Arthur R. Butz – The Hoax Of The Twentieth Century

Supplement 3: A Response to a Major Critique of Holocaust Revisionism
It has already been remarked that fuel gas generated in the camp could have
been used, among other things, in waste incineration. That is, the fuel gas could
have served as the auxiliary fuel. There is also a second sense in which “Vergasung”
can apply to waste incineration, because the technology views the waste as
a combustible fuel being turned into gases. Incineration (or Verbrennung) is actually
a special case of gasification (or Vergasung) in which all combustibles are
oxidized to the highest degree possible, for example, producing carbon dioxide
(CO 2 ) instead of carbon monoxide (CO, a combustible gas, in which case it would
be said that Vergasung had taken place). Since perfect incineration does not exist
in this sense, the line between Verbrennung and Vergasung can be blurred. What
is termed waste gasification, or Müllvergasung in ordinary technical German, was
developed as a practical process only after the war. 599 It appears that during the war,
Vergasung could have been used in the waste incineration context only in the sense
of one of many specific processes taking place inside a plant viewed as performing
Müllverbrennung. 600 Thus, this second sense of application of “Vergasung” to waste
incineration does not seem to apply, and it is very unlikely that at Auschwitz any
waste incinerator would have been spoken of as performing Vergasung.
This possibility is nevertheless worth mentioning. There was a waste incinerator
in what I would call the chimney housing behind the cremation ovens in Crematory
II. The effluent gases from this incinerator combined with the effluent of
the ovens in sharing the chimney and the suction type forced draft system. 601 I do
not believe that the “Vergasungskeller” was this chimney housing because, apart
from the reasons already given, it was not referred to as such on the drawings and
seems to have had insufficient free space to serve as a plausible temporary substitute
for the huge Leichenkeller 2. 602 All the same, it is at least worth noting that
“Vergasung” could apply as an inclusive description for the two processes (cremation
and waste incineration) involved there. However, I do not consider a waste
incineration interpretation of the Vergasungskeller a likely possibility.
In the vicinity of the crematories at Birkenau there were three sewage treatment
plants (Kläranlagen) in various stages of completion. 603 Sewage treatment
amounts basically to the acceleration of the natural processes, in which bacteria
metabolize solid waste into gasses and inoffensive solids (sludge) and to the disposal
or use of these products. There are several senses, in which Vergasung
could arise. A short outline is helpful:
1. Aeration (Belüftung)
2. Chlorination
3. Methane production
4. Prevention of sewer gasification (Kanalvergasung)
5. Sludge incineration (Schlammverbrennung)
599
600
601
602
603
H. Franke, ed., Lueger (cited above), Vol. 16, p. 337.
H. Franke, ed., Lueger (cited above), Vol. 7, p. 89.
Pressac, pp. 277, 281ff, 287, 306.
Such objections also apply against the hypothesis that one room of the small Leichenkeller 3
(Pressac, pp. 285, 295) was the Vergasungskeller. See R. Faurisson, The Journal of Historical
Review, Vol. 11, No. 1 (Spring 1991), pp. 55ff.
See Pressac, pp. 51, 165-170, 420f, 542f, for limited data.
421