Why does SanityCheck evade the Physical Evidence Question?

[Stubble]

I've downloaded the entire set and have them on an external. My copy of Adobe tells me that it can't search them because they are image files.

Maybe update Acrobat? My copy is searching them fine.

Fresh install. The correct answer may be 'pay for acrobat'.

[SanityCheck]

Again: your archaeology department involvement is shocking -- you evade precision while claiming expertise. Tsk tsk.

Uh wut? My university merged my history department with the archaeology department. That means more contact with archaeologists.

I was familiar before this merger three years ago with archaeological studies and historical studies emphasising landscapes, physical evidence and investigating death and body disposal. I can synthesise a good deal of this - work by historians, discussing cremation in historical circumstances away from WWII Europe, among other things - as a historian. That's 'expertise' of a sort, but no different to my having read a lot of legal literature for obvious reasons. IANAL, as they say; IANAA, not claiming to be. But neither is anyone on your side.

Aktion 1005 is Soviet hearsay (no explicit/contemporary documents, improbable logistics, zero unearthed graves at scale at German sites), so no surprise you rely on it so heavily. Your "networks" of this kind bloat unproven claims.

No, it's not.
1. dozens of contemporary German documents referencing Sonderkommando 1005, in connection also with known cremation sites, also referencing escaped prisoners smelling distinctly of corpse. No explanation for what 1005 was provided by Mattogno or any other revisionist.
2. dozens of contemporary Polish and Soviet underground and partisan reports, as well as fugitive accounts before liberation of escapees from 1005 detachments, noting the pattern of cremation sites
3. 'zero unearthed graves at scale at German sites' - flatly false, the Soviet and Polish war crimes commissions identified grave sites which had been exhumed and remains cremated, in contrast to identifying other grave sites which had not been targeted by 1005 and which contained corpses.
4. the sites in question are for the USSR very well documented in German records for the killings in 1941-42. Many of these sites also have population registration reports or registers immediately prior to killing actions, doubling up the sources (e.g. Bobruisk, Brest-Litovsk, Pinsk, Riga and others). Some of these actions were also noted by the Polish underground, which further refutes the 'Soviet hearsay' bullshit.
5. the sites in Poland include places of execution of non-Jews as well as Jews; documentation from the Germans is more variable, but for Erntefest includes some hard-to-explain documents noting the withdrawal of workforces who don't show up elsewhere, and the Polish underground provides detailed reportage of the killings and then reported on the exhumations and cremations, which could also be noted by other observers (diarists).
6. postwar investigations and interrogations identified the 1005 operation fairly quickly in the 1940s, later 1960s investigations harvested extensive accounts of service in 1005 units. Perimeter guards had little reason to deny this when they were not necessarily involved in killings (what would they be charged with?). Other Germans observed the cremations as well, knew about them, and together these accounts provide lots more detail on how cremations might be carried out, where fuel was sourced from, etc.

Considering the majority of mass graves in the occupied Soviet Union weren't targeted by 1005, especially in provincial areas away from the larger towns where the Germans began their quixotic attempt to cover up their crimes, there's already a problem with fussing over 1005. You might desire to deny all mass killings of Jews everywhere, but cannot point to either the camps or 1005 as a one neat trick for doing so, there were extensive mass graves left. So the goalposts move for you, and no doubt you can come up with excuses for why the other mass graves aren't acceptable evidence, even if this means insisting on a level of documentation that will be absent for equivalent mass killings in the modern era, before the rare exceptions like Srebrenica. But there are Srebrenica deniers, so the 'scientific' pose looks pretty threadbare when anything can be denied, if a partisan so chooses.

Then there's the problem for you of the documented prior presence of Jews in the towns, counties and regions targeted by deportations and mass shootings. The usual revisionist trick of claiming transfer or resettlement becomes even more ludicrous when we add in the documented Jews in the occupied Soviet territories. You might want to claim the Jews of Brest-Litovsk weren't killed in October 1942, that the documents we have about this action were faked, that all witnesses were lying, that the Polish underground made it up (but somehow despite the Polish-Soviet split communicated this to the Soviets), and maybe even that the claim of a 1005 cremation at Bronnaia Gora proves this. Which wouldn't solve the problem of explaining where the Jews of Brest-Litovsk, and indeed the 330,000 Jews of the Wolhynien region, were sent. Or the problem of showing with evidence that all the documents about the presence of Jews in the region, the local reports counting them in Brest, Pinsk, Rivne, Lutsk, and other towns in 1942, were faked, then arguing that all of the Jews in this region somehow were spirited away at some point - a claim requiring evidence.

