or just some trivial facts about the Jews being there, or the buildings, or the daily events. The camps obviously had a huge problem with information leaking out to foreign powers and coming back as atrocity propaganda. So any legitimate information like that which Damm provided could potentially have exacerbated that problem, which they were probably quite on edge about.

[Nessie]

I'm new here, and just as a preface, I am mostly won over to the revisionist position, especially on the topic of gas chambers in concentration camps. I've recently been skimming through "The Real Auschwitz Chronicle" by Carlo Montogno and am impressed by thoroughness of it, however, there's a few troublesome quotes I found that appear to support the orthodox position. I'll start with this one:

January 5th, 1943:

I am punishing you in accordance with D.B.O. for mobile condition § 8, Para. C,
Item 2 with a severe reprimand because you acted contrary to existing orders and regulations during your leave.
Justification: During your leave in December 1942, you conversed with soldiers and
party comrades about the Jewish problem, and in doing so made statements about the
solution of the Jewish question* in Auschwitz. Through this behavior, which under
certain circumstances was likely to cause unrest among the population, you acted contrary to the orders known to you. I have refrained from a more-severe punishment merely because of your up-to-now impeccable conduct and otherwise favorable assessment, and I expect that this incident will serve as a lesson to you for the future.

The note is annotated as: "Letter from SS-Obersturmbannführer and Commandant Höss to SS-Sturmmann
Ludwig Damm, headquarters staff Au. CC, Auschwitz" with an additional comment: "See entry for May 22, 1943".

While this quote doesn't mention anything specific, it's phrased in a way that easily leaves room for ominous interpretations. ...

It fits in with a chronological shift in how open the Nazis were about using killings to achieve policy ends. The euthanising of the disabled, Action T4, started in 1939 and whilst it was not publicised, once the public and German church had become aware of how many were being killed, many of whom were children, it was officially cancelled in August 1941, but many were still euthanised after that date, in secret. In June 1941, the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union. The Einsatzgruppen were tasked with tracking down Communist officials, dealing with partisans and rounding up Jews, and executing them. That policy was conducted with no secrecy, as the Nazis had a lot of local support, including Latvian, Lithuanian & Romanian soldiers also shooting Jews and Ukrainians joining the SS to work at the AR camps. Documents and transmissions openly discussed executing hundreds of thousands of Jews, such that from the start, reports of mass killings were appearing in the Western press. The AR camps open in early 1942, staffed by SS who had been working in the Action T4 euthanasia programme. They had a sign a secrecy order. Those in charge of AR were far more circumspect than the Einsatzgruppen, about what they were doing. By 1943, the AR camps had closed down, most ghettos and major populations of Jews had been cleared and killed. At that time, four gas chambers were opened in Birkenau, and it became the new centre of operations. Staff there were also more secretive, preferring to use the euphemism "special" to refer to their work. For example;

https://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot ... ce-on.html

The action's secrecy was emphasised;

- Speech of Oswald Pohl of 23 September 1942 on “special tasks, about which we do not have to speak words” [The Van Pelt report, VI Blueprints of the Genocide]
- Order from Glücks via Liebehenschel of 15 June 1943 on “special buildings” should be “located offside in accordance with their purpose and cannot be stared at by all sorts of people” [NO-1242]

It involved special cellars;

- Report from Karl Bischoff of 4 November 1942 on “special cellar” in crematorium 2 [ A new document mentioning "special cellars" (Sonderkeller) in the crematoria 2 and 3 at Birkenau ]
- Memo from Fritz Wolter of 27 November 1942 on “special cellars” in crematorium 2 [Schüle, Industrie und Holocaust, p. 180]

It was in conjunction with cremations;

- Memo from Heinrich Swoboda of 29 January 1943 on “cremation with simultaneous special treatment” in crematorium 2

It needed dentists;

- Camp employement record book on 10 February 1943 on "request of dentists for the special action" [Bartosik, The beginnings of the extermination of Jews...,p.209]

It did not just involve Jews.

- Telex from Heinrich Schwarz to SS-WVHA of 20 February 1943 on “the men were specially accommodated because of infirmity, the women because most of them were children” [Sterbebücher von Auschwitz, document 56, back-up]
- Telex from Heinrich Schwarz to SS-WVHA of 5 March 1943 on “918 women and children sent to special treatment“ [Blumental, Dokumenty i materiały, volume 1, p. 109]
- Telex from Heinrich Schwarz to SS-WVHA of 8 March 1943 on “151 men and 492 women and children were specially treated“ [Blumental, Dokumenty i materiały, volume 1, p. 110]

Probably the operation that is least known about, because of its secrecy, is Action 14f13, the euthanising of certain prisoners, primarily because they became too ill to work, or they were not needed. Prisoners were sometimes sent to the gas chambers used by Action T4, or in the case of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest camp complex, they were gassed there.

[Archie]

Hi billybob. Welcome.

While this quote doesn't mention anything specific, it's phrased in a way that easily leaves room for ominous interpretations.

I say "leaves room for ominous interpretations" is not good enough. Given the great mass of documents and the potential ambiguities, we should expect some number of documents that "leave room for ominous interpretations." But remember that the Holocaust thesis is that the German state killed six million Jews, most by violent execution, and this is said to have been a formal but secret policy of the state, organized at the highest levels. If such a thing really happened, this would leave an abundance of conclusive evidence. We should not be needing to make big leaps that ultimately beg the question.

I base my view on the evidence in total, and I am wary of placing too much weight on a single document where even a seemingly safe interpretation could very well be completely wrong. Here's how I think about the documentary evidence.
1) there is an overall lack of documentation for an extermination policy (the documents rather suggest the opposite, as explained by Wetzelrad)
2) there is a lack of documentation for a mass gassing program
3) there is instead a reliance on sparse, cherry-picked prooftexts, with the one cited here being an excellent example of this. See viewtopic.php?t=340

Like I said, this just isn't good enough considering the scale of organized slaughter that has been alleged.

