Operation Reinhardt staff and the T4 connection

[Stubble]

Someone who was a cook, or a driver, on both operations, is still part of both, they just did not directly kill anyone. Only a few staff turned on the gas.

So why bring them up? If your assertion is, for example - "Erich Fuchs was transferred from T4 to AR because he was knowledgeable about gassing jews", why invoke other superfluous transferees? Is it to add apparent weight, volume and credibility to your theory?

If the staff from Mossad, including clerical workers, all transferred to another organisation after it was cancelled, and there was evidence that the new organisation was murdering people, you would instantly see the blindingly obvious connection.

That would be redundant and unnecessary and I would question the premise endlessly.

The war department would use sayanim for plausible deniability. That should be patently obvious.

[Nessie]

... If I am planning on rounding up and killing millions of Jews, wouldn't the next logical consideration be over the technical and logistical means to accomplish this? Wouldn't there be some discussions over how to do this?

Why are you assuming there were no such discussions? The history of Action T4 and the Einsatzgruppen, their formation and operations, provide the earliest planning for the technical and logistical means to kill lots of people. Then chronologically, AR and Action 13f14 were instigated, along with general planning for the Final Solution.

The best surviving evidence for technical and logistical planning, are the documents from A-B, recording the work to modify the Kremas, to contain heated undressing rooms, ventilated gas chambers, multiple corpse cremation ovens and barracks to store property.

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

Evidence of the work undertaken at the AR camps, was heard at the various camp staff trials, some excerpts here;

http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org ... speak.html

Yet with the Holocaust we presented on the one hand with an "industrialized," mass murder program but on the other a program that is essentially improvised.

The Final Solution is better described as adapted, rather than improvised. The adaptations took place over time and place and happened because of the varying support the Nazis had. Romania conducted its own Holocaust. Latvians assisted the EG shooting Jews. The Dutch civil service and police provided assistance in the identification, registration and arrest of Jews. The Hungarians resisted and then offered partial cooperation. The Danish and Finns offered no cooperation, and the vast majority of their Jewish citizens survived. Over time, the risk to the Nazis of being held to account for killing Jews increased, so that by 1945, killing operations had ended. The competition between those tasked with utilising Jews as slave labourers and those tasked with killing them, could collide and conflict and more workers were needed as the war progressed.

I noted the seemingly improvised nature of the supposed T4 gas chambers here.
https://codohforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=5356#p5356

But this theme recurs elsewhere, including at AR and at Auschwitz. Arthur Butz made this general point way back in 1976 in Hoax.

It was up to local commanders, those in charge of hospitals and camps where gassings were to take place, to construct those chambers. Bear in mind that killing operations were seen as temporary, with no need for long term planning and logistics. Improvised gas chambers, in places that could be returned or utilised for another use, make sense. IIRC, there was a memo about Sobibor as a labour camp producing ammunition, its intended purpose after it no longer received mass transports for its gas chambers.

[Numar Patru]

Someone who was a cook, or a driver, on both operations, is still part of both, they just did not directly kill anyone. Only a few staff turned on the gas.

So why bring them up? If your assertion is, for example - "Erich Fuchs was transferred from T4 to AR because he was knowledgeable about gassing jews", why invoke other superfluous transferees? Is it to add apparent weight, volume and credibility to your theory?

Because people need staffs to do work. We’ve been dividing labor as a species for 10,000 years or so. Surely, you’re aware of this.

[Numar Patru]

I would like to make a more general point about all of this.

The question really starts with the extermination decision/order. Once the German government decided to execute millions of Jews, then you would expect some discussions over the means to do this, including technical considerations.

Imagine you are Hitler and you have just decided that the entire Jewish race must be exterminated (in the sense that they all must be executed). The Holocaust scholars can't decide when this happened but among the anti-revisionist crowd the theory is late 1941. Okay, let's go with that (we can ignore the problems with that issue for the time being). If I am planning on rounding up and killing millions of Jews, wouldn't the next logical consideration be over the technical and logistical means to accomplish this? Wouldn't there be some discussions over how to do this? Yet with the Holocaust we presented on the one hand with an "industrialized," mass murder program but on the other a program that is essentially improvised.

I noted the seemingly improvised nature of the supposed T4 gas chambers here.
https://codohforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=5356#p5356

But this theme recurs elsewhere, including at AR and at Auschwitz. Arthur Butz made this general point way back in 1976 in Hoax.

This is a good point at which to raise objections regarding lines of responsibility and authority in these operations. Höss says he received his order directly from Himmler during – we have agreed to pretend – the summer of 1942. This means that Himmler not only bypassed Glücks, but also Pohl in giving this order directly to the camp commandant, specifying that Glücks was not to learn what was going on. Himmler reached three levels or more down to give the order and specified that Höss was to maintain an impossible secrecy. Most irregular.