Assignment:

You first, quantify where Jews were under German occupation in Eastern Europe for the end of 1942. That precedes systematic cremation at Treblinka, that's why you go first.

Stop evading historical reconstruction and historical explanation.

[SanityCheck]

I've downloaded the entire set and have them on an external. My copy of Adobe tells me that it can't search them because they are image files.

Maybe update Acrobat? My copy is searching them fine.

Fresh install. The correct answer may be 'pay for acrobat'.

It shouldn't be, my laptop was new in December and added a free version of Acrobat then.

[Stubble]

Maybe update Acrobat? My copy is searching them fine.

Fresh install. The correct answer may be 'pay for acrobat'.

It shouldn't be, my laptop was new in December and added a free version of Acrobat then.

I'll be damned, now working, ish. Thank you!

Update: after going through stuff again using search and trying to track it down, I am going to just retract. There are entirely too many rabbit trails in here and I can in no way stay focused on the prize Sir.

When I do finally run across it again, I will make a thread with a proper citation. I will also included the congressional testimony in the OP of that thread.

For now though, I retract.

[Callafangers]

Uh wut? My university merged my history department with the archaeology department. That means more contact with archaeologists.

I was familiar before this merger three years ago with archaeological studies and historical studies emphasising landscapes, physical evidence and investigating death and body disposal. I can synthesise a good deal of this - work by historians, discussing cremation in historical circumstances away from WWII Europe, among other things - as a historian. That's 'expertise' of a sort, but no different to my having read a lot of legal literature for obvious reasons. IANAL, as they say; IANAA, not claiming to be. But neither is anyone on your side.

Can we expect anything of this merger, insofar as precision of scale of corpse remains at AR camps? Will your colleagues in the archaeology department find no issue with your comfort in lack of precision exhibited throughout this thread?

1. dozens of contemporary German documents referencing Sonderkommando 1005, in connection also with known cremation sites, also referencing escaped prisoners smelling distinctly of corpse. No explanation for what 1005 was provided by Mattogno or any other revisionist.

Revisionists note that only a handful of documents exist mentioning SK 1005 (not "dozens"), and none specify exhumation/cremation tasks or connect it to "known cremation sites." They are late (mostly 1944), vague ("special tasks"), and lack detail on purpose or scale. Escaped prisoners "smelling of corpse" is presumably a late postwar claim, not contemporary, nor is it necessarily any indication of genocidal cover-up (as opposed to sanitation, etc.).

• "The documents analyzed here show that there was a Sonderkommando 1005, also referred to with the letters 'A' and 'B,' which was a 'Secret Reich Matter' and which corresponded to a 'special order of the Reichsführer SS'; one might also concede that it involved an 'assignment RFSS to SS Standartenführer Blobel,' but none of this provides us with any knowledge of the fundamental questions:
  1. When was it formed?
  2. Why was it formed?
  3. What were its duties?
  4. Why was it referred to by the number '1005'?" (Mattogno, p. 457)
• "A document cannot be confirmed by a testimony; if anything, then the exact opposite is true." (Mattogno, p. 453)

No revisionist denies SK 1005 existed at all; they challenge the orthodox link to cremations, as docs prove nothing beyond "special tasks" (e.g., anti-partisan; "Operation Zeppelin", p. 460).

2. dozens of contemporary Polish and Soviet underground and partisan reports, as well as fugitive accounts before liberation of escapees from 1005 detachments, noting the pattern of cremation sites

What this refers to is wartime propaganda, lacking forensic corroboration and contradicted by discrepancies (e.g., exaggerated victim numbers, absurd techniques). No pre-liberation reports detail SK 1005 cremations; postwar claims are coerced/invented.