[Archie]

As an aside, anti-revisionists like to do this thing where they show up here pretending to be revisionists. A classic version of this is of the form "hey, guys, I'm really getting interested in revisionism and think you guys have a lot of great points. But there's just this one little thing that's bothering me ..." Concern trolling, basically. I do not understand why they do this. I assume it's because they want to put out their talking points but they hope it will carry more weight if they can present it as a revisionist losing faith or whatever. It also removes the onus of having to defend anti-revisionism.

To be clear, I am not accusing billybob of doing this. I can't read people's minds and I don't try to. Just because he only has one post and it happens to fit a certain template doesn't show anything conclusively. I would just say that IF this does happen to be one of those, I would request that posters please not misrepresent themselves for tactical reasons. The discussions are much more interesting and productive if everyone says what they honestly think without any tactical misrepresentation.

Here are some examples of the fake revisionist thing.
https://archive.codohforum.com/20230609 ... =2&t=13317
viewtopic.php?t=28

Lastly, I do hope that revisionists will be comfortable bringing up difficulties here on the forum. The strongest points the other side has to offer should all be confronted and considered, alongside the larger volume of material where we are quite strong. Difficult points that are still open questions/need further research might be a better fit on the Research & Discussion board.

[curioussoul]

This is just another case of the primer fallacy. An otherwise innocuous quote suddenly "leaves room for ominous interpretations" because it doesn't contain an outright refutation of the future Holocaust narrative. Bear in mind that all concentration camp activities and SS operations were essentially classified, including in regards to the handling of the Jewish Question and the Final Solution. That's not "ominous", that's to be expected in conditions of war.

A lot of people fall victim to this. Because they've already decided in their minds the Holocaust happened, anything and everything is deemed to be of evidentiary value because it's "creepy" or anti-semitic. The Kremer Diary is a good example of this.

[billybob]

Thankyou for the replies.

I more or less agree with the replies given here, and I might put forward my own interpretation. The quote dates from December 1942, which as I understand, is right after the severe typhus epidemic that broke out in Auschwitz: from late summer - early fall. That alone may have killed half the prisoners (or more) if I remember the statistics correctly. This guard "Ludwig Damm" likely would have witnessed that, but we can only speculate on what he actually said that got him in trouble. Unfortunately we're left to piece together a record that will probably always be incomplete.

It's also strange how the SS guards were required to maintain strict secrecy, while simultaneously prisoners could be released from the camp, and civilians also worked alongside prisoners in the camp. To me this seems like it would be very difficult to maintain a high standard of secrecy. If the mass exterminations in gas chambers were occurring in Birkenau, why was Birkenau also designated to accept "Labor Education" prisoners, who had short sentences and frequently got released? Why not send them to Auschwitz I or Auschwitz III instead?

I think Nessie brought up some valid arguments in favor of the orthodox Holocaust narrative, but a lot of those already have discussions. If I'm correct, I think the revisionist and orthodox camps both agree on the Action T4 program, and maybe even the Einsatzgruppen shootings. With the Einsatzgruppen shootings, the revisionists generally argue the recorded numbers are not reliable, and are probably much lower (although Montagno argued they could be wrong in both directions). The other quotations with references to "special treatment" appear to indicate killings - at least from my interpretation. As I understand it, "special treatment" had multiple meanings depending on context, and in some it meant killing, others it could be a literal medical treatment or resettlement.

[Nessie]

...

It's also strange how the SS guards were required to maintain strict secrecy, while simultaneously prisoners could be released from the camp, and civilians also worked alongside prisoners in the camp. To me this seems like it would be very difficult to maintain a high standard of secrecy. If the mass exterminations in gas chambers were occurring in Birkenau, why was Birkenau also designated to accept "Labor Education" prisoners, who had short sentences and frequently got released? Why not send them to Auschwitz I or Auschwitz III instead?

A topic rarely discussed, is just how much support the Nazis had, from the countries they were aligned to or occupied, when it came to the Jews. There was a lot of anti-Semitism and the Nazis capitalised on that. It also created a sense of they were doing the right thing, for all Europeans, ridding Europe of Jews and so they would not suffer severe consequences for doing so. That was particularly the case, 1939 to 1943, when they were expecting to win the war and create a 1000 year Reich. Yet, even by mid 1944, when most knew the war would be lost, the Hungarian Jews, the last large population left, were shipped to A-B and the majority gassed. That action suggests the Nazis still believed that there was so much support for their policy of forced removal, when people found it included mass killings, they would not be held to account. SS camp staff, at the postwar trials, argued that they had acted lawfully at the time and many did not express any regret, they were so certain they had done the right thing.

During the war, they only needed enough secrecy, that many who remained in authority in the occupied countries, believed they were assisting with a resettlement programme and any stories about mass killings were just that, stories.

I think Nessie brought up some valid arguments in favor of the orthodox Holocaust narrative, but a lot of those already have discussions. If I'm correct, I think the revisionist and orthodox camps both agree on the Action T4 program, and maybe even the Einsatzgruppen shootings. With the Einsatzgruppen shootings, the revisionists generally argue the recorded numbers are not reliable, and are probably much lower (although Montagno argued they could be wrong in both directions). The other quotations with references to "special treatment" appear to indicate killings - at least from my interpretation. As I understand it, "special treatment" had multiple meanings depending on context, and in some it meant killing, others it could be a literal medical treatment or resettlement.

Context is key. If a senior Nazi discusses resettlement and there is evidence of resettlement, then he means resettlement. If the evidence is of mass murder in a death camp, then resettlement means mass murder.