Arthur R. Butz – The Hoax Of The Twentieth Century

Chapter 4: Auschwitz
due to the fact that the WRB report does not seem to be the only source that mistakenly
numbers the Birkenau crematories I-IV rather than II-V; the Germans
sometimes did this themselves, or so it would appear from, e.g., NO-4466. 233
The limit on the rate at which people could have been exterminated in a program
of the type alleged is not determined by the rate at which people could have
been gassed and the gas chambers ventilated, but by the rate at which the bodies
could have been cremated. In estimating the capacity of the crematories, it is possible
for arithmetic to produce some impressive figures. At that time an hour was
a very optimistic time to allow for the reduction of one body, and the body’s being
wasted would not have made much difference. 234 If we allow for one hour of
cleaning and miscellaneous operations per day, one muffle could reduce perhaps
23 bodies per day, so 30 muffles could reduce 690 and 46 could reduce 1058 per
day. This could accommodate exterminations at the respectable rate of about
240,000 to 360,000 per year, but of course one must bear in mind that, because
the exterminations are supposed to have been halted in the autumn of 1944,
Auschwitz could not have had 46 muffles for more than about one year of exterminations.
However, the logic leading to such figures as the preceding is rubbish; things
do not work that way. People, especially concentration camp inmates, who
manned the crematories, do not work with such efficiency, such equipment cannot
be used in such a continuous manner, and equipment needs do not occur with such
mathematical regularity in any case. If we allow operations to relax toward something
more realistic, taking into account downtime for regular and irregular maintenance
and allowing for usual engineering margins of excess capacity we have
figures that are generally in line with anticipated epidemic conditions. It is also
possible that, as the WRB report asserts, there was a backlog of buried bodies to
dispose of.
It is obvious that, given a policy of cremating dead inmates, a vast operation
such as Auschwitz would naturally provide relatively elaborate cremation facilities
for the purpose. Thus, we again have a fact for dual interpretation if we are to
believe the extermination legend; to the commonplace interpretation of these ovens,
unquestionably valid, it is proposed that we also accept as valid a second interpretation
of exterminations. Below we will examine specific evidence that the
number of muffles was completely compatible with the rate of “normal” deaths.
That is not the last fact for dual interpretation that we are offered in connection
with the cremations. Höss tells us that “all of the people living in the surrounding
communities knew that exterminations were going on” on account of the “foul
and nauseating stench from the continuous burning of bodies.” If I were to select
just two points in the extermination tale to hold up as near proof that the whole
thing is a hoax, it would be this point and also the alleged role of Zyklon.
The hydrogenation and other chemical industry that existed at Auschwitz was
notorious for creating stenches. Visit the northern part of the New Jersey Turnpike
by the Standard Oil (now Exxon) refineries, or any other refineries, to see (or
233
234
NMT, vol. 5, 624-625. See also Blumental, 100.
Polson, 138, 143-145.
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