• "The Soviet manipulations are well illustrated by the case of Ozarichi. [...] The fatality figures adopted by the Soviet reports are very discordant and range from 8,000 to 49,000 [...] Undoubtedly, the photographic documentation was a bit scant when it comes to materially documenting the deaths of 8,000-49,000 people" (Mattogno, pp. 425-427, on Soviet exaggeration via manipulated photos/reports).
• "The institution of the Soviet war crimes commissions was strictly propagandistic in intent [...] The case of Katyn is typical in this regard." (Mattogno, p. 423)

Regarding Polish underground reports, the pattern of alignment with Soviet atrocity narratives is confirmed far beyond just 'Aktion 1005'. And Polish underground reports (e.g., Biuletyn Informacyjny) mention no systematic cremations matching orthodox claims (e.g. Mattogno, p. 558: "no reports from any partisan unit, no citizen of Kiev ever wrote a diary entry or took a photograph of the smoke [at Babi Yar]").

3. 'zero unearthed graves at scale at German sites' - flatly false, the Soviet and Polish war crimes commissions identified grave sites which had been exhumed and remains cremated, in contrast to identifying other grave sites which had not been targeted by 1005 and which contained corpses.

Revisionists argue Soviets claimed vast numbers but exhumed tiny fractions (e.g., Kharkov: 15,000 claimed, ~500 exhumed; Ponary: 100,000 claimed, 515 exhumed), often without photos/forensics. "Unearthed" sites show no cremation evidence at claimed scales; untouched graves (e.g., Katyn) prove Soviet manipulation.

• "The case of Katyn is typical [of propagandistic Soviet war crimes commissions] [...] The Extraordinary State Commission collected numerous and at times slightly contradictory statements regarding the massacre of the Jews in occupied Smolensk" (Mattogno, pp. 408).
• "Orthodox Holocaust historiography treats the topic of mass graves by constantly pointing out, with extremely rare exceptions which will be examined later, the findings of the investigations of the various Soviet investigation commissions" (Mattogno, p. 404; notes their exaggeration/inaccuracy).

Soviets found small graves (hundreds, not tens of thousands) with intact bodies, contradicting cremation claims (Mattogno, p 651: "549 bodies were exhumed [...] 549 (presumably) real bodies as against 116,600 claimed ones").

4. the sites in question are for the USSR very well documented in German records for the killings in 1941-42. Many of these sites also have population registration reports or registers immediately prior to killing actions, doubling up the sources (e.g. Bobruisk, Brest-Litovsk, Pinsk, Riga and others). Some of these actions were also noted by the Polish underground, which further refutes the 'Soviet hearsay' bullshit.

Revisionists concede some documented killings (e.g., Bobruisk: 5,281), but note:

(a) figures often exaggerated/repeated without verification;
(b) population reports don't prove killings (many fled/evacuated);
(c) no docs mandate cremations;
(d) underground reports are hearsay, no forensics.

• "Orthodox Holocaust historiography has never proven that the authorities of the Reich planned and carried out a general plan on an institutional level to eliminate the bodies of the victims of the Einsatzgruppen [...] by means of a systematic operation of exhumation and cremation of bodies." (Mattogno, p. 757)
• "There is such an immense disproportion between the execution figures proclaimed in the various German reports and the corpses actually found that one can reasonably consider the proclaimed death toll to be greatly exaggerated." (Mattogno, p. 758)

Bobruisk: EM No. 148 lists 5,281, but no population register confirms; Soviet map shows small graves (Mattogno, p. 741: "the Yad Vashem photo archive [...] depicts victims of the POW camp"). Brest/Pinsk/Riga: Discrepancies between docs/photos (minimal numbers exhumed).

5. the sites in Poland include places of execution of non-Jews as well as Jews; documentation from the Germans is more variable, but for Erntefest includes some hard-to-explain documents noting the withdrawal of workforces who don't show up elsewhere, and the Polish underground provides detailed reportage of the killings and then reported on the exhumations and cremations, which could also be noted by other observers (diarists).

Erntefest documents are vague (no cremation specifics); underground reports amount to hearsay without forensics; no diarists confirm massive cremations; workforces were plausibly reassigned (anti-partisan).

