The Gas Vans: A Critical Investigation - Holocaust Handbooks

SANTIAGO ALVAREZ, THE GAS VANS 107
whole process, of the screams and pleas of the victims and the merry
laughter of the SS Hottentots, who took fun in performing their
task.”
Considering that Mann’s speeches are riddled with lies and distortions,
these few lines can hardly be seen as proof for anything. Mann’s
first claim of French Jews gassed while aboard cattle cars is untrue even
in the eyes of orthodox historiography, but it is interesting nevertheless,
as seasoned revisionist Friedrich P. Berg has maintained for years that
such a procedure would actually have been feasible, although it never
happened (Berg 1993).
Since these British media reports have been the first published references
to “gas van” murders, the origin of such claims in general may
not be Soviet in nature, as the following chapters suggest. It appears
that the Soviets simply picked up the idea from the British and elaborated
on it further.
3.2. The Krasnodar Trial
3.2.1. Prehistory: Soviet Gas Vans
In his summary article about the “gas vans,” German historian Mathias
Beer posits the following (1987, p. 403):
“The term ‘gas vans’ refers to a special creation of the Third
Reich, namely a heavy vehicle on whose chassis an airtight body had
been mounted in which people were killed by means of the introduction
of exhaust gas.”
As early as 1991 German political scientist Udo Walendy has pointed
out that the Third Reich could not claim to be the inventor of such an
evil device, even if the claims by orthodox historiography were true
(Walendy 1991, pp. 35f.) – at least if one is inclined to believe the hearsay
statements as published by Soviet dissident Pjotr Grigorenko. In his
Memoirs he recounts what a former friend, Vasily Ivanovich Teslya,
had told him (Grigorenko 1982, p. 208f.):
“Once, when we were discussing fascist atrocities, I said, ‘What
beasts they must have been and how absolutely corrupt to have
thought up gas wagons.’
In reply Teslya said, ‘Are you aware, Pyotr Grigoryevich, that we
invented the gas wagon for use on the so-called kulaks?