The Gas Vans: A Critical Investigation - Holocaust Handbooks

SANTIAGO ALVAREZ, THE GAS VANS 191
probably confronted with it numerous times during his interrogations,
so he learned step by step what was expected of him, and he duly complied.
From these excerpts it becomes evident that Becker was really mentally
confused. Mathias Beer, however, quotes Becker’s various depositions
eleven times in his 1987 paper, without even once hinting at their
problematic nature.
3.7.4. From 1965 to 1969 (11 trials)
3.7.4.1. LG Bonn, Verdicts of 30 Mar. 1963 & 23 July 1965
This trial was directed against eleven defendants who were former
officials of the Chemno/Kulmhof camp, where gas vans are said to
have been the primary weapon of mass murder. It is therefore also one
of the most detailed verdicts with regards to this question. Hence I will
analyze it here more thoroughly than the other verdicts discussed in this
chapter, whereby I will include Marais’ 1994 observations.
After a retrial following an appeal of the first verdict, eight of the defendants
were sentenced (3×13, 8, 7 years, 3×13½ months) and three
exempt from punishment. None of the defendants denied the charges. 105
Most insisted that they thought they had to follow orders, and those
who stated that they tried to resist claimed that such resistance had either
been futile or that they thought their own lives would have been in
jeopardy, if they had tried.
Although several defendants declared that they never had anything
against Jews and actually got along with them pretty well before their
deployment in Chemno, these could just be claims. This is different
with defendant B. (Heinrich Bock) who “got engaged to a Jewess in
Berlin in 1940” at a time when such an act could and usually did have
negative repercussion even for the non-Jewish partner in such a relationship.
This proves, as the court stated, that he indeed “had no antipathy
against Jews,” and therefore considered “the killing of the Jews to
be against morality and law.” Yet still he obediently followed all orders
(pp. 253, 291f.).
Another defendant (Me.) 106 even stated that his father, an opponent
of National Socialism, had been arrested and severely mistreated by the
105
One of them (Sch.) tried to commit suicide when first confronted with the charges,
though, p. 258.
106
Perhaps Kurt Meier; see
www.holocaustresearchproject.org/othercamps/chelmnoSSstafflist.html.