• "The motivation, suggested by Desbois and declared true by Weliczker, for the fact that the 'death brigade' slept in tents, was presumably to keep them from seeing the killings of the Jews [...] This is contradicted by the book itself" (Mattogno, p. 513; on absurd claims).

Erntefest: No docs prove 1005 link; witnesses absurd (e.g., pyres 7m high; Mattogno, p. 685).

6. postwar investigations and interrogations identified the 1005 operation fairly quickly in the 1940s, later 1960s investigations harvested extensive accounts of service in 1005 units. Perimeter guards had little reason to deny this when they were not necessarily involved in killings (what would they be charged with?). Other Germans observed the cremations as well, knew about them, and together these accounts provide lots more detail on how cremations might be carried out, where fuel was sourced from, etc.

Revisionists: 1940s "identification" via coerced Soviet interrogations (NKGB); 1960s testimonies late (20+ yrs), contradictory/absurd (e.g., 1000-body pyres in 10min). Guards/perimeter observers had every reason to lie under duress. "Details" ignore physics/logistics (wood needs, pyre stability).

• Testimonies are late, contradictory, absurd; from coerced environments: "The series of miracles allowing Weliczker to survive [includes six escapes] had its final highlight" (Mattogno, p. 511; on witness absurdity).
• Major contradictions discussed here: https://holocaustencyclopedia.com/instr ... -1005/375/

Fuel/wood: Ignored by witnesses; impossible quantities (Mattogno, p. 555: "17,500 t ÷ 207.9 t/day = some 84 days").

Considering the majority of mass graves in the occupied Soviet Union weren't targeted by 1005, especially in provincial areas away from the larger towns where the Germans began their quixotic attempt to cover up their crimes, there's already a problem with fussing over 1005. You might desire to deny all mass killings of Jews everywhere, but cannot point to either the camps or 1005 as a one neat trick for doing so, there were extensive mass graves left. So the goalposts move for you, and no doubt you can come up with excuses for why the other mass graves aren't acceptable evidence, even if this means insisting on a level of documentation that will be absent for equivalent mass killings in the modern era, before the rare exceptions like Srebrenica. But there are Srebrenica deniers, so the 'scientific' pose looks pretty threadbare when anything can be denied, if a partisan so chooses.

Let's set aside the fallacy regarding Srebrenica; you run into the same issue of lacking evidence of scale here as you polish your turd. Yes, there were mass graves. Yes, many of them filled with Jews (during WW2, with Jews as key combatants and deeply involved as partisans). This doesn't substantiate your 'Holocaust' narrative of German insane barbarity, and not by a long shot. You sit firmly in defeat on all questions of physical evidence, even outside the camps.

Bottom-line: the "majority of untouched mass graves" claim crumbles under scrutiny, as Soviet commissions routinely exaggerated victim numbers while exhuming tiny fractions (e.g., Ponary: 100,000 claimed vs. 515 bodies; Kharkov: 15,000 vs. ~500), with post-1991 forensics confirming only small-scale graves inconsistent with Einsatzgruppen tallies of millions -- "There is such an immense disproportion between the execution figures proclaimed in the various German reports and the corpses actually found that one can reasonably consider the proclaimed death toll to be greatly exaggerated" (Mattogno, p. 758).

Then there's the problem for you of the documented prior presence of Jews in the towns, counties and regions targeted by deportations and mass shootings. The usual revisionist trick of claiming transfer or resettlement becomes even more ludicrous when we add in the documented Jews in the occupied Soviet territories. You might want to claim the Jews of Brest-Litovsk weren't killed in October 1942, that the documents we have about this action were faked, that all witnesses were lying, that the Polish underground made it up (but somehow despite the Polish-Soviet split communicated this to the Soviets), and maybe even that the claim of a 1005 cremation at Bronnaia Gora proves this. Which wouldn't solve the problem of explaining where the Jews of Brest-Litovsk, and indeed the 330,000 Jews of the Wolhynien region, were sent. Or the problem of showing with evidence that all the documents about the presence of Jews in the region, the local reports counting them in Brest, Pinsk, Rivne, Lutsk, and other towns in 1942, were faked, then arguing that all of the Jews in this region somehow were spirited away at some point - a claim requiring evidence.

