Nessie wrote: ↑Sun Nov 10, 2024 9:16 amHow do you know that Pruefer just agreed with a made up Soviet narrative?
Your argument was that he "mirrored" his captors, but that this somehow still doesn't undermine the credibility of his testimony.
It does undermine his credibility. But, credibility is not the same as truthfulness and his truthfulness is established by corroborating evidence.
Pruefer is corroborated by other evidence. That is how historians know he told the truth about his work to modify the Kremas for mass gassings and cremations.
If so, why would he lie to his interrogators? Keep in mind, Pruefer confirmed the crematoria would have been unable to manage the number of alleged victims.
What did he lie about? He said what he thought was the cremation limit, but he also talked about the need for constant repairs, which fits with Sonderkommando evidence of exceeding the limits.
fireofice wrote: ↑Fri Oct 25, 2024 6:38 am
One of the biggest problems with the air raid shelter thesis in my opinion is the direction of the door opening. If you have an air raid shelter, you want to open it inward, not outward, as there could be debris blocking it from opening back up. This page of the HDOT website goes over that here:
Bomb shelters are designed with doors that open outward to prevent them being blown in by overpressure and an emergency egress must be present in case the door becomes blocked.
I used to have a bookmark for the design requirements and it called for the door to open out to prevent it being blown in by overpressure and for emergency egress. If you can find it, you will see.
I understand your reasoning, but, in my experience weighing different designs for my fallout shelter to keep my family safe in the event of a nuclear attack, the trade consensus is counter to your reasoning.
fireofice wrote: ↑Fri Oct 25, 2024 6:38 am
One of the biggest problems with the air raid shelter thesis in my opinion is the direction of the door opening. If you have an air raid shelter, you want to open it inward, not outward, as there could be debris blocking it from opening back up. This page of the HDOT website goes over that here:
Bomb shelters are designed with doors that open outward to prevent them being blown in by overpressure and an emergency egress must be present in case the door becomes blocked.
I used to have a bookmark for the design requirements and it called for the door to open out to prevent it being blown in by overpressure and for emergency egress. If you can find it, you will see.
I understand your reasoning, but, in my experience weighing different designs for my fallout shelter to keep my family safe in the event of a nuclear attack, the trade consensus is counter to your reasoning.
Edit: Spelling error.
Thanks for posting the very-interesting information about the Swedish bomb shelters and fallout shelters. In the U.S. Army, they taught us how to build some surprisingly-effective "fallout shelters" quickly. I recall it being in the U.S. Air Force Survival Manual as well, which was very well regarded.
I think it is important to note that the "gas-tight doors," with or without peepholes, in the Birkenau crematorium morgues and elsewhere, were not necessarily "bomb shelter" doors.
I think these doors generally open outward, but there may be exceptions. Contrary to Pressac, neither the opening direction, nor the fact that they were gas-tight and sometimes had peepholes is a so-called "criminal trace."
Also, not all Fallout Shelters are designed to be "bomb shelters," nor designed to withstand a blast.
A Fallout Shelter is just some place where people can go to get away from the powerful but short-lived radionucleides that fall from the sky with contaminated dust particles after a nuclear event (particularly a ground burst). You want to get inside fast and not breathe in any of this stuff.
In fact, after the first 48 hours there is only about 1 percent of radioactive fallout present, because so many of the powerful, lethal but short-lived fallout products have already decayed substantially.
For example, Iodine 131 has a half-life of 8 days, and after about 40 days (five half-lives) from the detonation time, it is basically irrelevant.
This is why Soviet era radiological kits included Potassium Iodide tablets for soldiers to swallow in the event of a nuclear detonation. What this does is saturate the thyroid gland with safe iodine so that less cancer-causing radioactive I-131 is absorbed. The U.S. chemical, biological, and radiological kits never included KI tablets for some reason. (Using KI tablets as a thyroid prophylactic in the case of fallout remains a subject full of controversial and contradicting information.)
We were told in the U.S. Army over forty years ago that the Soviet soldiers had them only because they were lied to about having "anti-radiation pills." Well, no, "anti-radiation pills" do not exist except on the television show Battlestar Galactica ─ but the American NCO teaching the NBC (Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical) class was ill-informed about what KI tablets are actually meant to do. (Most civilian radiological survival kits do have them from what I've seen.)
Conversely, a storm cellar such that you might find on a Midwestern farm designed to protect Dorothy from tornadoes and the wicked witch might be suitable as a bomb shelter ─ but possibly not as a fallout shelter, and still less so as a shelter from poison gas or biological attack.
I'm not an expert on storm shelters, and I think tornadoes do have negative pressure, so I am not sure if it is better that the doors open inward or outward. A cursory glance at storm shelters seems to have them all opening outwardly.
Anyway, below is a short video exploring the ruins of a World War II German hospital bunker that is in many ways surprisingly preserved.
