The CODOH Revisionist Forum

Several points below on the German itself, plus the surrounding context, accounting for notes from Crowell (CODOH reply to McCarthy on NO-365), Mattogno Einsatzgruppen §2.10, and the Tesch/Riga file Archie already flagged. Aimed for something more definitive, with carefully-reviewed AI assistance along the way:

• Unsent draft. Handwritten "Entwurf", no Rosenberg signature, N.d.H.M. in pencil. Lohse’s 4.10.1941 report — the supposed trigger — has never been found. Arad nonetheless supplies a “summary” of that missing report, demonstrating false historiography. Gerlach (Eichmann article, footnote) thinks the Wetzel–Brack–Eichmann meeting “probably never took place.”
• Two paragraphs, two words. Para 1: Herstellung der erforderlichen Unterkünfte sowie der Vergasungsapparate. Sowie (as well as) = two things. Unterkünfte (accommodation) are lodgings. Gas vans do not need manufactured quarters; if the quarters were the chambers, sowie der Apparate is redundant. Fumigation: barracks + Entwesungskammern. That is ordinary disinfection German (vergasen / Apparate / even Vergasungsapparaturen in 1931 railway-tunnel delousing). There is no wartime document in which Vergasungsapparate means “gas van.”
• On-site manufacture easier than in the Reich. Fatal for vans (Reich conversions) and for T4-CO-export (existing Reich plant, bottled CO from Ludwigshafen). Exact fit for building Entwesungskammern (disinfestation chambers) at a new camp. Tesch men were in Riga autumn 1941 to train Zyklon disinfection (Tesch–Weinbacher; Irving PRO decode; Tesch–Riga correspondence). Under the van theory that visit is a coincidence. Under the nouns on the page it is the same job.
• Chemist + Verfahren nicht ungefährlich (procedure not without risk) + Schutzmaßnahmen (protective measures). Operator-safety language for HCN, not “we are going to kill the inmates.” Brack mitwirken (participate) = help manufacture; Kallmeyer veranlassen alles Weitere (arrange for everything else) on site = set it up.
• Para 2 is not para 1. keine Bedenken, wenn … mit den Brackschen Hilfsmitteln beseitigt (no concerns if … using Brack’s tools/methods). He used Apparate (apparatus) three times, then switched to Hilfsmittel (aid/method/tool/device). This is a conditional permission from a newly seconded local court judge (Wetzel), with no headcount. Crowell’s reading: T4-style euthanasia expedient for those not arbeitsfähig (i.e. unfit for work) — which is not the same object as the Vergasungsapparate (gasification apparatus). Orthodoxy simply identifies them.
• Wilna clause. The objection on the page is that the shootings were öffentlich (public) and kaum gebilligt (barely/thinly approved). Publicity, not a warrant for a homicidal system. Arbeitsfähige dagegen (those fit for work, on the other hand) → Arbeitseinsatz nach Osten (work deployment to the East); men and women among those workers getrennt zu halten (to keep separate) — camp/labor rules.
• Scale is not in the document. Even if one grants a euthanasia-if for “unfit,” Wetzel is not the labor office, not a camp commandant, and not a physician. Nicht arbeitsfähig (unfit for work) in an Ostland labor system that employed Jews late into the war in laundry, tailoring, shoemaking, etc. (very light labor) is a high bar for "unfit", and the letter never says how many. Best case for the orthodox reading: a junior desk officer floated the idea of using a Brack expedient on an unspecified unfit remainder — in a draft he did not send. Riga never received the stationary homicidal chambers the first orthodox gloss required, which is why the gloss was later changed to vans the nouns do not support.

Surrounding documentation in the same weeks is Rosenberg/Himmler reports on literal evacuation and labor. Brack, Kallmeyer, and Eichmann all denied the letter as presented, and Wetzel was never convicted on it. Mattogno interprets authenticity as extremely dubious and historiographically inconsistent with the rest of the file.

A careful reading with typhus control as priority #1 in the East takes paragraph 1 as delousing construction (corroborated) and refuses to let paragraph 2’s Hilfsmittel (aid/method/device) rewrite Vergasungsapparate (gasification apparatus).

TL/DR

If the letter is real, then Wetzel is telling Lohse: have Brack’s chemist build the Riga camp housing and fumigation gear on site; send those fit for work east; and there is no objection if the unfit are euthanized by Brack’s methods instead of being shot in public.

Regardless, there are no numbers [of Jews], no order/signatures, and it was never sent.

Stubble wrote: ↑Thu Aug 20, 2026 1:06 am

Given the circumstances, there are no objections to those Jews who are incapable of work being removed by means of Brack's methods.

It depends on how you read it Mr Extermination....

It depends on how you read it.

I'll put your token in the 'Stubble has misinterpreted the document' pile.

"Brackschen Hilfsmitteln" is rather odd as well.

I don't see any signatures or paraphrases there neither. So, no authentication possible.

Any official killing people still would need authorisation or orders for doing so. So, if it was common practice, there actually should be plenty of correspondence and reporting for this.

Unless documents presented for an extermination program would be alteration designed to substitute for proof. Then it would be perfectly plausible to find occasional odd documents among the millions that must have been written during ww2.