Jewish demographics allow for evacuation/flight east (e.g., 330,000 Volhynian Jews: pre-war censuses show fluid populations, Soviet evacuations documented; Brest-Litovsk: no mass grave forensics match 30,000+ claims, Polish underground hearsay uncorroborated). Revisionists demand basics like bodies/ash at scale (absent even at Srebrenica-equivalents), not "modern documentation," as EM reports themselves are inflated without graves: "Orthodox Holocaust historiography has never proven... a systematic operation of exhumation and cremation of bodies" (Mattogno, p. 757).
Transfers are evidenced by rail manifests/ghetto inflows, documented Final Solution policy, and patterns of eastbound transit -- not requiring "spiriting away" fantasies.

Assignment:

You first, quantify where Jews were under German occupation in Eastern Europe for the end of 1942. That precedes systematic cremation at Treblinka, that's why you go first.

Wrong. The historical question is: what happened to the Jews of Europe, with the default answer being "we don't know". You claim, "they were murdered". This is why you necessarily go first, no matter how unfortunate and clear it becomes that your physical evidence case is (and always has been) DOA.

[Wahrheitssucher]

[Admin note: corrected quote structure -CF]

Assignment:

You first, quantify where Jews were under German occupation in Eastern Europe for the end of 1942. That precedes systematic cremation at Treblinka, that's why you go first.

Wrong. The historical question is: what happened to the Jews of Europe, with the default answer being "we don't know". You claim, "they were murdered". This is why you necessarily go first, no matter how unfortunate and clear it becomes that your physical evidence case is (and always has been) DOA.

Exactly.

This really isn’t complicated.

[Callafangers]

With countless recent examples again and again confirming the explosion of interest and popularity in revisionist views, such as the videos featured in the OP of these threads:

Tucker Carlson: Holocaust remembrance is a civic religion "complete with blasphemy laws"
https://www.codohforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=799

Mysticism, Hubris, and the 'Holocaust'
https://www.codohforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=796

...I face the realization that the downfall of the 'Holocaust' establishment will most likely take the form of a slow drift into obsolescence. As revisionist views become known and common, the whole question of whether one 'believes' in the Holocaust narrative will come down to just how much weight one places on problematic witness claims and spurious documentation produced amid massive political incentives (and evidenced prevalence of ulterior motives), since all other evidence points the other direction.

For most people, the answer will be: not much.

Scholars/academics in the camp of Dr. Terry will remain unfruitful in their efforts to substantiate their claims in ways that are anything-scientific, increasingly becoming more aligned as theologians than actual arbiters or chief authorities in matters of true and objective history.

[Hans]

[*] "A document cannot be confirmed by a testimony; if anything, then the exact opposite is true." (Mattogno, p. 453) [/list]
No revisionist denies SK 1005 existed at all; they challenge the orthodox link to cremations, as docs prove nothing beyond "special tasks" (e.g., anti-partisan; "Operation Zeppelin", p. 460).

Jewish corpses were burnt at Fort IX in Kaunas and guess the Fort was operation zone of Sonderkommando 1005. It's almost as if all those witnesses about Sonderkommando 1005 clearing the mass graves were right after all.

Besides Sonderkommando 1005 was formally assigned to Eichmann's office - and you all know what his office was about.

[Callafangers]

Jewish corpses were burnt at Fort IX in Kaunas and guess the Fort was operation zone of Sonderkommando 1005. It's almost as if all those witnesses about Sonderkommando 1005 clearing the mass graves were right after all.

Besides Sonderkommando 1005 was formally assigned to Eichmann's office - and you all know what his office was about.

But Hans, the November 1943 report only mentions “nighttime fires at Fort IX” -- nothing about scale, duration, etc. Moreover, the same report gives an explanation:

"In the city of Kaunas, a rumor is currently circulating that Lithuania is to be handed over to Russia; for this purpose, the remains of Jews are now being burned."

If concealing all Jewish remains everywhere was a global directive, how does a local 'circulating rumor' bear any relevance?

