Arthur R. Butz – The Hoax Of The Twentieth Century

Chapter 2: The Camps
“Buna-S” rubber, the type particularly suited for tires, was obtained. 92
The earliest serious German Buna-S plant, and the largest, was the Schkopau
plant, started in 1937 and completed in 1939. It had a capacity of 6,000 tons per
month. A second plant was started at Hüls in 1938 and was in operation in August
1940; its capacity was 4,000 tons per month. A third plant was started in January
1941 at Ludwigshafen, Farben research headquarters, and it was producing Buna
in March 1943; its capacity was 2,500 tons per month. The fourth, at Auschwitz,
was begun in 1941 and was designed for a capacity of 3,000 tons per month.
During all this plant construction, research on new processes continued, and
the differences in the processes used in the four plants reflected this. All started
from coal, but at Schkopau the butadiene was produced via a classical calcium
carbide-acetylene-butadiene sequence; at Hüls the carbide state was replaced by
one involving hydrocarbon gases. Ludwigshafen reverted to the classical sequence,
but the superior Reppe process was introduced for the acetylenebutadiene
state. The Buna plant at Auschwitz also used a version of the classical
sequence. 93
The reason for the appearance of Auschwitz in this context is very simple:
Auschwitz was a huge industrial operation.
When Germany annexed a large part of Poland after the partitioning of Poland
in 1939 by Germany and Russia, it came into the possession of the great coal
fields of Polish Upper Silesia. It was naturally decided to exploit this, and the possibilities
for a hydrogenation and Buna plant were examined. It was found that the
little town of “Owicim” (population 13,000), translated into German as
“Auschwitz” (Auschwitz had been a duchy of the Habsburg Empire before World
War I), was ideally located, because the three rivers that joined there could provide
the necessary water, while a fourth river for carrying off the waste was
nearby. In addition, Auschwitz was on the southern border of the Silesian coal
fields, the Kattowitz (Katowice) mining region of Poland. 94
In early 1941, it was decided to build a hydrogenation and a Buna plant at
Auschwitz employing both free and prisoner labor. By pure chance, there was already
near the town a partisan POW camp holding 7,000 prisoners (it had formerly
been a Polish artillery barracks); this camp became the nucleus for expansion
via its own enlargement and also the construction of additional camps. It was
quickly transformed into, and remained to the last, a camp for political prisonerworkers;
it is usually referred to as Auschwitz I. The terms “main camp,” “Hauptlager,”
and “Stammlager” are also sometimes used. 95
Sometime in 1941, work had begun on a second camp, Auschwitz II, generally
referred to as Birkenau (German for birch meadow). It was one to one and a half
miles northwest of Auschwitz I and was initially referred to as a POW camp. Part
of it was completed by April 1942; Russian POW labor was used for constructing
the camp. Its functions will be examined at length.
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Howard, 35-37.
Dunbrook, 50; Naunton, 107.
DuBois, 154-155.
Reitlinger, 110, 128; NO-034 in NMT, vol. 5, 356-358.
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