The effect of hydrogen cyanide is based on the fact that it paralyzes the respiration of every individual cell in the body. Oxygen can no longer be transported from the blood through the cell walls into the cells.[413] As the vital cell functions are thereby starved of oxygen, the animal or human being suffocates.

Insects and, in particular, insect eggs, are considerably less sensitive to hydrogen cyanide than warm-blooded animals. On the one hand, this is due to their greater resistance (slower metabolism). On the other hand, this is due to the fact that lethal concentrations of the gas must penetrate every crack and fissure, no matter how tiny. Every hem and seam of all the garment in the property to be fumigated must be filled with the poison in order to kill, for example, every concealed louse. Warm-blooded animals, by contrast, are rapidly exposed to high concentrations of the gas, not only because of their size, but above all due to their breathing through lungs.

Lethal doses of cyanide can be ingested orally, inhaled, or absorbed through the skin. Oral poisoning (for example, with potassium cyanide KCN) is very painful due to muscular convulsions caused by cell suffocation. Even though victims of poisoning by inhalation of high concentrations of hydrogen cyanide become more rapidly unconscious than with oral ingestion, painful convulsions caused by muscular suffocation appear in these cases as well. For this reason, execution by use of hydrogen cyanide gas, as performed in some U.S. states, has recently been a topic of much controversy; see chapter 1. A dose of 1 mg cyanide per kg body weight is generally considered lethal. Non-lethal doses of cyanide are quickly decomposed and excreted by the body.[414]

The bright red coloration of the blood and bruised spots, caused by over-saturation of the blood with oxygen, since the blood can no longer give off its oxygen to the cells, are generally considered, among other things, symptomatic of hydrogen cyanide poisoning in fatal cases.[17],[415],[416],[417] Testimonies describing a blue or green coloration of the victims are therefore false.[418]

Absorption through the skin is especially likely when the skin has become moist, for example, as a result of sweating at work. It is generally advised to avoid sweating during the handling of hydrogen cyanide. In this regard, concentrations from 6,000 ppm[419] (0.6 % by volume) constitute a health hazard, while 10,000 ppm (1% by volume) can cause death in just a few minutes.[420]

Table 8 shows the effects of various concentrations of hydrogen cyanide, found in the literature.[421]

F. Flury and F. Zernik indicate that 200 ppm can be fatal within five to ten minutes, while 270 ppm are immediately fatal.[420] These are not, of course, the results of experiments on human beings, but rather extrapolations, in which lower risk thresholds have been determined on the grounds of safety. This will be demonstrated in the following. To kill an average person with a body weight of 100 kg, the victim must therefore ingest approximately 100 mg hydrogen cyanide (1 mg per kilo body weight). The respiration of a human being at rest amounts to approximately 15 liters of air per minute.[422] With a hydrogen cyanide content of 0.02% (approximately 0.24 mg per liter) the victim must inhale approximately 416 liters of air before ingesting the fatal quantity of hydrogen cyanide. At 15 liters per minute, this will take about half an hour. A very strong person can survive even this period of time. By contrast, a sensitive person weighing 50 kg breathing at an accelerated rate as a result of physical effort or excitement will inhale 40 liters per minute, ingesting a fatal dose of 208 liters of air in five minutes. It is obvious from these calculations, that the data in safety instructions are always intended to protect smaller, weaker people from accidents under the most unfavorable circumstances. The data given in the literature as "immediately" or "rapidly fatal" doses are furthermore so indefinite as to be unable to satisfy our purposes. In addition, they only refer to the time when a victim has ingested a fatal dose, but not when death occurs, which can sometimes take a very long time.[423]

The threshold values will be different if we require even the strongest individual, out of all conceivable individual victims, to die in just a few minutes.[424] The concentrations necessary for this purpose will, by its very nature of the thing, be several times higher than the values indicated above. They could only be determined by a series of experiments, which is naturally impossible with human beings. The only data available to us are those gathered during executions with hydrogen cyanide carried out in the United States. Leuchter speaks of concentrations of hydrogen cyanide used in executions in the USA in the order of magnitude of 3,200 ppm. In these cases, death occurs after 4 to 10 minutes, depending on the physical constitution of the victim.[425] Press reports from the USA indicate that executions lasting from 10 to 17 minutes are the rule rather than the exception (see chapter 1.1.).

In relation to the quantities used, the US execution gas chamber in Raleigh (North Carolina), for example, is said to use 454 g KCN in half concentrated sulfuric acid, leading to instant formation of hydrogen cyanide vapor, which is even visible for a short period to the witnesses in the witness room and which reaches the victim in seconds.[1] As a matter of pure calculation, this generates approximately 180 g of hydrogen cyanide, corresponding to 150 liters of gas. However, since a considerable part of it remains dissolved in the half concentrated sulfuric acid (approximately 50%, see chapter 8.3.3.4.), we assume in the following that approximately 90 g or 75 liters hydrogen cyanide are released as gas. In North Carolina, this gas arises immediately beneath the victim, so that the victim must be exposed, immediately after the beginning of the execution process, to a concentration which probably exceeds 10% by volume for a short period, but then falls steadily as a result of diffusion of the hydrogen cyanide throughout the chamber.[426]

At a normal respiration volume of approximately 15 to 20 liter per minute and assuming an average concentration during the execution of only 0.75% by volume, approximately 1.35 to 1.8 grams of HCN will be ingested in 10 minutes (150-200 liters of inhaled air), which corresponds to ten to twenty times the fatal dose. In the following calculations, we will assume a ten-fold overdose only, in order to kill all the people in the chamber, with certainty, in ten minutes.

Zyklon B does not release its poison gas instantaneously, but rather over an extended period of time. Since this period of time can be decisive for the evaluation both of eyewitness accounts as well as of chemical analyses, it will be investigated more thoroughly in this chapter.

R. Irmscher of DEGESCH reported in a paper written in 1942 that, at that time, the use of cardboard discs and gypsum (Ercco) were the most commonly used carrier material.[427] The gypsum version was used-even according to eyewitness testimony-in the concentration camps.

The evaporation characteristics of this product at various temperatures, low relative humidity of the air, and a fine distribution of the carrier material are reproduced in Graph 9 as given by Irmscher. The evaporation is "seriously delayed" at high atmospheric humidity, because the evaporating hydrogen cyanide withdraws considerable quantities of energy from the liquid HCN, the carrier material, and the ambient air. As a consequence, the temperature of the product and the ambient air drops. If the temperature of the air reaches the dew point, atmospheric humidity condenses out of the air onto the carrier material, which binds the hydrogen cyanide and slows down the evaporation process.

Graph 9: Evaporation rate of hydrogen cyanide from the Ercco carrier material (gypsum with some starch) at various temperatures and fine distribution, according to R. Irmscher/DEGESCH 1942.[427]

For later references, we want to keep in mind that, at 15°C and in the presence of lower atmospheric humidity, approximately 10% of the hydrogen cyanide used at Auschwitz have left the carrier material during the first five minutes, and approximately 50% after half an hour. In cool cellar areas with a relative humidity of approximately 100%, the evaporation times would have been "seriously delayed".

The question of how Zyklon B would have behaved if spread on the floor in a room filled with human beings, is somewhat more difficult. The radiant heat of the bodies would have a slightly accelerating effect upon the evaporation by increasing the temperature in the vicinity of the floor. Further acceleration of evaporation may occur due to a possible reduction in size of the carrier granules as a result of being trampled upon or crushed by falling human bodies, as well as direct bodily contact.

The relative atmospheric humidity in the cellars of crematoria II and III, which must certainly have approached 100%, would have "seriously delayed" evaporation,[428] as well as the possible fluid secretions caused by panic on the part of victims lying on the floor, which could very well have occurred as soon as the door was closed, that is, prior to release of the Zyklon B. Under such conditions, a serious delay in the discharge of the hydrogen cyanide from the carrier material would have to be anticipated.