The February 1944 report you provided indicates it as an "construction site":

Gendarmeriemeister Apelt [Fort IX guard detachment leader] has hitherto commendably fulfilled his duties and has always been striving to advance the work at the construction site.

Altogether, this seems to suggest at most a secondary effort of corpse cremations (no mention of exhumations), based on local rumors.

In addition to pointing out numerous unresolved contradictions and discrepancies in related documents, Mattogno highlights how 'Sonderkommando 1005' is never documented in connection to exhumation and cremation operations. Moreover, he gives examples which show this Sonderkommando had likely nothing at all to do with exhumation/cremation, such as (p. 456):

In the distribution list of the Auschwitz Camp’s Garrison Order No. 24 of 21 September 1944 appears – the only time in the entire series of orders – a “Sonderkommando 1005” (Frei et al., pp. 493-495, 556). This order referred exclusively to the Auschwitz Camp, and it contains no reference to exhumations or cremations of corpses. Hence, even if it was intended for a “Sonderkommando 1005,” one cannot believe that it had any reference to exhumations and cremations. At this point, according to orthodox Holocaust historiography, there was only “Sonderkommando 1005b” left, which operated in Riga until mid-September 1944. Riga is about 1,000 road kilometers distant from Auschwitz: if this was “Sonderkommando 1005,” what did it have to do with Auschwitz?

[Hans]

Jewish corpses were burnt at Fort IX in Kaunas and guess the Fort was operation zone of Sonderkommando 1005. It's almost as if all those witnesses about Sonderkommando 1005 clearing the mass graves were right after all.

Besides Sonderkommando 1005 was formally assigned to Eichmann's office - and you all know what his office was about.

But Hans,the November 1943 report only mentions “nighttime fires at Fort IX” -- nothing about scale, duration, etc

The point is that there’s a link to cremation and Sonderkommando 1005 - something you described as contested by "Revisionists". In a discussion, it’s good to acknowledge progress once a while.

Moreover, the same report gives an explanation:

"In the city of Kaunas, a rumor is currently circulating that Lithuania is to be handed over to Russia; for this purpose, the remains of Jews are now being burned."

If concealing all Jewish remains everywhere was a global directive, how does a local 'circulating rumor' bear any relevance?

The report contains two distinct elements:

1)The criminal police determined that the nighttime fires at Fort IX were caused by the burning of "Jewish bones" (which suggests the clearing of earlier burial sites).

2) A rumor among the local population to explain WHY this happens

Those are not the same thing. The population observed the activity (burning of remains) and tried to interpret it through the lens of their own fears - namely, that Lithuania might be handed over to the Soviets etc. This does only show how the operation was interpreted and perceived locally. The real scope and intent of Sonderkommando 1005 were not known to Kaunas population.

The February 1944 report you provided indicates it as an "construction site":

Operations of Sonderkommando 1005 required significant construction work: erection of security fencing, excavating mass graves, constructing pyres, and leveling terrain (using construction machinery). It fits well within the known pattern of bureaucratic camouflage that Eichmann referenced construction here.

In addition to pointing out numerous unresolved contradictions and discrepancies in related documents, Mattogno highlights how 'Sonderkommando 1005' is never documented in connection to exhumation and cremation operations. Moreover, he gives examples which show this Sonderkommando had likely nothing at all to do with exhumation/cremation, such as (p. 456):

This unit of Sonderkommando 1005 was retreating from its previous operation zone in the Baltics to Auschwitz / Stutthof, possibly employed to guard prisoners evacuations. This in no way shows that the commando had no involvement in exhumation and cremation prior to its westward retreat. That tells us about its final movements, not its earlier function.

Doesn’t the extreme level of secrecy surrounding Sonderkommando 1005 - so absurdly strict that even SS investigators were not meant to know about it - give you pause?

Let's face it, no alternative explanation convincingly accounts for the extreme secrecy, its assignment to Eichmann's office, the consistently vague and euphemistic descriptions, and the huge body of testimonial evidence describing it as an exhumation and cremation unit.

"Revisionists" have not provided a remotely plausible alternative explanation. I would say body disposal is far more convincing than having no explanation at all.

