Sobibor - Holocaust Propaganda And Reality - Unity of Nobility ...

J. GRAF, T. KUES, C. MATTOGNO, SOBIBÓR 103
“information,” it is often peripheral, redundant, or absurd, such as the
“snippet” provided by the former SS-Oberscharführer Alfred Ittner,
who claimed that his colleagues Gomerski and Bolender had built a cabin
at the edge of the cremation pit from where they could oversee the
cremations while “generally amusing themselves and roasting potatoes
over the fire”! 274 Indeed, the information about the death camp proper at
Sobibór is so scarce that, in order to describe it in detail, Schelvis has to
spend five pages quoting the Beec witnesses Gerstein and Reder. 275
One of the most frequently quoted former staff members is Erich
Bauer, who in 1950 was sentenced to death (later commuted to life imprisonment)
for having been in charge of the alleged murder weapon,
the engine providing carbon monoxide for the gas chambers. After having
spent twelve years in the Berlin Tegel prison, Bauer suddenly decided
to “come clean about the whole truth” 276 and spent the next years
appearing as a witness for the prosecution and playing the role of the
honest perpetrator (an activity which was to little avail, as he died in the
same prison in 1980). The quality of his truth-telling may be ascertained
from the fact that, while at his own trial in 1950, he maintained that the
Sobibór victims numbered between 50,000 and 100,000, 277 in 1962 he
suddenly changed this estimate to 350,000 278 – i.e. more than twice the
currently held victim figure! Bauer’s description of the roof of the first
gas chamber building is also more than a little curious: 279
“I remember quite clearly that a camouflage net had been
draped over the gas chamber. I collected this net myself from the
ammunition warehouse in Warsaw. It was thrown over the top of the
roof and fixed onto it. When this was, I can no longer say. To start
with, we had fir and pine trees covering the roof. [sic …] That was
at the time when German flying units were flying to Russia. The
German pilots were not to be able to see inside. The camouflage net
was torn off the roof when the gas chamber was rebuilt. The camouf-
274
275
276
277
278
279
Statement by Alfred Ittner, ZStL 251/59-7-1426 to 1427, quoted in J. Schelvis, op. cit.
(note 71), p. 112.
J. Schelvis, op. cit. (note 71), pp. 105-109.
Erich Bauer on 20 November 1962, ZStL 251/59-VIII-1590, quoted in J. Schelvis, op.
cit. (note 71), p. 2.
Verdict of the trial against Erich Hermann Bauer, Landgericht Berlin, 8 May 1950, PKs
3/50.
Ernst Klee, Willi Dreßen, Volker Reiß, The Good Old Days, Free Press, New York 1991,
p. 232.
J. Schelvis, op. cit. (note 71), p. 102.