If assuming that Zyklon B introduction devices were installed in some of the Auschwitz 'gas chambers' as attested to by Michal Kula,[429] such a device would have had the following effects: a) the Zyklon B granules would not have been spread out, but rather would have been kept together by the inner wire mesh, reducing the evaporation rate considerably; b) all three wire mesh columns would have drastically reduced any air convection within them, reducing both evaporation rate as well as the speed with which the gas spreads out into the chamber; c) due to high humidity in the air and the lack of air convection, moisture would have condensed intensively on the Zyklon B carrier, reducing the evaporation rate of HCN "seriously."

The present study regarding homicidal mass gassings will be based on the conservative assumption that the Zyklon B would at best have behave in the manner described by Irmscher at 15°C (see above).

7.3.1.1. Boundary Conditions

This chapter will examine a few related eyewitness testimonies for a determination of the chemical, physical, and technical boundary conditions of the alleged homicidal gassings. A complete and detailed analysis of the many eyewitness testimonies in the individual trials and in the literature would be too voluminous to include here.[430] The following survey is therefore not complete.

For a clarification of the evidence problems, an extract from the judgment of the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial may be quoted here:[83]

In the opinion of the court, many of the witness testimonies possessed insufficient credibility. But it nevertheless succeeded in obtaining testimonies from a few allegedly credible witnesses that sounded sufficiently credible to the court.

Before we analyze some of these testimonies more closely, a few remarks are necessary about the circumstances and the atmosphere in which these testimonies and confessions of alleged victims and perpetrators came about in the first couple of years after the end of World War II. It was in those years that the story of the conveyor-belt like extermination of human beings in Auschwitz and elsewhere was elevated to 'common knowledge.' Challenging this story led to a severe increase in legal penalty for any defendant, as it still does to this day in many countries in Europe.

According to reports by Bernard Clarke, who arrested Höß at that time, Höß was tortured after his arrest.[431] In his autobiography, Höß also reports this and mentioned similar procedures during his Polish imprisonment.[295] According to a report by a US Senator drawn up at that time, mistreatment of German prisoners by Allied personnel was a frequent occurrence:[432]

• Burning of the skin;
• Beds of the nails destroyed by ramming matches under the nails;
• Torn-out fingernails;
• Broken teeth;
• Broken jaws;
• Crushed testicles;
• All kinds of wounding by beating with truncheons, brass knuckles, and kicks;
• Confinement while naked in cold, damp, and dark rooms;
• Imprisonment for days in hot rooms without water;
• Mock trials;
• Mock judgments;
• Mock executions;
• Mock priests, and many other methods.

A few voices were raised at that time in the USA clearly stating that the Nuremberg Tribunal was a case of revenge, not justice.[433] These voices spoke of:

• Forced testimony under the threat of punishment;
• Compelled production of all documents to the prosecution;
• Refusal to provide documents or examination of documents for the defense;
• Travel and currency prohibitions against the defense.

A glance at the London Agreement, which established the legal framework for the Nuremberg Trials, reveals two remarkable articles, which are clearly incompatible with the procedures of a state under the rule of law. Article 19 states:[434]

while Article 21 states:

For a correct evaluation of Holocaust testimony of the witnesses and the confessions of the defendants, it is essential to pay attention to the boundary conditions under which the so-called NSG trials were held[435] and continue to be held.[436]

What is the credibility of the eyewitness testimonies as to content? Reference should be made at this point to a few detailed works on this problem.[437] The following is a closer examination of three of the more frequently quoted eyewitnesses: Rudolf Höß, former camp commandant at Auschwitz, Richard Böck, a camp SS man of subordinate rank, as well as Henryk Tauber, former inmate and member of the "Sonderkommando" in crematorium II in Birkenau.

The Höß statements may be consulted in the Broszat edition and read as follows:[295]

and elsewhere:[438]

Anyone who has ever grilled meat knows that fat cannot be scooped up from burning flesh. Fat ignites at approximately 184°C.[439] It is therefore the first thing that burns on a corpse located in a fire. Hence, it is impossible to collect the easily combustible fat during the incineration of a corpse. After all, the bodies were burnt-not grilled.

The incineration of corpses in the open air with combustible fluids is impracticable because fluids have the property of flowing down or away and/or evaporating. When corpses, which consist of more than 60% water, are burnt, this must take place with the expenditure of quite large quantities of fuel and great heat. In particular, open oil or methane combustion would be insufficient.

The alleged attempt to destroy bodies by means of explosives requires no further comment. In reading such testimonies, one must inevitably wonder as to Höß's mental condition in writing them, as well as that of anyone who takes such claims seriously. Unfortunately, such testimonies are the rule rather than the exception.[440]

Entering the 'gas chamber' without a protective filter, eating and smoking in the 'gas chamber', as well as the commencement of the corpse dragging operation immediately after the opening of the doors, would only be conceivable if there were no longer any dangerous quantity of gas in the chamber. The question of whether this was possible will be the subject of chapter 7.3.2.2.

It is interesting to note that M. Broszat deleted the last pages of Rudolf Höß's testimony from his edition, since they contain "completely erroneous data on the numerical strength of these Jews", as Broszat himself stated in a footnote. In these pages, Höß speaks of three million Jews in Hungary, four million in Romania, two million in Bulgaria. The actual figures were lower by a factor of approximately ten.[441] In addition, the same pages contain the following, which is also incredible:[442]

This is really a bit hard to digest.

Another commonly quoted witness is Henryk Tauber. Tauber was, according to his own testimony, a member of the inmate Sonderkommando of crematorium II during the war. J.-C. Pressac writes that this eyewitness testimony is the best in relation to the crematoria, which he considers to be 95% reliable. This testimony contains the following:[443]

Tauber's claims as to self-igniting, self-combustible corpses are completely absurd, and in contradiction to all the laws of physical and technical sciences.[444] He also confuses grilling with burning with relation to the allegedly boiling fat from the corpses. What is more, fat cannot boil at all. It simply begins to ignite at temperatures of approximately 180-190°C.

Tauber also proves himself a liar in the technical details related by him. The combustion gases in a crematorium oven stream from the combustion chamber[445] through the cremation chamber containing the corpse (muffle), through the ash chamber into the flue, which conducts the exhaust gases to the chimney.[446] If a fire had been ignited in the ash chamber to burn the bodies located above, this would have reversed the flow of gas: fresh air would have been sucked in through the chimney, while the exhaust gases would have flowed through the muffle into the combustion chamber, from which they would have found their way out into the oven room. Starting the fire in the ash chamber, as described by Tauber, would have been disastrous.

On top of this, Tauber also claims that the Sonderkommandos shoved extraordinarily many corpses into each oven (up to eight) when they heard Allied planes approaching. Tauber claims that by so doing, huge flames would have come out of the crematorium's chimney, which they hoped would make the Allied bomber pilots aware of them. But as is common knowledge and has been pointed out many times, no flames ever come out of crematorium chimneys. It is also impossible to push eight corpses in an cremation muffle whose door is just two feet wide and high.[447] And apart from that, before Tauber and his co-inmates would have been able to push eight corpses into each oven and get a huge blaze going, any plane they claim to have heard approaching would have long flown far, far away. Such testimonies are, to use Pressac's words, nothing but downright lies and pure invention.[448]

Now to the testimony of the witness Richard Böck as quoted during the Frankfurt tribunal:[297]

In winter of 1942/1943, no crematorium was operable in Birkenau (the first became operable in spring 1943). For this reason, the alleged victims of homicidal mass gassings in a farmhouse as attested to by Böck are supposed to have been cremated in open-air pits close to this farmhouse.

In view of our previous study of the subject, we can establish:

• According to professional air photo analyses of the decisive locations, there were no large cremation ditches, no fuel stockpile, no development of smoke or flames.[449] Accordingly, the scenario of destruction is obviously false in this regard.
• One thousand people occupy a surface area of at least 200 m². According to eyewitness testimonies, the farmhouses had only half this much surface area, at the most.[450]
• Chapter 7.1.: Hydrogen cyanide is a colorless, invisible gas. Therefore, no "blue vapor floating over the corpses" could be seen. This passage is a sign of pure fantasy, obviously suggested by the German name of HCN, "Blausäure" (blue acid), which only relates, however, to the formation of the pigment Iron Blue.
• Chapter 7.2.: Since the events described are alleged to have taken place in winter, the rapidity of the procedure is incredible, since Zyklon B only releases gas slowly at frost temperatures.
• The described entry into chambers with a high concentration of toxic gas without a protective filter is impossible; such a manner of procedure would obviously sooner or later be fatal.