Note throughout the number of gas-tight doors with peepholes throughout the interiror of the bunker, but also near the entryway. None (or almost none) of these are blast doors. (I'm not sure, but the blast or other doors on the exterior of the bunker seem to have been removed.)
In German Luftwaffe air-raid shelter design lierature, many of them have a standard package with filtered air pumps that are electrical but capable of being hand-cranked if there is no electrical power or if it fails. These would work well in a poison gas attack and also make ideal Fallout Shelters.
So in the video below, place close attention to the number of gas-tight doors inside covering small closets, washrooms for washing and decontamination, the surgical "theaters," etc. Remember that this bunker is a military hospital and not a prison camp supposedly dedicated to gassing Jews.
The facility has a complex ventilation system and many gas-tight doors which would help control temperature and disease vectors, and not just isolate things in the case of a poison gas, biological (or even radiological) attack.
Last edited by Scott on Mon Dec 23, 2024 4:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
A young General Napoleon Bonaparte gives the mob a "Whiff of Grapeshot" on the streets of Paris, and that "thing we specifically call French Revolution is blown into space by it."
~ Thomas Carlyle
I've read the field manual for expedient fallout shelter.
My point was more about overpressure. 3psi is all that is necessary to blow a door in. At 5psi, people without cover are almost certainly dead. These over pressures are easily produced by conventional munitions.
The design point about emergency egress is also important to note.
Personally I can think of no reason why a rational person would not seek shelter from falling bombs in a relatively sturdy concrete basement, regardless of which way the door opened or closed.
There are various problems that come up when considering using these structures as homicidal gas chambers. I cannot rationalize the same type of problems for using them as bomb shelters.
Yes, in the video above, the most interesting point to me was the number of gas-tight doors in the German hospital bunker which had peepholes.
These type of doors are pretty much what you find in the refrigerated morgue (shower-bath Brausebad) in the new crematoria building at Dachau, for example, which was likely converted from a crematoria staff shower at some point. (Those particular doors don't have the peepholes.)
But the door to the Mauthausen "gas chamber" does have a peephole.
A young General Napoleon Bonaparte gives the mob a "Whiff of Grapeshot" on the streets of Paris, and that "thing we specifically call French Revolution is blown into space by it."
~ Thomas Carlyle
From what I understand, this feature was a common feature added by the manufacturer to gas tight shelter doors for rapid determination of occupancy or unoccupancy by rescue personnel.
It was also a safety feature at the delousing facilities to inspect the gas chambers before loading zyclon b into the gasification apparatus, although those doors often were of wooden construction and sealed with leather gasketing material.
A door with a peep hole is pretty much a universal feature in all prisons and some types of hospital. It was likely decided to use that type of door for gas chambers, because they were solid and it would be useful to check the occupants.
Nessie wrote: ↑Tue Dec 24, 2024 10:14 am
A door with a peep hole is pretty much a universal feature in all prisons and some types of hospital. It was likely decided to use that type of door for gas chambers, because they were solid and it would be useful to check the occupants.
It is not inherently what Pressac calls a "criminal trace," then.
A young General Napoleon Bonaparte gives the mob a "Whiff of Grapeshot" on the streets of Paris, and that "thing we specifically call French Revolution is blown into space by it."
~ Thomas Carlyle
Nessie wrote: ↑Tue Dec 24, 2024 10:14 am
A door with a peep hole is pretty much a universal feature in all prisons and some types of hospital. It was likely decided to use that type of door for gas chambers, because they were solid and it would be useful to check the occupants.
It is not inherently what Pressac calls a "criminal trace," then.
Using a door that was constructed for use in a prison, inside a crematorium, is exactly what a criminal trace is.
Nessie wrote: ↑Tue Dec 24, 2024 10:14 am
A door with a peep hole is pretty much a universal feature in all prisons and some types of hospital. It was likely decided to use that type of door for gas chambers, because they were solid and it would be useful to check the occupants.
It is not inherently what Pressac calls a "criminal trace," then.
Using a door that was constructed for use in a prison, inside a crematorium, is exactly what a criminal trace is.
Perfectly reasonable for the doors to a morgue. In fact, your home refrigerator has a gas-tight door.
A young General Napoleon Bonaparte gives the mob a "Whiff of Grapeshot" on the streets of Paris, and that "thing we specifically call French Revolution is blown into space by it."
~ Thomas Carlyle
Stubble wrote: ↑Thu Dec 26, 2024 4:39 pm
Prisons use gas tight doors that you can open from the inside?
They use metal doors, with peepholes, that open out. They don't have hermetic seals, but they are easy to add.
Revisionist obsession with doors, is to give them something to think about, that distracts them from the lack of evidence that the Birkenau Kremas were designed, modified or ever used as air raid shelters. There is evidence Krema I at Auschwitz main camp was used as an air raid shelter in 1944-5. Remember, evidence should determine what you think happened, not your opinion or desired belief.