The Gas Vans: A Critical Investigation - Holocaust Handbooks

SANTIAGO ALVAREZ, THE GAS VANS 57
case for all English typewriters of that age, some did have the same
comma/? combination as the German typewriters. 39
Hence, although this cannot be said with certainty, the most likely
scenario here is that an Anglo-Saxon typist wrote this telegram on a
German machine. The less likely scenario is a German typist writing on
a somewhat rare English typewriter. The almost impossible scenario is
a German typist writing on a German machine or an English typist on
an English machine, because then the accidental swapping of Y and Z
wouldn’t have happened.
It is therefore reasonable to assume that this retyped version was
created by either a person normally typing on an English typewriter but
in that occasion using a German model, or a person used to typing on
German typewriters, but in that case using a somewhat rare English
typewriter. This means in plain English that the versions A of the two
telegrams were probably (re?)typed after the war in a setting of a mélange
of Germans and Anglos-Saxons as well as German and English
typewriters. This wouldn’t be a problem, if this sheet of paper didn’t
have a number of German handwritten remarks on it giving the impression
that this document is an original created in 1942. 40 So it is either an
incompetent way of creating a copy of the originals – but why are they
then part of the set of “original” documents? – or these handwritten remarks
were meant to look real and are therefore fake. Hence, the most
likely scenario is a person used to English typewriters writing on a captured
German typewriter. Hence this summary sheet is suspicious.
Another indication that this telegram is not authentic are the names
of the two drivers mentioned: Götz and Meyer. To this day no such individuals
who are said to have been employed as drivers by the RSHA
have been identified. This stands in stark contrast to other individuals
who were never mentioned in any document as gas van drivers but who
were nevertheless identified somehow and were even prosecuted for allegedly
driving such vehicles (see chapters 3.6.4., 3.7.4.1., 3.7.4.10f.).
This indicates that the drivers mentioned in this telegram probably nev-
39 A Google image search of typewriters shows that some old typewriters had a comma/?
combination, while others had today’s layout. I don’t know when that combination was
changed to today’s standard.
40 The red underlined address line already mentioned plus at the top right: “II D 3a Major
Pradel Niederhausen (Kop)”; at the right margin below the dotted page halving line:
“Nach Rückkehr sofort wieder instandsetzen- Fertigstellung melden (Kop)” = Repair
immediately after return– report completition (Kop).