Arthur R. Butz – The Hoax Of The Twentieth Century

Chapter 4: Auschwitz
pecially at permanent installations. The “extermination chambers” were preferred
in connection with highly mobile or special conditions. The U.S. Army, which
also had insect control problems during the war, had correspondingly similar devices
and had devised a “field chamber.” Because the U.S. came into the war late,
it had time to adopt the newly developed chemical DDT for the functions that
Zyklon performed for the Germans. 184 Naturally, the Americans employed DDT
in their “camps,” concentration or otherwise. As a more advanced insecticide,
DDT was more versatile for various reasons, e.g. it was not nearly as lethal for
human beings as Zyklon, which was quite lethal and in its commercial form contained
a “warning stuff,” an irritant that was noticed much easier than the almost
odorless cyanide gas. It is common to leave out frills in military versions of products,
and thus the irritant was absent from the Zyklon employed in concentration
camps.
The dual role of Zyklon was asserted at the IMT on January 28, 1946, in the
testimony of a witness called by French prosecutor DuBost. On January 30,
DuBost submitted as evidence document 1553-PS, consisting of a number of invoices
from DEGESCH, addressed to SS 1st Lieutenant Kurt Gerstein, for various
quantities of Zyklon sent to Oranienburg and to Auschwitz, plus a lengthy “statement”
attributed to Gerstein. After some hesitation over certain legal technicalities,
both parts of the document were accepted in evidence, notwithstanding the
claims of Rassinier and Reitlinger to the contrary that the “statement” was rejected.
185 Two invoices are printed in the IMT volumes, and part of the “statement”
is printed in one of the NMT volumes. 186 The invoice samples printed in
the IMT volumes include one invoice for 195 kg of Zyklon sent to Oranienburg
and one for the same sent to Auschwitz. It is probable that the Oranienburg Zyklon
was ultimately destined for other camps and that the Zyklon sent to Auschwitz
was to be shared with all the smaller camps of the region and possibly also with
the coal mines.
The case of Kurt Gerstein shows that there is no limit to the absurdities that intelligent
people can attain once they have accepted falsehood as truth. This is the
same Gerstein who appears as a major character in Rolf Hochhuth’s play, The
Deputy.
Gerstein’s title in the SS was Chief Disinfestation Officer in the Office of the
Hygienic Chief of the Waffen-SS, 187 and as such it was his responsibility to supervise
the deliveries of disinfestation supplies to all the camps administered by
the SS. Two versions of what happened to him at the end of the war are offered.
In the one he encountered American interrogators by chance in a hotel in Rottweil,
Black Forest, to whom he related that he had obtained a responsible post in
the Nazi Party while operating as a secret agent for the sometimes anti-Nazi Reverend
Niemöller, that he had been involved in operating gas chambers, and that he
184
185
186
187
Hardenbergh, 252-254, 257-259; Knipling.
IMT, vol. 6, 211, 225, 360-364; Rassinier (1962) 80, 224; Rassinier (1964), 105n; Rassinier
(1965), 38-48; Reitlinger, 161n.
NMT, vol. 1, 865-870; IMT, vol. 27, 340-342.
Hilberg, 570.
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