[Hans]

Just added another interesting SK 1005 correspondence:

Secrets at Kaunas Fort IX: "Told Me About Your Kommando 1005 B, Even Giving Me Concrete Figures”

A series of wartime letters from early 1944 shows how knowledge of Sonderkommando 1005 circulated within German military and SS circles. In this correspondence, Oberleutnant Willy Schell threatens SS-Obersturmführer Radif – who was at the time in custody in connection with the escape of Jewish prisoners from the Sonderkommando 1005 site at Fort IX in Kaunas– “to report to your superiors the careless manner in which you told me about your Kommando 1005 B, even giving me concrete figures.”

Schell sought to pressure Radif into retracting his testimony that Schell had disclosed an unspecified incident involving homosexual conduct.

In his reply, the Commander of the Security Police in Kaunas stated that “I will in any case hold SS-Obersturmführer Radif accountable in this matter, although I would note that the confidential matter you refer to has long been generally known and has even been described in detail in illegal Lithuanian propaganda leaflets”. The defensive tone of the response – the Security Police refrained from reporting Schell to the legal authorities as this “could have unforeseeable consequences” – underscores the sensitivity of the information.

So what makes these documents particularly interesting is the tension they reveal: on the one hand, Sonderkommando 1005 was an operation surrounded by extreme secrecy; on the other, fragments of its purpose – exhumation and destruction of bodies – were leaking beyond strictly controlled channels.

[Stubble]

Where is the mass graves registry from Berlin, Hans, what kind of volume are we talking about. We know that after the ground water contamination at Auschwitz Birkenau, there was concern regarding the environmental impact of mass graves. We also know that people were decimated in antipartisan actions. A hygiene operation to exhume the mass graves and to reduce their environmental impact doesn't surprise me, nor does surrounding secrecy.

[Hans]

Where is the mass graves registry from Berlin, Hans, what kind of volume are we talking about. We know that after the ground water contamination at Auschwitz Birkenau, there was concern regarding the environmental impact of mass graves. We also know that people were decimated in antipartisan actions. A hygiene operation to exhume the mass graves and to reduce their environmental impact doesn't surprise me, nor does surrounding secrecy.

Well, why would the Gestapo be concerned with "hygiene" in the Eastern territoriies in the first place? That responsibility lay with the civil administration. Indeed local authorities in Latvia were already handling mass graves by covering them with disinfectants and soil, Roberto has posted the documents a while back.

And why would the Germans launch a labor-intensive "hygiene" campaign in areas close to a retreating front anyway? The usual pattern in such situations was scorched-earth policy, not meticulous cleanup before withdrawal. The idea that they suddenly prioritized sanitary measures under those conditions is not plausible.

It makes far more sense if the purpose of Sonderkommando 1005 was to eliminate evidence of mass killing operations. These graves consisted largely of murdered Jews - hence Blobel was attached to Eichmann’s office - and preventing such evidence from falling into enemy hands would have been a clear priority of highest secrecy.

[Stubble]

What, year are you talking about Hans? Is this, late 1944? During the withdrawal? Or when the front stretched deep into the Soviet Union and victory was in sight? Now you have me confused...

Feb of '44. That's not during a withdrawal or even a drawdown.

I also feel it fair to mention this speaks of an ongoing campaign, not, a new one.

[Callafangers]

The point is that there’s a link to cremation and Sonderkommando 1005 - something you described as contested by "Revisionists". In a discussion, it’s good to acknowledge progress once a while.

There is no documented link between exhumations/cremations and SK 1005 itself, as I already stated. You're assuming that rumors of the "fires at Fort IX" is a direct connection, despite your sole document tying SK 1005 to Fort IX referring only to "laborers" at Apelt's respected "construction site".

Notice the massive size of Fort IX (from Wikipedia and ww2aerialreconstudies.com):

Fort9.jpg (241.32 KiB) Viewed 341 times

Here is the claimed (unproven) mass grave site:

Fort9-2.jpg (138.26 KiB) Viewed 341 times

Given the alleged pyre was only large enough for 300 corpses at a time (per the official history), this facility is dramatically oversized for such an operation, which is a reflection of much larger-scale, mundane (construction) purposes.

