The Gas Vans: A Critical Investigation - Holocaust Handbooks

68 SANTIAGO ALVAREZ, THE GAS VANS
this memo: II D 3. The recipient is mentioned unequivocally and by
name: the leader of group II D. According to Uwe Dietrich Adam
(1985, p. 241), II D 3 refers to “the section automotive transports [...],
subordinate to the section for technical matters.” The signator, Just,
therefore signed a letter sent to one of his superiors, yet the tone of the
memo does not confirm this assumption: Although the author starts out
with a statement of accounts, he increasingly slips into the role of a man
who is giving orders rather than receiving them.
No indications are given in the instruction that this memo was accompanied
by enclosures (in this case the word “enclosure(s)” (Anlage(n))
or the respective abbreviation (Anlg.) had to be included in the
document), yet as we will see during the study of its content, the questions
dealt with would have required several drawings and schematic illustrations.
The memo does not have the features of a general instruction
– for this it goes too much into details: diameter of the siphon, position
and size of the slits; nature of the flaps; extraction and retraction
of the retractable grate, etc.
These preliminary observations are meant to alert the reader to the
highest degree of vigilance during the subsequent study of the content
of this document, which exhibits so many formal peculiarities.
2.2.4.2.2. Content
Let us first look at the very first words of this document: “For example
97,000 were processed since December 1941 with 3 deployed vehicles.”
During my analysis of the Becker letter (p. 48) I explained already
the catastrophic conditions which the German army had to deal
with in Russia during the winter 1941/42. Hence, processing 97,000
units (or even several such amounts) under these conditions would not
have been trivial at all, if considering that during the Russian winter the
majority of the German equipment was unoperational due to the extreme
cold, followed by a spring when catastrophic roads conditions did
not permit any major German operation. Hence already the three words
“Since December 1941” render this first sentence historically unlikely.
The objects of the memo at issue are technical questions; six modifications
to existing vehicles as well as one for those to be manufactured
in the future are suggested:
1) adding slits and flaps;
2) shortening the cargo box;
3) relocating the exhaust gas filler pipe upwards;