German public prosecutor Willy Dreßen had the following to say about Böck's testimony:[451]

Böck's testimony was one of the few which the Frankfurt tribunal considered credible after careful examination, that is, the inconsistencies would not be so easily recognized by the layman, in contrast to the many other testimonies. And yet it is entirely incredible.

Pressac himself becomes very critical in quite a few of his passages relating to the reliability and credibility of eyewitness testimonies;[452] yet it is upon these eyewitness testimonies that all the descriptions of the 'gas chamber' killings are based. He lists the untruths, impossibilities, and exaggerations of the witnesses and explains how they presumably materialized. Finally, in an interview, he said:[453]

At the same time, however, he bases all of his remarks on the alleged existence of homicidal 'gas chambers' exclusively on these eyewitness testimonies! And elsewhere, he states, with a naiveté which can hardly be surpassed:[454]

Pressac seems to be the only person of the establishment who takes notice of the progress of revisionist research. He knows that traditional historiography of the Holocaust is reduced to absurdity by the facts revealed by this research. Consequently, he keeps changing his attitude when making public statements. The most vehement attack of the media darling Pressac on the dominating historiography occurred during an interview published as an appendix to a PhD thesis analyzing the history of Holocaust revisionism in France. In it, Pressac described the established historiography of the Holocaust as "rotten" and stated:[455]

In his first and so far most comprehensive book, Pressac is compelled to correct the statements of witnesses in many cases in order to eliminate errors and, in his opinion, technical impossibilities. But when so doing, he never reveals the basis upon which he undertakes these corrections. In actual fact, he merely replaces the capriciousness of 'eyewitnesses' with his own. Thus, the numbers of victims per gassing procedure, as estimated by Pressac, for example, are considerably lower than those estimated in the eyewitness statements, which often speak of several thousand victims per gassing operation per day for crematoria II and III. One thousand people could only have been made to enter a cellar with a surface area of 210 m² under the maintenance of extraordinary discipline accompanied by a readiness to co-operate(!) on the part of the victims (see chapter 7.3.2.1.1.). The numbers of people reported in places by witnesses, on the other hand (2,000 and more[456]) could not have been contained by morgue 1. To arrive at the number of victims of Auschwitz-Birkenau, as spread by sensationalist media and literature until the late 1980s-four million-one is in fact compelled to resort to technically impossible figures of 'gas chamber' occupancy, as the witnesses do. At the moment, the official estimates range from approximately 1 to 11/2 million victims,[457] though in his second book, Pressac downgraded the 'gas chamber' victims to 630,000[458] and later even further down to 470,000-550,000,[459] and in an article published in a small German periodical in early 2002, a German mainstream journalist attempted to reduce the death toll of the Auschwitz 'gas chambers' down to as little as 356,000.[460] But as long as this revolutionary development is not accepted by most scholars, we will stick to the number of one million 'gas chamber' victims for all further considerations.

The following is a description of the homicidal gassing procedures for the individual installations, if one were to assume that one million human beings were actually gassed:

Opinions differ as to the concentration of poison gas alleged to have been used in the presumed executions (see next chapter). The only indirect source available to us are the alleged execution times reported by the eyewitnesses, which in turn permit a crude estimate of the concentrations used. These reported execution times all allege a gassing time of only a few minutes.[465]

Assuming an execution time approximately corresponding to those in US execution gas chambers (ten minutes and more at 3,200 ppm HCN, see chapter 7.1.), a concentration of at least 3,000 ppm (3.6g/m³) would have had to have reached even the remotest corner of the chamber after only half this time (five minutes). With a free volume of 430 m³ in morgue 1 of crematoria II and III,[466] this corresponds to a quantity of hydrogen cyanide of approximately 1.5 kg released and spread out after five minutes. Since the carrier material only releases approximately 10% of its hydrogen cyanide content after five minutes (see chapter 7.2.), at least ten times that amount would have been required in order to kill in only a few minutes, i.e., this would mean the utilization of at least 15 kg of Zyklon B.[467] This, of course, only applies on the condition that the hydrogen cyanide released reached the victims immediately, which cannot be expected in large, overcrowded cellars. It must therefore be considered established that quantities of at least 20 kg of Zyklon B per gassing (ten 2 kg cans or twenty 1 kg cans) would probably have had to have been used for the gassing procedures described.

Let us state that the scenarios described by the witnesses would require a quick increase in the concentration of hydrogen cyanide everywhere in the chamber. At the same time, logically, there cannot have been a simultaneous drop in the hydrogen cyanide in the chamber-such as through the respiration of the victims. Such a loss in hydrogen cyanide would have had to have been overcompensated for through an even more rapid evaporation of fresh hydrogen cyanide, because the hydrogen cyanide concentration would have had to increase for rapid executions. After the end of respiration due to increasing numbers of dead victims, who died in a matter of minutes, this most important cause of a loss in hydrogen cyanide would have ceased to exist as a factor. But since Zyklon B continues to give off large amounts of hydrogen cyanide for many more minutes, it must be assumed that the hydrogen cyanide content in such chambers would continue to increase constantly, and very rapidly, during the first quarter hour at least. Since deadly concentrations (3,200 ppm) would have had to have been reached even in the remotest corner of the chamber even after a few minutes, this means that the hydrogen cyanide concentration inside the chamber after approximately one quarter hour would have exceeded 10,000 ppm and would have continued to rise thereafter-slowly, of course, but nevertheless constantly at all times.

To assume that the respiration of the victims locked in the chambers would have been capable of perceptibly reducing the concentration of hydrogen cyanide in the air is therefore entirely in contradiction to the eyewitness statements.[468] In particular, this would have to assume that the victims, confined in the chamber, could have acted as quasi-living filters for the greater proportion of the time during which the Zyklon B was releasing hydrogen cyanide (at least one hour). But one thousand people locked in a hermetically sealed cellar would have died in an hour from lack of oxygen alone.

These considerations show that a concentration of hydrogen cyanide in morgue 1 of crematoria II and III during the alleged gassings would have had an effect on the masonry which would have been at least as great as that occurring during disinfestation. High rates of hydrogen cyanide absorption would have to be expected during these periods, particularly on the cool and moist masonry of cellars in crematoria II and III. The duration of the gassing period would have depended above all on the subsequent ventilation, which will be examined below.

Because eyewitness statements about the amount of Zyklon B are rare, and since humans are more sensitive to HCN than insects (see chapter 7.1.), some scholars opine that only small amounts of Zyklon B were used for the alleged mass murders in Auschwitz, for example J. Bailer,[54] W. Wegner,[49] and G. Wellers,[55] who assume an applied concentration of 1 g per m³ (0.083 Vol.%) or less.

The few witnesses statements we have, however, claim that several kilograms of Zyklon B were used.[469] In his book, Pressac frequently refers to a HCN concentration of 12 g per m³ or 1 vol.% used for executions.[470] He backs this up with many witness accounts, according to which four to six 1-kg cans of Zyklon B were allegedly poured into the 'gas chambers' (morgues) of crematorium II and III, which indeed corresponds to a concentration of 1 vol.%.[302]

Pressac, on the other hand, assumes that 95 to 98% of the entire Zyklon B delivered to the camp were used for the original purpose, i.e., for delousing clothes and rooms,[471] for which he relies on statements from the Nuremberg tribunal.[472] Pressac justifies this with the fact that, in relation to other concentration camps, where doubtlessly no extermination took place, the Auschwitz camp did not receive higher amounts of Zyklon B deliveries, if seen in relation to the number of inmates and in relation to the material delousing facilities that doubtlessly operated there.

