Implausibility of gassing as a method for mass killing

[PangaeaProxima]

I do think the American gas chambers provide some relevant data, but American capital punishment is also highly bureaucratic.

The immense effort needed for executing even a single person by hydrogen cyanide gassing is highly relevant. While you may yield some savings by cutting corners on safety, this obviously can't go too far even if you train other prisoners as operators for the gas chambers. You won't do much gassing, if your operating crews constantly get killed themselves. There are of course other possible choices for gassing humans like carbon monoxide, for instance, that would pose less problems than hydrogen cyanide. But what can you do? That is what was chosen for the Holocaust narrative and that is a hill Holocaust Affirmers want to die on, so let them.

Note that I recognize that there are scenarios in which "basic" methods like shooting might not be appropriate and the increased effort for more "exotic" methods might make sense. The euthanasia program comes to mind - you probably don't really want to do shootings in psychiatric facilities. While this program in contrast to the Holocaust really existed, the propagandistic distortions here also make it difficult to establish what exactly happened. It seems that malnourishment was an important method used, so essentially also a "basic" method. However, there are also claims about gassing with carbon monoxide.

Example:
Someone might argue against the existence of aliens by stating that it is simply too implausible to believe that life exists elsewhere in the universe, even if there is no concrete evidence to disprove it.

Actually, there exists significantly more evidence for alien intelligent life than mass killings by gassing - we can point to one example for intelligent live in the universe, ourselves, but none for a mass killing that was done with gas chambers.

But seriously, the comparison is not really appropriate. We don't have interstellar travel yet, so the answer to this question is necessarily highly speculative. When it comes to judging methods for mass killing on our (not so) good old earth, however we can do so based on actual solid data. I note that you did not even try to refute this data.

But the choice of this comparison is highly revealing - Holocaust Affirmers have long ago abandoned trying to prove that the Holocaust happened. They now merely declare, that it is not possible to prove that it did not happen. But a really hundred percent negative proof is not possible in principle. It is of course possible to make the Holocaust unfalsifiable if we assume that all bodies were somehow disappeared without trace, that it is possible to organise the mass killing without leaving any documentary evidence and so on. You can do this with any theory, even, as I have discussed in a post in another section, in Physics: By adding enough "Dark Matter" and "Dark Energy" fudge factors, you can always bring General Relativity back into agreement with observation.

The question to Holocaust Affirmers is therefore: What would you accept as falsification of the Holocaust narrative? About everything that can be falsified has already been falsified!

[Wetzelrad]

The argument that most needs to be dealt with is the one about sensitivity and morality, as seemingly every authority endorses it. For example Raul Hilberg wrote:

Himmler asked Nebe "to turn over in his mind" various other killing methods more humane than shooting. Nebe asked for permission to try out dynamite on the mentally ill people. Von dem Bach and Wolff protested that the sick people were not guinea pigs, but Himmler decided in favor of the attempt... The eventual answer to Himmler’s request was the gas van.
The Destruction of the European Jews (2003) by Raul Hilberg, p.344

This story originated from Erich von dem Bach-Zalewski, who didn't mention gassing. His idea of humane killing was execution by dynamite. Gerald Reitlinger covered this same sequence of events, leaving out the ludicrous claim about dynamite, but adding the story of an execution at which Himmler shouted and swooned.

Von dem Bach-Zalewski told how in August, 1951, Himmler ordered Nebe to carry out in his presence the execution of a hundred inmates of Minsk prison. Von dem Bach-Zalewski watched Himmler closely during the action, saw him stagger at the first volley and almost fall to the ground in a swoon. He observed that, when these raw executioners failed to kill two Jewish women outright, Himmler lost his head and shouted. As a result of his experience, Himmler instructed Nebe to devise more humane means of mass killing. The final result seems to have been an order in the following spring, mentioned by Ohlendorf, to kill women and children only in gas vans.
The Final Solution (1953) by Gerald Reitlinger, p.208

Other versions of the event have it that Himmler vomited or nearly did. There is little reason to believe any of these stories. On page 195, Reitlinger pointed out that Von dem Bach received a light sentence of house arrest despite being a highly ranked SS officer involved in mass shootings that he confessed to. In other words, his confession was a service to the prosecutors and himself.

