The Gas Vans: A Critical Investigation - Holocaust Handbooks

142 SANTIAGO ALVAREZ, THE GAS VANS
existed in the Castle Hartheim near Linz. There, about 1 - 1½ million
human beings were killed.” (p. 282)
Even orthodox historians agree that such a gargantuan number of
victims is nonsense, plain and simple. If Ziereis said something like it,
it merely proves the methods used to extract this statement. Maržálek
himself must have been aware of the incredibility of this victim count,
so he tried to shore it up by stating at the end of his testimony:
“He [Ziereis] however insisted on this number and explained to
me that actually a great number of mentally deranged from the entire
Southern Area of Germany were shipped there and liquidated.
This accounts for the high number of victims.” (p. 285)
Sure.
Ingrid Weckert pointed out (2003, p. 220) that Maržálek has
changed his story in the second edition of his books about the history of
the Mauthausen camp. Regarding the death of Ziereis he writes there
(1980, p. 200, note 15):
“On May 23, 1945, Ziereis was apprehended in his hunting cabin
on the Phyrn (upper Austria) by American soldiers, and was injured
by two bullets when he attempted to flee. As a result of these injuries
Ziereis died on May 25, 1945, in the 131st American Evacuation
Hospital, Gusen.”
In this book Maržálek makes no reference to any interrogation of
Ziereis, which according to his affidavit of 1946 would have taken
place the night before Ziereis’ discovery and arrest. Maržálek even explains
in his preface why he has omitted this affidavit:
“Further, all statements that cannot be documented […] have
been deleted.”
3.5.8. A Special Murder Vehicle
A special case of murder vehicle is described in two German documents
which entered the Nuremberg files as 4048-PS (IMT, vol. 34, pp.
125-128; cf. vol. 20, pp. 151f.). 76 They describe a German plot to assassinate
French General Deboisse held as a PoW in late 1944. The second
of these documents written by Kaltenbrunner and send to Himmler
states succinctly:
76
The German “Kohlenoxid” = carbon (mon)oxide has been mistranslated as carbon dioxide
in the English translation.