The supply figures of the Auschwitz camp can be found in the protocols of the International Military Tribunal Nuremberg. In total, they reached some 19,000 kg during the years 1942 and 1943.[157] The total supplied amount during the entire existence of the camp from late 1940 to early 1945 will hardly have exceeded 40 tons. According to Pressac's statement that not 2-5% of this was used for killings, 800 to 2,000 kg of the total delivery was used for extermination of humans.

But when dividing up this amount of Zyklon B for one million people allegedly killed with it, with 1,000 victims per gassing-the 'gas chambers' (morgues I) of crematorium II and III could hardly hold 1,000 persons per execution-only roughly 0.8 to 2 kg HCN was available for each gassing. With the morgues' free volume of roughly 430 m³,[466] and after all hydrogen cyanide had evaporated from the carrier (after more than an hour), 800 to 2,000 g of hydrogen cyanide would result in a theoretical end concentration of 1.86 to 4.65 g per m³, which means that the concentration during the first five or ten minutes was much lower.

If, on the other hand, one million victims were killed according to the eyewitness statements, i.e., with high concentrations in a few minutes, those 1,000 gassing would have required 1,000×20 kg = 20 tons of Zyklon B, or at least 50% of the entire Zyklon B delivery to the camp.

This shows an obvious inconsistency in Pressac's statements. One cannot have both high concentrations during homicidal gassings and a low percentage of the entire Zyklon B delivery to Auschwitz used for these gassings.

Let us now have a closer look at the theory endorsed by J. Bailer,[54] W. Wegner,[49] and G. Wellers,[55] that only a small amount of HCN was used for the killings. In such a case, the concentration reduction due to the respiration of the victims is no longer a negligible quantity.

Per capita, the respiration of HCN is the higher, the higher the applied concentration is. The reason for this is that although the victim incorporates lethal amounts of hydrogen cyanide in short periods of time in case of high concentrations, their organism's reaction is delayed. During this delay, the victim incorporates more overdoses of hydrogen cyanide.

Graph 10 shows the behavior of the breathing volume per minute of persons dying of suffocation or poisoning (biochemical suffocations). Respiratory arrest occurs at the end of this period of time (at 5). Death occurs only several minutes after respiratory arrest. If one assumes a time period of 5 minutes until respiratory arrest, the assumed breathing volume during each single minute is: 1.: 20 l; 2.: 30 l; 3.: 50 l; 4.: 80 l; 5.: 30 l.[422] In total, this yields a breathing volume of ca. 210 l. Furthermore, we assume that the function is independent of the length of time until respiratory arrest. This means that the double amount of air is inhaled if the time period would be doubled.

Regarding morgue 1 ('gas chamber') of crematorium II, we have the following data: Volume: 504 m³; volume of 1,000 persons: ca. 75 m³; resulting free air volume: ca. 430 m³. First, the oxygen content in the room may be studied. In Table 9, the total inhaled volume of 1,000 victims is given in m³ and multiples of the free air volume as a function of time. The average oxygen content is reduced by 20-30% per inhalation. This results in the remaining oxygen content in the chamber as given in the last two columns. Oxygen contents below 6% are lethal.[473] So, even without adding any toxic gas, we have to reckon with the victims being suffocated in an airtight chamber already after some 45-60 minutes.

If one increases the number of locked-up persons, this process is accelerated accordingly. However, if there were Zyklon B holes in the morgues I of crematorium II and III during wartime, contrary to the results achieved before, these rooms could not be sealed off in an air tight manner. Also, small amounts of air would have seeped into the interior through the ventilation shafts.

Due to the extremely high capability of the lungs to absorb HCN, the human lung acts like a perfect filter which absorbs all hydrogen cyanide out of the air. Taking the experiences of US execution 'gas chamber' as a base, death occurs after some 10 minutes at the earliest in case of an application of ca. 4 g HCN per m³. In assuming a total inhaled volume of ca. 210 l, this corresponds to an incorporated amount of HCN of ca. 800 mg, which is a tenfold overdose of the lethal dose (80 mg/person). In the following, it is assumed that an execution lasting several hours, no overdoses of HCN are incorporated. Using these benchmark figures, a relation between incorporated overdose and execution time results as shown in Graph 11.

The HCN content in the air of a room decreases similarly by breathing as by ventilation (exponential behavior, see chapter 7.3.2.2.2.). If the victims have inhaled the entire room volume once, the HCN content will be reduced to ca. 37% of the initial value. As a function of time passed until respiratory arrest occurs, Table 10 shows, how much HCN was incorporated by the victims in total (column 3), which portion of the total content of HCN in the air this is (column 4), how much HCN had been released in total (column 5), and how much Zyklon B at a carrier temperature of 15°C had to have been applied to release that much HCN as is required in this period of time. The last column shows the ratio of the inhaled amount of HCN and the applied amount. In so doing, it was assumed that the HCN concentration was available to every victim right from the start. In reality, the applied amount of hydrogen cyanide had to be a bit higher than assumed here (delay due to release and distribution of hydrogen cyanide).

According to testimonies, the execution times until all victims were dead were shorter than 10 minutes.[465] When considering the delays caused by the release of the gas and its distribution, as well as the fact that death occurs only several minutes after respiratory arrest, the first two lines of Table 10, corresponding to execution times of ca. 10 and 15 minutes, respectively, are at the upper limit of witness accounts. This means that an execution within a few moments or minutes would have required enormous amounts of Zyklon B. Such witness accounts are therefore unrealistic. Furthermore, it must be assumed that, with the execution times attested to, only a fraction of the applied (<10%) and at the execution time released amount of hydrogen cyanide (<60%) actually could have been incorporated by the victims. The rest was available to react with the walls, among other things. Therefore, one has to reckon with high adsorption rates of hydrogen cyanide especially at the cool and wet walls of the cellars of crematorium II and III, contrary to Weller's hypothesis, according to which this is not supposed to happen.[55] According to his opinion, the little amounts of hydrogen cyanide applied were supposedly inhaled entirely. This contradicts the witness accounts of the quick 'gas chamber' death which required large amounts of hydrogen cyanide.

Finally, the application of small amounts of hydrogen cyanide of an end concentration of only 1g/m³, i.e., the use of only some 400 g Zyklon B per gassing, would have been senseless, if the facilities were indeed air-tight, which would have been imperative for their use as a mass 'gas chamber'. This is, because the victims would have died in a similar period of time due to lack of oxygen anyway (cf. Table 9).

It is worth taking a look into the HCN losses caused during disinfestations due to adsorption on walls and clothes, as well as due to leaks. Puntigam et al.[122] describe the hydrogen cyanide concentration behavior at different locations of a delousing chamber with and without air circulation ("Kreislaufverfahren"). Puntigam neither gives measures and loading of the chamber, nor the type of carrier material and its distribution, nor the temperature. Since the different measuring points show different concentrations peaks, this indicates a non-even distribution of the products in the chamber. For the sake of clarity, only the concentration behavior in the center of the room is reproduced in Graph 12.

The loss of hydrogen cyanide as a function of temperature in a disinfestation chamber can be seen in Graph 14. The higher losses at lower temperatures is caused by a higher moisture content in the gassed material and in the walls of the observed room.[123]

According to the already quoted publication by Schwarz et al.,[409] their measurements were made in the range of room temperature. Although the interesting part of Graph 13 is only poorly resolved, it is nevertheless clear that under these circumstances the maximum concentration is reached as late as 4 to 5 hours after the start. In these years, circulating air systems did not yet exists, so that only the natural air convection was responsible for distributing the gas. Remarkable is the strong concentration reduction due to adsorption on the load, here lifeless material to be deloused. Due to the slow increase towards the maximum concentration, it must be assumed that Puntigam's values without circulating air system (Graph 12, lower curve) were achieved at similar temperatures.

In case of hypothetical homicidal gassings, the sweat produced by the frightened, crowded people and their HCN absorption through skin and lungs will cause similar losses, and in case of the underground morgues of crematorium II and III, additional losses will occur due to the cold and moist walls.