Another added difficulty is presented in a more recent work by Nestar Russell. He wrote that gassings were also inhumane relative to shootings.

... to use gas vans that could eliminate any disturbing visual spectacles for themselves, but inficted a cruel and prolonged death on the victims. Many German executioners believed the gas van to be an inhumane and “cowardly” means of inficting death. As Hans Stark said of the gas vans during his trial after the war:
“It was a terrible sight.” Judge Hofmeyer: “Did the people appear to have gone through an agonizing death struggle?” “I didn’t look closely; one glimpse was enough for me.” “How did you feel?” “Never again.”
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.10 ... -97999-1_8

Stark is supposed to have committed both shootings and gassings, so it's notable that the latter evidently had more effect on him. He is also one of many witnesses who claimed that gassing victims would scream or otherwise resist in ways that you would expect to be mentally taxing. And along the same lines, when Heinz Hermann Schubert confessed, he wrote that shootings could be done humanely.

I know that it was of the greatest importance to Ohlendorf to have the persons who were to be shot killed in the most human and military manner possible, because otherwise--in other methods of killing- the moral strain would have been too great for the execution squad.
Affidavit of Heinz Hermann Schubert, 24 February 1947, IMT document NO-3055

Near the end of his book, Hilberg acknowledged that the reason for using gas was not actually to be more humane.

Much research was expended for the development of devices and methods that arrested propensities for uncontrolled behavior and at the same time lightened the crushing psychological burden on the killers. The construction of gas vans and gas chambers, the employment of Ukrainian, Lithuanian, and Latvian auxiliaries to kill Jewish women and children, the use of Jews for the burial and burning of bodies—all these were efforts in the same direction. Efficiency was the real aim of all that "humaneness."
The Destruction of the European Jews (2003) by Raul Hilberg, p.1083

So they came up with gassings to be more efficient, says Hilberg. This is so ridiculous it shouldn't merit comment, yet I see that one of the top results when you do a websearch on this topic makes the same claim. In response, it's enough to say that the time and effort of firing a bullet is one one-hundredth that of shipping someone against their will across the country to be held in a special facility built for the purpose.

As you rightly point out, many shooting executions are claimed to have happened after gas was introduced. As just one example, Majdanek Museum claims that 18,000 Jews were executed on November 3, 1943, "killed by a single shot in the back of the head or neck". As Majdanek was not abandoned until some eight months later, and as there were still both Zyklon B and carbon monoxide on site, the gas chambers ought to have handled this event. That is unless humaneness and efficiency were not real concerns. Or more realistically, that is unless the hypothesized program of extermination did not exist.

[Nessie]

Poland had huge forests to easily supply wood to the AR camps, which would a drop in the annual consumption. Your incredulity is not evidence to prove it was not possible. How can you not understand that?

20% of the country was covered by forest at the time and even so, the amount of raw wood in this is debatable, apart from the fact that freshly cut wood contains only half the calorific value of a drought, so the problem here is doubled. There are no photographs of the devastated region compared to what it was before the war and even if there had been enough wood, the Germans did not have enough men to do the work. The Nazis could want whatever they wanted, they still had to work on the laws of physics, human and logistics, logistics, by the way, did not suit the Germans in the war.

Forced labour meant no labour shortages for the Nazis in 1942-3, during the operation of the AR camps. You are just hypothesising, without producing any evidence, as you argue that your doubts about possibility has any evidential value.

Take your sweet consolation in knowing that all this was technically possible because it happened.

Logically, I do win this debate every time. Add that to evidentially, I also win and it is a slam dunk.

[Nessie]

.....

Example:
Someone might argue against the existence of aliens by stating that it is simply too implausible to believe that life exists elsewhere in the universe, even if there is no concrete evidence to disprove it.