This reflects any assumed "fires" being an initiative pertaining to the Fort itself (i.e. a secondary or tertiary function at this single construction site in Lithuania -- with no clear evidence of exhumations nor any particular scale of cremations) rather than to SK 1005. This in any case has zero reflection on SK 1005's presumed global operations.

The report contains two distinct elements:

1)The criminal police determined that the nighttime fires at Fort IX were caused by the burning of "Jewish bones" (which suggests the clearing of earlier burial sites).

2) A rumor among the local population to explain WHY this happens

Those are not the same thing. The population observed the activity (burning of remains) and tried to interpret it through the lens of their own fears - namely, that Lithuania might be handed over to the Soviets etc. This does only show how the operation was interpreted and perceived locally. The real scope and intent of Sonderkommando 1005 were not known to Kaunas population.

The November 1943 report mentions "nighttime fires" and "Jewish bones" -- nothing about exhumations, scale, duration, number of pyres, or any connection to a standing SK 1005 unit. The rumor explanation in the same document ties the fires directly to local panic over Lithuania being "handed over to Russia." You split the report into "two distinct elements," yet the text presents the rumor as the reason for the observed activity. If this was part of a top-secret, Eichmann-directed global trace-erasure operation (as you claim), why would a local rumor about imminent Soviet handover be offered as the operative explanation in an official security police Meldung?

Operations of Sonderkommando 1005 required significant construction work: erection of security fencing, excavating mass graves, constructing pyres, and leveling terrain (using construction machinery). It fits well within the known pattern of bureaucratic camouflage that Eichmann referenced construction here.

Explain as you will, the February 1944 Schnellbrief calls the site a "Baustelle" (construction site) and praises Gendarmeriemeister Apelt for advancing "the work at the construction site." Mattogno (p. 455) notes this bureaucratic camouflage language is consistent with routine fort maintenance or anti-partisan engineering -- not the erection of massive pyres for 12,000+ bodies. No document in the entire SK 1005 corpus ever uses terms like "exhumation", "cremation" or similar.

Just added another interesting SK 1005 correspondence:

Secrets at Kaunas Fort IX: "Told Me About Your Kommando 1005 B, Even Giving Me Concrete Figures”

A series of wartime letters from early 1944 shows how knowledge of Sonderkommando 1005 circulated within German military and SS circles.

Your new Schell-Radi correspondence (Jan/Feb 1944) is even less helpful. It shows:

• Extreme sensitivity around knowledge of Kommando 1005 B leaking to outsiders (Schell threatens to report Radi for indiscretion; the KdS Litauen response admits the matter was “already generally known” and even appeared in illegal Lithuanian propaganda leaflets).
• No description whatsoever of what the Kommando actually did.
• The reply explicitly downplays the secrecy: the “confidential matter” had already circulated beyond controlled channels.

Mattogno (pp. 453-457) demonstrates that every known document mentioning SK 1005 (the Auschwitz Garrison Order, the Pinsk army report, the Lvov radio message, the Drews assignment, the British intercepts, etc.) either refers to it in purely administrative contexts or uses the identical vague “special tasks” phrasing -- never exhumation or cremation. The one time it appears at Auschwitz (Garrison Order 24, 21 Sept 1944), the unit is 1,000 km away in Riga according to orthodox chronology, and the order itself contains zero reference to graves or pyres.

Doesn’t the extreme level of secrecy surrounding Sonderkommando 1005 - so absurdly strict that even SS investigators were not meant to know about it - give you pause?

Sure, but not the way you intend. A genuine global trace-erasure operation ordered by Himmler/Eichmann would have generated some internal paperwork on logistics, fuel, machinery, and reporting (even if coded). Instead we have a handful of administrative mentions of a unit engaged in undefined "special tasks," assigned to Blobel yet never linked documentarily to graves or cremations, while the Einsatzgruppen shooting reports themselves were left intact.

If we are in the mood to acknowledge "progress", Hans, then we will need to evaluate all of the evidence together, simultaneously. Here's a shot:

SK1005-Claims.jpg (183.09 KiB) Viewed 341 times