In order to kill all victims quickly, as attested to by the 'eyewitnesses', such losses would have to be compensated by introducing even more HCN than calculated before (chapter 7.3.1.3.1. and 7.3.1.3.3.) in order to quickly reach and maintain high HCN concentrations everywhere in the 'gas chamber.'

7.3.2.1. Theatre of the Absurd

First, a few critical remarks on three topics of eyewitness statements relating to homicidal mass gassings should be made at this point.

Just imagine the following scene: 1,000 people of both sexes plus children enter the undressing room with a surface area of 390 m² (4,200 ft²). Each one would therefore have a area of only 60 cm × 60 cm (2×2 ft) in which to undress. Experience shows that people do not pack themselves tightly to the very edge of an enclosed area, unless, of course, they are quite willing to do so.[474] In order to get people to do this, the procedure must be rehearsed; they must be aware of what is happening and what steps they must follow-and they must be willing to co-operate.

Alternatively, few people could be made to undress at a time, but this assumes that the people who have already undressed are in the 'gas chamber' and waiting patiently for the next arrival of naked inmates. Once inside the 'gas chamber', the same problem occurs again. Here each individual has only an area of 45 cm × 45 cm (1.5×1.5 ft) in which to stand. The people must press themselves tightly together; the first people entering the room must proceed to the end of the room in a disciplined manner and line up against the wall. The next lot will form the line directly in front, and so on, until the entire chamber is full, which must have taken approximately half an hour, even with perfect choreography.

How did they get these 1,000 people to pack themselves tightly together, as one can expect it from soldiers who have exercised this for weeks on a parade ground? The only solution is that this must have been exercised just as intensively and disciplined as soldiers do it. And of course, at some point in this alleged scenario, people had to realize that they were not gathering for a shower, thus resulting in panic and lack of orderly cooperation with their murderers' procedures.

All eyewitness accounts known to the author are unanimous in claiming that the victims were not separated by sex before being sent into the 'gas chambers'. The eyewitness accounts of the failure to separate the sexes are incredible for the following four reasons:

1. This procedure is in contradiction to the procedures followed during disinfestation, where, according to the same witnesses, the sexes were carefully separated.[475]
2. Since there were always two alleged 'gas chambers' of each type available in Birkenau (in crematorium II and III, or IV and V, or bunker I and II), there is no apparent reason why the victims could not have been separated by sex.
3. The claims were repeatedly made that the victims were made to believe that they were going to shower or undergo disinfestation. These procedures would have necessarily separated the populace on the basis of sex, if only because of the need for deception.
4. Particularly in the 1940s of last century, large numbers of people could only have been made to disrobe completely with others of the opposite sex if they had been threatened with force and violence. But this would have nullified all the other measures of concealment.

According to a few eyewitnesses, the victims were handed towels and bars of soap to make them believe that they were going to take a shower.[476] (Who, by the way, would go with a towel under a shower?) This statement becomes incredible given the chaos in the 'gas chamber': 1,000 corpses, 1,000 towels, and 1,000 bars of soap, plus vomit, urine, and blood from 1,000 victims! How was it possible to recycle those 1,000 bars of soap? How did they clean 1,000 towels? Did they waste 1,000 towels and 1,000 soap bars for every gassing? It can therefore be concluded that such accounts are untrue, and witnesses testifying about it are not trustworthy.[477]

An imaginary experiment may perhaps assist in clarifying a somewhat complicated mathematical relationship: you have a bucket filled to the brim with sea water in front of you. You now take a second bucket filled with fresh water and pour it very carefully into the first bucket, allowing the excess flow over the edge. Now the question: when you have emptied the second bucket of fresh water into the first, containing sea water, what is the composition of the water in the first bucket? Pure fresh water? Of course not. It will be a mixture of salt and fresh water.

In mathematics, the equation related to this problem is called a linear, homogenous differential equation.

In general, the following time behavior applies for the concentration change of a substance i with time, dc_i/dt, in case of air exchange, provided that the newly added gas (free of i) is ideally mixed with the old gas:

For t = 0, e^-at = 1 and thus

In case of a sufficiently low exchange volume dv per time interval dt, the ratio of total volume V to the exchange volume dv can be introduced as initial concentration change (in case of infinitesimal transition (dt ® 0) this is mathematically correct). For example, if the air exchange per time unit is ¹/_1,000 of the total, the concentration change per time unit is ¹/_1,000, too. This turns (15) into

For the ¹/x-value period (time period in which the concentration drops to ¹/x) the following applies accordingly:

Therefore, the concentration has dropped down to half after roughly ²/₃ of a complete air exchange. This is true, if the fresh and the old air are mixed perfectly. However, this is not necessarily the case, as there are two other possible scenarios:

1. Exchange of old gas only (linear, laminar flow along the entire cross-section of the room): air exchange time roughly identical with ventilation time: Technically not given in the facilities under consideration.
2. Exchange of mainly fresh gas (exhaust close to intake), areas of old gas partly not involved: ventilation time is a multiple of what is described above. In our case, this is certainly given for the areas between the corpses, since here almost no mixing of the gases takes place. Additionally, the unfavorable location of the air intakes to the exhausts leads to a partial exchange of fresh gas (air short circuit). This increases the ventilation time by a factor two to four or more.

The following chapter will determine, which scenario was given in the alleged 'gas chambers'.

As shown above, when fresh air and stale air mix together, the concentration of the latter falls to only approximately 37% of the initial value after one complete air exchange, and to approximately 14% after a second exchange.

Data are only available on the ventilation installations in crematoria II and III, so that at this point we have to ignore all other 'gas chambers' in this regard.[478] In chapter 5.4.1.2.4., the ventilation capacity of morgues 1 of crematoria II and III was shown to have been 4,800 m³ per hour. With a volume of free air in the morgue 1 of 430 m³, the volume of the room would be exchanged once in approximately 5-6 minutes.[466]

For morgues 1 of crematoria II and III under consideration at this point, however, a further problem arises. In particular, the ventilation intake has been installed only approximately 2 m away from the ventilation outlet in the same wall. The distance to the ventilation outlet on the opposite wall, however, is 7.3 m, i.e., 3.5 times as far. The result, in these cellars, is a 'ventilation short circuit', especially if we assume that the victims of the alleged mass extermination are all tightly crammed together, especially in the middle of the room, which would further lengthen the fresh air pathway from one side of the cellar to the other. The air blown into the ventilation intake openings would therefore, for the most part, be immediately sucked out through the ventilation outlet openings located nearby.[479] Therefore, it must be expected that the actual ventilation time would be greatly increased in comparison to a perfect mixing of fresh air and stale air as a result of this poor design.

In addition, the following problem would also arise: the Zyklon B granules, which in the meantime would certainly have become moist, would lie trapped underneath the bodies in at least some places. To understand how this would effect the ventilation, we have carried out a simulation calculation based on the following assumption:

1. At 15°C, the moist Zyklon B releases hydrogen cyanide in the dry environment in the manner described by R. Irmscher (see chapter 7.2.).
2. Reaching an average concentration of hydrogen cyanide throughout the entire chamber of approximately 5-6 g/m³ after 5 minutes and/or approximately 10-12 g/m³ after 10 minutes (0.5 or 1 Vol.-%)-necessary for the rapid killing of all victims according to the eyewitnesses-requires the use of approximately 20 kg of Zyklon B (see chapter 7.3.1.3.).
3. The ventilation is turned on after 10 minutes, reducing the concentration of hydrogen cyanide according to the well-known formula (see chapter 7.3.2.2.2.)

The results may be taken from the Graph 15 for four air exchanges differing in efficiency: one air exchange every 6, 12, 24 and 96 minutes.[480] A few average values are listed in Table 11, taken from the individual scenarios. The value for 5g/m³ indicates, when the HCN concentration falls below a value at which it is possible to enter the chamber with a gas mask, but without protective garment and without performing physical work. The value for 2g/m³ should lie in the vicinity of a value permitting light physical work with a gas mask, but without protective garment. The value for 0.1g/m³ indicates when the HCN concentration falls below a concentration permitting entry of the chamber without a gas mask and without any health hazard. The column with the heading "∫c(t) dt/10g/m³" finally corresponds to a tenth of the surface area under the particular curve. The value corresponds to the duration of a hypothetical gassing of a chamber with a constant 10g/m³ HCN, when the hydrogen cyanide suddenly rises at the beginning of this period of time and then suddenly disappears at the end of this period. These values can now be used for simulation calculations; see next chapter.