When you split posts, you should be careful to make it clear if the person you are quoting said what you are attributing to them, or not.

Actually, there exists significantly more evidence for alien intelligent life than mass killings by gassing - we can point to one example for intelligent live in the universe, ourselves, but none for a mass killing that was done with gas chambers.

I will give you the benefit of the doubt, but your claim is false. Intelligent alien life is theoretical, with no evidence on earth, save some dubious witness claims that cannot be corroborated or verified. There is no physical or other form of evidence.

Here is a list of the documentary, witness, forensic and circumstantial evidence, just for the gas chambers at A-B;

https://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot ... ce-on.html

The camp's Construction Office and Topf & Sons record the planning and construction of heated undressing rooms, barracks to store property, ventilated gas chambers and ovens for mass multiple corpse cremations, for a secretive special action involving prisoners, Jews and Hungarians.

Every single witness, Nazi and Jew, who worked there, states the buildings were used for gassings. That is 34 SS camp staff, 26 Jewish Sonderkommados, 47 other prisoners, 3 doctors and 4 German engineers, 114 in total.

https://www.skepticforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=32920

There is forensic evidence to prove the use of Zyklon B inside the Kremas,

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/holocau ... t1894.html
https://phdn.org/archives/holocaust-his ... port.shtml

But seriously, the comparison is not really appropriate. We don't have interstellar travel yet, so the answer to this question is necessarily highly speculative.

It is a false analogy. You are comparing something with no evidence, to something that is well evidenced.

When it comes to judging methods for mass killing on our (not so) good old earth, however we can do so based on actual solid data. I note that you did not even try to refute this data.

The data is limited, such as how much coke was needed for the ovens. It is often based on witnesses remembering and estimating, so it is uncertain, such as how many people were or could be gassed. It is also subject to dispute, such as disagreement as to how much Prussian Blue staining gassings would cause.

Therefore, trying to determine what happened from the data is inherently unreliable. It is best practice, and normal for a historical or criminal investigation, to gather evidence to determine what happened. Revisionists cannot do that and when they try, it all falls apart for them, as they claim delousing chambers, showers, bomb shelters and corpse stores all as possible uses, with no evidence, not a single witness to corroborate their claim. Revisionists fail to revise.

But the choice of this comparison is highly revealing - Holocaust Affirmers have long ago abandoned trying to prove that the Holocaust happened.

Rubbish, as proven by the decades of research and trawls for evidence, by many historians and criminal investigators.

They now merely declare, that it is not possible to prove that it did not happen. But a really hundred percent negative proof is not possible in principle. It is of course possible to make the Holocaust unfalsifiable if we assume that all bodies were somehow disappeared without trace, that it is possible to organise the mass killing without leaving any documentary evidence and so on. You can do this with any theory, even, as I have discussed in a post in another section, in Physics: By adding enough "Dark Matter" and "Dark Energy" fudge factors, you can always bring General Relativity back into agreement with observation.

The question to Holocaust Affirmers is therefore: What would you accept as falsification of the Holocaust narrative? About everything that can be falsified has already been falsified!

I know what to do to prove there were no mass gassings inside the A-B Kremas, AR camps and Chelmno. I would start by tracing anyone who worked there and ask them, "did you see gassings?" and "what did you see?". If everyone said no to the first question and then answered the second by describing a function that was, for example, a transit process, I would have already gone a long way to prove the negative. If I then trawled through contemporaneous documents and found multiple references to people not selected to work then being transported back out of the camps, I would have circumstantial evidence to corroborate the witness and I would have proven the negative, I would have proven the gassing claims were false. Revisionists cannot do that. They fail at the basic task of investigation.

As for bodies disappearing without a trace and organising millions of people, without leaving any evidence, what about the impossibility of hiding millions of arrested Jews, supposedly not killed, in 1944, leaving no trace of their existence? Why and how would the Nazis do that?