Arthur R. Butz – The Hoax Of The Twentieth Century

Arthur R. Butz, The Hoax of the Twentieth Century
ber, and made this number one in his list of 39 “criminal traces” of extermination
gassings at Auschwitz. 589
Although my translation of the term was technically correct, I would now say
that Pressac showed that, in this case, my interpretation was not correct. However,
Pressac’s interpretation is also incorrect, as shown by the evidence he himself reproduces.
It is necessary to consider this matter in detail. 590
The two important German words in this regard are Begasung, treatment with
a gas, and Vergasung, gasification or conversion of something into a gas, even in
the loose sense; for example, the German word for carburetion is Vergasung.
Thus, although “fumigation” should normally be “Begasung,” for no clear reason
German often allows “Vergasung” to substitute for “Begasung.” Thus, gas attacks
in World War I were referred to as Vergasung, and professional fumigators often
speak of their operations as Vergasung rather than Begasung. However, it appears
that Begasung never substitutes for Vergasung and that a fumigation or delousing
gas chamber is normally a “Gaskammer,” not a “Vergasungskammer” or “Vergasungskeller.”
Accordingly, the delousing gas chambers at Auschwitz were called
“Gaskammern.” 591 These are the sorts of arbitrary conventions of usage, not deducible
from a dictionary, that occur in any language.
Despite all this, the normal meaning of Vergasung, in a technical context, is
gasification, gas generation, or carburetion. In view of that and knowing that some
cremation ovens were of a design requiring a combustible gas-air mixture to be
introduced by blowers located outside, I interpreted the Vergasungskeller mentioned
in the 1943 document as a place where coke or coal was converted into a
combustible gas, mixed with air, and then introduced under pressure into the cremation
ovens.
While this interpretation is not “technically worthless,” Pressac shows that it is
not correct in this instance. His proof consists of (1) many engineering drawings
of Crematory II in various stages of design, which show no such facility, and (2)
engineering drawings of, and other technical data on, typical Topf company crematory
ovens, which show that they were not of the design I assumed and which
used as fuel coke supplied directly behind the ovens. 592
On the basis of a newly discovered document, Pressac shows that the basement
morgue (Leichenkeller), which was not available due to the frost, was Leichenkeller
2. He thus concludes that the Vergasungskeller must be Leichenkeller 1, and
that it was designated a “Vergasungskeller” in this document as a result of an
“enormous gaff [sic…] the first of the ‘slips’ that SS and civilians could not help
making” in the alleged preferred policy of not committing incriminating words to
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590
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418
Pressac, p. 432.
Compare with Faurisson’s discussion of this point in The Journal of Historical Review, Vol. 11,
No. 1 (Spring 1991), pp. 55ff.
Pressac, pp. 27f, 31. H. Breymesser and E. Bernfus, eds., Blausäuregaskammern zur Fleckfieberabwehr,
(Berlin: Reichsarbeitsblatt, 1943) normally uses “Gaskammer” but “Begasungskammer”
is also used.
Pressac, pp. 106-113, 222-225. Early in 1989, Faurisson also told me that my interpretation of the
Vergasungskeller was not correct, but as far as I can recollect he did not raise the matter of the
design of the ovens. Thus, I was not convinced at that time.