The 6 min/air exchange applies in the absence of a short circuit of the air in the chamber. The 12 min/air exchange corresponds to this necessary correction. Both cases assume an empty chamber. In fact, the ventilation of the intermediate area between the hundreds of bodies allegedly lying around on the floor, and the Zyklon B trapped underneath, will further slow the procedure to a considerable extent, so that, in relation to a hazard-free entry of the chamber, the truth will rather lie somewhere between cases two and four or beyond them.

It may be considered established that under no circumstances could these cellars be entered without a gas mask in less than 3-4 hours after the beginning of the gassing. Hard physical work with gas masks, but without protective clothes, i.e., the alleged removal of the bodies, would not have been possible in less than 1¹/₂ to 2 hours.

If assuming the existence of Zyklon B introduction devices which allowed the removal of Zyklon after the end of the gassing, the resulting data would, of course, look dramatically different, see Table 12. Under such circumstances, it might have been possible to enter the 'gas chamber' with a gas mask for hard labor already after 30 to 45 minutes, and without a gas mask within one to two hours. This would then lie at least within the range of some less extravagant eyewitness accounts. That explains also, why Pressac and van Pelt insist on the existence of these introduction columns, contrary to all physical evidence and despite the lack of any documentary proof and reliable witness testimony. Without those introduction columns, however, the scenarios described by eyewitnesses regarding a swift removal of the corpses from the 'gas chamber' after the gassing are simply impossible.

These are, of course, only calculated guesses; if one were to ask me whether I would rely upon these values and enter such a 'gas chamber' without a gas mask, I would reply that I preferred to insist upon the performance of a traditional chemical test beforehand. The simple reason for this is that all reliable calculation would be rendered impossible by the Zyklon B trapped beneath the bodies, as well as by the wet bodies moistened with hydrogen cyanide.

The rooms in crematoria IV and V which purportedly served as 'gas chambers,' like farmhouses I and II, allegedly had no ventilation installation and only slight ventilation possibilities by means of a few doors. The use of a room without efficient ventilation installations for mass murder at a time and in a place, where even dissecting rooms, wash rooms, and laying-out rooms could be and were equipped with ventilation installations, and where many ventilation fans were supplying lots of fresh air in disinfestation rooms right next door, is so absurd that any rational human being ought to refuse to take such stories seriously.

The following are the results a series of simulation calculations for the determination of the relative saturation of the masonry with hydrogen cyanide based on the assumption that similar concentrations of hydrogen cyanide are used in all cases. In so doing, a distinction is made between two sets of circumstances:

1. Disinfestation chamber. The constant concentration assumed for the calculation amounts to 10 g/m³. A constant concentration cannot, however, be assumed, particularly for the existing epidemic disinfestation installations BW 5a und 5b existing in Birkenau, since great quantities of hydrogen cyanide would escape through the non-airtight roof on the one hand, and since both the masonry and the clothing would have absorbed considerable quantities of hydrogen cyanide over time (see chapter 7.3.1.3.3.). We therefore assume two models, as follows: a) one gassing daily with a constant concentration over 6 hours, and b) one gassing daily with 12 hours of constant concentration.[481] This would mean that the chamber was used around the clock, i.e., more or less 24 hours a day, seven days a week, which must be viewed as the extreme upper value.

2. Homicidal 'gas chamber.' Here as well, our calculation assumes a constant concentration of 10 g/m³. I have selected two different gassing times here: 1/20 day (72 min) and 1/100 of a day (14.4 min). The first value corresponds to the average constant exposure time of 'gas chamber' walls to HCN if assuming no Zyklon B introduction columns and a fairly good ventilation after the gassing (see 5^th column in Table 11), the second value corresponds to the same scenario, but this time with Zyklon B columns and a close to perfect ventilation after the gassing (see 5^th column in Table 12).

In former editions of this expert report, I have used the equations determined in chapter 6.7.4. to calculate the relative saturation of masonry cyclically exposed to hydrogen cyanide. However, after using several approaches on exactly how to do it, which lead to sometimes quite different results,[482] I decided to refer to this equation only in order to establish the time it takes for masonry to reach its maximum saturation or a quasi-constant concentration (20 days and 20 daily cycles, respectively). In this edition, the quasi-stationary concentration in masonry were calculated iteratively using Fick's law of diffusion.[483]

One wall model used was considered to be insulated at one end that corresponds to the situation as given in morgues 1 of crematoria II and III, which were built of two layers of brick wall with a insulating layer of tar in between.[484] The other wall model had no such insulation, i.e., it lost HCN on its 'outside,' leading to an average concentration within the entire wall which is roughly half as high as in the insulated case. This was the situation as it was given in the Zyklon B disinfestation rooms of BW 5a and BW 5b.

Table 13 shows the results of these calculations. Whereas the average concentration profiles of the insulated wall model is constant, it is linearly decreasing in the non-insulated walls from the inside out. The maximum average values close to the inner, HCN-exposed surface are quite comparable to the respective constant average concentrations in the insulated cases.

I have emphasized the values of particular interest: In case of homicidal gassings in the morgues 1 of crematoria II and III (without Zyklon B introduction columns), the walls will reach a quasi-stationary concentration of 8% of their saturation concentration. In case of disinfestation chambers, the value given for 6 hours of exposure to a constant HCN concentration-corresponding to a round-the-clock operation-leads to ca. 16% for the average value of the entire wall, and some 30% for the surface.

The values under consideration here are percent values of the saturation concentration of a wall, i.e., relative values. The cases of the disinfestation and homicidal 'gas chamber' are only correctly comparable when one considers the absolute hydrogen cyanide concentrations in the masonry. If, for example, one considers that, in particular, the interior walls of the disinfestation chambers intended for personal effects were warm, dry walls, while the alleged homicidal 'gas chambers' in crematoria II and III were cool and very moist, then, with equal gassing concentrations, one must multiply the relative concentrations of the homicidal 'gas chamber' by the factor of the increased hydrogen cyanide absorption capability of cool, moist walls. If one assumes the value of 8 determined in this regard on page 187, then the absolute average hydrogen cyanide content of the homicidal 'gas chamber' would be a value lying around 64% of the saturation concentration of a warm, dry wall in a disinfestation chamber, i.e., four times higher than the average hydrogen cyanide content of the disinfestation chamber wall (ca. 16%), and more than twice as high as its maximum content at the surface (ca. 30%). Even when assuming the existence of Zyklon B introduction columns and a close to perfect success of the subsequent ventilation, the moist and cool homicidal 'gas chamber' walls would still have accumulated HCN corresponding to 13% of the average saturation of dry disinfestation walls, which is close to what would accumulate in those disinfestation walls (16%).

As a result of the high moisture content of those underground morgues, one can see that even with such short gassing times, the walls of a homicidal 'gas chamber' accumulate a hydrogen cyanide content which would be quite comparable to that of a disinfestation chamber. Much less hydrogen cyanide in the quasi-stationary condition of the hypothetical homicidal 'gas chambers' could only be expected, if one were to assume absurdly short, but technically unfeasible gassing times, the application of very little Zyklon B, or only very few gassings at all.

Filter devices to protect against hazardous and/or lethal gases and vapors are divided a) into types according to the kind of gas to be filtered and b) into classes according to their capacity. Filters of class 3 with a large capacity are stored externally, usually in a container to be carried at one's side, since they are too heavy to be carried on the mask. They are connected to the mask with a hose. Filters of class 2 are screwed into the mask and form the majority of all used filter types. Filters of class 1 are plug-in filters.

The service life of gas filters depends on:

• Type and concentration of the harmful compound;
• Air demand of the carrier, as a function of the intensity of work performed and the personal constitution;
• Humidity and temperature of the air.

Needless to say that the Deutsche Institut für Normung (DIN, German Institute for Standardization) has determined the minimum values of break-through times of filters under standard testing conditions. These conditions are:

• 20°C;
• 70 % relative humidity of air;
• 30 liters flow-through of air per minute.

In Table 15 the values of different filter types are given with their respective harmful gas.

Hydrogen cyanide filters used by the allies during that time belonged to class 3 with filters to be carried externally. The service life of such filters at hard physical labor and 0.05 vol.% of hydrogen cyanide is given with 3 to 5 hours. At a concentration of over 1 vol.%, the gas quickly breaks through even these devices.[487]

R. Queisner wrote a report about his experiences with German filter devices used during the Second World War for delousing procedures with hydrogen cyanide.[488] The filter inserts "J" and "G" used at that time were especially developed for being applied in air containing hydrogen cyanide and had a service life of 30 min. with a peak load of 1 vol.%. Since the mask carrier is only exposed to small amounts of hydrogen cyanide during delousing activities (during distribution of the product and at the end of the gassing, the hydrogen cyanide concentration is rather low), experience showed that it is possible to use the mask several hours.

According to Schmidt,[422] relaxed humans inhale some 14 liters of air per minute. This can increase up to 50 to 60 liters per minute in case of heavy physical work, in extreme cases even up to 100 to 120 liters.

If, according to Pressac and in agreement with the witness accounts, a concentration of 1 vol.% was used during the gassings, the inmates of the special commands ('Sonderkommandos'), who carried away the corpses out of the 'gas chambers' of the crematorium IV and V as well as out of the farmhouses I/II, which did not have a ventilation system, had to wear gas masks. Equipped with gas filters of class 2 and doing heavy physical work, they would have been exposed to a high concentration of toxic gas. Since hydrogen cyanide is particularly well absorbed through sweat-wet skin, this would certainly have led to signs of poisoning.

The minimum break-through times of corresponding modern gas filters of class 2, type B (for hydrogen cyanide) lies at 25 min. for 0.5 vol.% at an air flow-through of 30 liters per min. In case of a sufficiently hard physical labor, this time will be quickly cut to half or a quarter. Therefore, a modern filter of class 2 can offer only several minutes of safety under the circumstances under consideration. Breathing would have been seriously hindered by these filters (max. 5.6 mbar pressure difference at 95 l per min. according to the current DIN), hence the working speed would have been slow and the demand for resting times and forced pauses due to gas poisonings would have been huge. Since they were especially designed for hydrogen cyanide, the filters of that time had a higher capacity, and consequently their durability might have been correspondingly higher, which, in turn, increased their service time.

Pressac writes[489] that a hydrogen cyanide concentration of 1 vol.% is not tolerable even with filter mask, and that an exposure time of up to one minute is granted only in emergency cases, and this without any heavy physical work!

Finally, a poisoning through the sweat-wet skin would have been avoidable under these circumstances only if the workers would have worked with protective garments in the 'gas chamber', which was not reported by any witness and which would have reduced the working performance even more. The accounts of some witnesses regarding the applied concentrations and the quick clearing of the chamber after the execution without protective garments and masks, on which even Pressac relies, exclude each other and thus can certainly not be correct.

It should not be forgotten here that hydrogen cyanide is a contact poison. Transporting corpses, on whose skin huge, possible lethal amounts of hydrogen cyanide are absorbed, had required that the special commands dealing with these corpses had to wear protective clothes. Finally, when considering the applied concentrations attested to, the guards, like the special commands, would have risked their health. This is true for all 'gas chambers'.

It is possible to provide a satisfactory answer to the problem of the Zyklon B introduction holes in the roofs of morgue 1 (the 'gas chambers') of crematoria II and III through the interpretation of air photos and structural considerations. One must therefore conclude that the holes and cracks visible today were only put in during or after the destruction of the building during the winter of 1944-45. This means that the poison gas could not have been introduced into the alleged 'gas chambers' in the manner described by the eyewitnesses.

The rapidity of the executions as described by the eyewitnesses, in their extreme values ("a few moments", "a few minutes", "two minutes", etc.) cannot, once again, be attained with Zyklon B under the given technical conditions, and can only be attained through the use of very high quantities of Zyklon B.

Entering the 'gas chambers' without protective measures, the performance of heavy physical work in the chambers, sometimes with a naked torso, while eating and smoking, along with testimony relating to large quantities of toxic gas, reveals the perjury of these eyewitnesses.[490]

Equally false are the statements relating to the duration of ventilation of morgue 1 (the 'gas chamber') of crematoria II and III, since the ventilation would be greatly influenced by various factors (hindrance of circulation by the bodies, the short circuit in the ventilation pathway, the release of hydrogen cyanide by Zyklon B). In fact, safe entry into the 'gas chamber' without protective measures can hardly have been possible in less than three to four hours. Finally, heavy physical work could only have been conceivable before the expiration of at least another one and a half hours, even with gas masks.

The eyewitness testimonies relating to the alleged cremation of the bodies, finally, are riddled with fantasy: cremation in deep ditches; cremation with liquid fuels; entirely without-or with ridiculously little-fuel; the destruction of corpses with explosives; the collection of human fat. These have nothing in common with technical reality or possibility, and are largely refuted by the Allied aerial photographic evidence: no huge ditches, no smoke, no fire, no fuel storage areas.

The illogical and ridiculous- in Pressac's words-gassing scenarios in the 'gas chambers' of crematoria IV and V as well as the comparable ones in farmhouses I and II, would have been extremely dangerous for the Sonderkommandos (see chapter 5.4.2. and 5.4.3.). Yet these 'gas chambers' must have been planned and built as instruments of mass murder,[491] if mass gassings were already underway elsewhere in the camp during their period of construction. All of this must compel people accustomed to thinking in terms of technology and the natural sciences to conclude that the Germans must have decided to choose absolutely the most expensive, laborious, most dangerous and difficult way possible in which to kill people en masse.

It would have been logical, for propaganda purposes, to have described the installations such as the disinfestation chambers intended for personal effects located in buildings 5a and 5b as homicidal 'gas chambers'. But this was never attempted, nor are there any eyewitness testimonies as to such a utilization of these premises. Furthermore, the doors drawn in the plans of the disinfestation chambers of buildings 5b-as well as the doors located there today-open inwards, which would have rendered it impossible to remove bodies lying in front of the doors after the mass gassings. These rooms were, therefore, certainly never used as homicidal 'gas chambers'. It is nevertheless possible that an attempt was made to represent the disinfestation chamber in building 5b as a (fake) homicidal 'gas chamber'. The water pipes visible there hang freely in space inside the room, without any connection; only a few of them are equipped with shower heads, while they terminate in the ventilation openings in the exterior wall, i.e., they were installed after the removal of the disinfestation devices (ovens, ventilators, and so on), very probably after the German withdrawal (see Fig. 20). Remarkably, all pipes and fittings have been removed from the real shower room in the same wing (see Fig. 17). In case this is not an attempted falsification, it is still possible that this wing was clumsily converted into a shower room after the end of the war, when Birkenau was used as prisoner camp for Germans. But this is not likely, since this building had proper showers already, so why dismantle them first, and then construct a makeshift shower in a room unsuitable for it?

Brief mention should be made at this point of the widespread notion that the toxic gas streamed into the alleged homicidal 'gas chamber' through shower heads, especially as there are even a few such eyewitness statements. Zyklon B consists of the active ingredient, hydrogen cyanide, adsorbed on a solid carrier material (gypsum) and only released gradually. Since it was neither a liquid nor a gas under pressure, the hydrogen cyanide from this product could never have traveled through narrow water pipes and shower heads. Possible showers, or fake shower heads, could therefore only have been used to deceive the victims; they could never have been used for the introduction of this poison gas. There is general unanimity as to this point, no matter what else might be in dispute.

"Gérard Roubeix 51 Av. de la Coquetterie 44000 Nantes

Nantes, the 2nd Nov. 1997 to M. Michel Adam c/o ANEC PO Box 21 44530 St. Gildas-des-Bois

 

Sir,

Having learned about the odious persecution of which you are a victim in the name of 'freedom of expression', let me express all of my sympathy and my total solidarity to you.

I have spent 20 years of my career as an engineer in the hydrogen cyanide industry in the service of the groups Pechiney-Ugine-Kuhlmann and Charbonnages de France. In particular, I have been the director of the St. Avold plant, which in 1970, with its production of 40 tons of cyanides per day, was the most important plant worldwide; theoretically, this production would have allowed the lethal poisoning of 500 million human beings on a single day. This shows how I am aware of the problems regarding the handling of HCN. Well, I affirm that all the 'testimonies' I have read or heard of concerning these gas chambers, in which 2 to 3,000 people were crammed, are nothing but total fantasy.

I congratulate you for your admirable battle against the hoax. The truth is on its way.

[signed Roubeix]

P.S: You may use this testimony, if necessary."

Michel Adam was a teacher of history and geography in the West of France. At the beginning of July 1997, as a former lady deportee to the concentration camp of Ravensbrück was giving a conference at his school telling about her 'memories,' he opposed the lady several times by using solid revisionist arguments. Michel Adam was immediately suspended and, after one year of troubles of all sorts, he was dismissed by French Minister for the Arts Claude Allègre on account of the three following official reasons:

• showing his revisionist views in front of his pupils;
• disturbing a meeting of his pupils with a former deportee;
• showing doubts about the credibility of a deportee's testimony.

Already in 1998, Gérard Roubeix wrote a similar letter which has been published elsewhere.[492] He died in 2001.

ANEC stands for Association normande pour l'éveil du citoyen, (Norman Association for the Warning of Citizens), which was an association created by the Normandy teacher Vincent Reynouard, who, just as Michel Adams before him, lost his job because of his revisionist views and was sentenced to fines and a three months prison term.[493] ANEC published 36 issues of the revisionist periodical Nouvelle Vision.

One might naturally wonder why the SS are supposed to have decided to use Zyklon B as an instrument of mass murder. The Soviets, at any rate, killed countless millions of human beings either simply by shooting them in the back of the neck or allowing them to die in camps under miserable conditions. Surely it would have been simpler to leave the people deported to Auschwitz to their fate; they would have perished from hunger and epidemics within a very short time anyway. That is how the Americans murdered approximately 1 million German civilian internees after the end of the Second World War.[494] Instead, the SS at Auschwitz spent almost one billion dollars, in today's values, to bring the epidemics raging there under control, incurring huge expenditures on medical facilities, to cure the internees from the typhus epidemics, which were very often fatal.[495] This alone speaks volumes about the credibility of the conventional wisdom.

The academic question, therefore, of whether or not some other poison gas would have been better suited for the mass murders instead of hydrogen cyanide in the form of Zyklon B cannot, in the last analysis, be answered, since there are no scientifically documented experimental values for mass murder by poison gas.

Theoretically, one could, at that time, have chosen between nitrogen (N₂), carbon dioxide (CO₂), carbon monoxide (CO), phosgene (COCl₂), chlorine (Cl₂), hydrogen cyanide (HCN), nerve gases such as Tabun and Sarin, Diesel engine exhaust, internal combustion engine exhaust, producer gas, coke or city gas, process gas, and, possibly, still other, entirely different, instruments of mass murder, suitable even under completely different circumstances (shooting in the back of the neck, hunger, epidemics). But if one really wished to take the trouble to commit mass killings with poison gas, it is most probable that one would have used carbon monoxide, which is definitely lethal to human beings above 0.1%, for the following reasons:

1. The poison gas CO was available in limitless quantities and in lethal concentrations at giveaway prices, substantially cheaper than Zyklon B, on almost every street corner in the Third Reich:

1. Internal combustion engines easily attain a CO content of 7% by volume, so that it would have been suitable for mass murder. Nevertheless only a very small minority of eyewitnesses speak of the use of internal combustion engines in only one German concentration camp (Sobibor).[496]
2. Producer gas generators generate a gaseous mixture with a proportion of CO of up to 35% by volume, using only wood or coke, air and water. These generators were installed in hundreds of thousands of vehicles all over German-occupied Europe during the Second World War, since it was necessary to convert to alternate fuels due to the Allied oil blockade. As F.P. Berg has shown, every member of the German Reich Government was familiar with these extraordinarily economical and easily operated installations with their quickly lethal toxic gas, especially the transport experts, whose duty it was to gradually replace all Diesel and internal combustion engines with generator gas installations. These were, in some cases, exactly the same people who were entrusted with the deportation and allegedly with the killing of Jews-such as Adolf Eichmann, for example.[496] But it has never been claimed that these installations were used for purposes of homicide.
3. Toxic city gas with a CO portion of up to 30% by volume was available in every major city for a ridiculously low price. Consideration would obviously have been given to committing murder with it.
4. Process gas: The German corporate giant I.G. Farbenindustrie AG had already built a coal gasification/liquidification plant only a few kilometers away from Auschwitz concentration camp in the early 1940s. Here, by means of various conversion processes, coal was converted into chemical end products, from which oils, fats, fuels, and synthetic rubbers could be processed. The first step in this process is the generation of process gas, which has a similar composition to coke gas or city gas. The I.G. Farbenindustrie AG factory had a concentration camp in its immediate vicinity by the name of Monowitz, which was connected to the extensive system of more than 30 different Auschwitz concentration camps more than 30 kilometers in Upper Silesia and Western Poland. If the SS had looked for a simpler way to kill millions of Jews, the center of extermination certainly would have been built in the vicinity of Monowitz, with a direct process gas pipeline from the I.G. Farbenindustrie AG factory.

2. It would not have been necessary to order and store CO and pay attention to the use-by date, as was necessary in the case of Zyklon B; carbon monoxide would have been available at all times, as soon as the economical installations were completed.
3. The handling of CO would have been considerably simpler for the executioners. Almost the only thing to pay attention to would have been the opening and closing of the CO valve. The handling of Zyklon B, on the other hand, would have demanded a remarkable number of safety precautions on the part of the executioners. The wearing of gas masks, and, when possible, additional protective clothing (gloves), the careful opening of the cans with a suitable tool, the careful introduction of the carrier through the openings, the careful disposal of the Zyklon B residues.
4. CO can be introduced simply and quickly through pressure pipes or through a blower, while Zyklon B, on the other hand, releases its toxic fumes only slowly.
5. In the case of CO, there would not have been so many problems with ventilating the air in the mass execution areas as with hydrogen cyanide/Zyklon B, since the introduction of CO could be stopped simply by closing a valve, and because CO does not adhere to surfaces and is almost insoluble in water-in extreme contrast to hydrogen cyanide.
6. Zyklon B was scarce and expensive, and was needed everywhere to combat epidemics such as typhus, including in the army and German-allied armed forces, so that any avoidable squandering of it for other purposes would have been avoided-even, and especially, at Auschwitz, where typhus threatened not only the lives of the inmates, but also the guards and civilians entering the camp or who lived in the vicinity. In plain English, this means that the typhus epidemic in Auschwitz concentration camp threatened the extremely important production of the war industries located in Upper Silesia, the second-greatest industrial region in Germany after the Ruhr at that time. The struggle against epidemics, for which Zyklon B was undoubtedly needed, was therefore of the greatest importance, in larger quantities than the manufacturer, DEGESCH, was able to deliver at that time.

Naturally, CO would not necessarily speed up the execution procedure in comparison to hydrogen cyanide, but it would have been safer, more easily available nearby, less complicated, and cheaper.[497]

Certainly,

As C. Mattogno and F. Deana have shown, the cremation installations at Auschwitz were never able to cremate the bodies of the dead from the various epidemics and other unhygienic conditions of Auschwitz camp which occurred anyway, not to mention the bodies allegedly occurring as the result of mass murders,[444] this is a further proof that there was never a program of mass homicide at Auschwitz.

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