That is not all. The story we are offered by the Höss affidavit and testimony and all other sources is that (except for certain later developments to be discussed) the German government left the means of killing, and the materials required, a matter for the judgment and ingenuity of the local camp commandant. Höss decides to convert two old peasant houses. Höss found the Zyklon kicking around the camp and decided that it offered a more efficient method of solving the Jewish problem than that employed at Treblinka, where they had scrounged up some captured Russian tanks and trucks to use for exterminations.

All of this is idiotic, and Reitlinger is obviously uncomfortable with the “problem” of the responsibility of the Zyklon decision but gets nowhere with the difficulty except to make it graver by suggesting that Hitler (!) finally decided on Zyklon “with misgiving.”[33]

https://www.unz.com/book/arthur_r_butz_ ... p_27_1:1-1

Butz gives a textbook argument from incredulity — one he presumably wouldn’t have made if he’d read a book like Broszat’s Hitler State. Indeed, it’s a major work in the field and wasn’t even that old when Butz wrote his book.

The book is important not because of what it says about the Holocaust but because of what it says about Nazi Germany and its characterization of it as a “weak dictatorship.” Kershaw’s “working towards the Führer” falls within the school of thought, and both are perfectly commensurate with Hitler enunciating a goal and letting multiple subordinates work on that goal using the means they think potentially most efficient and the staff they have at hand.

Once one wraps one’s head around this idea, Butz’s argument looks pathetic.

[Numar Patru]

Imagine you are Hitler and you have just decided that the entire Jewish race must be exterminated (in the sense that they all must be executed). The Holocaust scholars can't decide when this happened but among the anti-revisionist crowd the theory is late 1941. Okay, let's go with that (we can ignore the problems with that issue for the time being). If I am planning on rounding up and killing millions of Jews, wouldn't the next logical consideration be over the technical and logistical means to accomplish this? Wouldn't there be some discussions over how to do this? Yet with the Holocaust we presented on the one hand with an "industrialized," mass murder program but on the other a program that is essentially improvised.

Goring in his famous letter asked Heydrich to keep him informed about all this.

In addition to the orders given to you in the directive of 24.1.39, to bring about the quickest and most efficient solution possible under the current conditions to the Jewish Question in the form of emigration or evacuation, I hereby instruct you to make all necessary organizational, technical and material preparations for a complete solution of the Jewish Question in the German sphere of influence in Europe. As the responsibilities of other central bodies are fulfilled, they must participate.

I also instruct you to inform me as soon as possible about the general plan of the organizational, technical and material prerequisites for the implementation of the desired Final Solution of the Jewish Question.

Where is Heydrich's response to Goring on this? Did they carry out an impromptu extermination? Poor Odilo Globocnik's subordinate in Lublin, imagine his shock when he received that verbal order from Himmler to do that.

The thing is, all kinds of things would come up. If you send out such extermination orders, people would probably push back somewhat or at least have questions. "We're doing what? You want me to execute several hundred thousand people? And you want me to figure out how to do this? Please confirm!" Remember that during the 1930s expelling Jews from Germany was considered the "radical" solution and there were some who wanted softer policies.

But arbitrary punishment became common with the occupation of Poland and mass executions became common with Barbarossa. Hitler need only communicate such a decision to a small number, particularly those within an ideologically pure organization like the SS, and the desired results will follow.

Also, if there were an order to execute six million Jews, that's not going to go off without a hitch. To actually accomplish it you would need some very active project management or it just wouldn't get done.

There were all kinds of hitches. And there was active management. Nothing I’ve seen here is arguing the contrary.

[Numar Patru]

If there were an order, it wouldn't have stopped at 6.

Why not? You’re aware a war was going on, yes?

[HansHill]

Because people need staffs to do work. We’ve been dividing labor as a species for 10,000 years or so. Surely, you’re aware of this.

And thats fine, and would be the end of the conversation and we'd move along. Except, that's not the claim. The claim isn't: "skilled staff were transferred en masse from T4 to AR to help with the subdivision of labour in an efficient way".

The claim specifically is: "ice cold emotionless murderers who were hand picked to be jew killers were transferred from T4 to AR".

Surely you're aware of this.

[Numar Patru]

Not sure who’s making that specific claim. But the ability the sense who among one’s staff might be more morally pliable than others isn’t unusual. Nor is it unusual in a setting (T4) in which people are already being murdered.

[HansHill]

Not sure who’s making that specific claim. But the ability the sense who among one’s staff might be more morally pliable than others isn’t unusual. Nor is it unusual in a setting (T4) in which people are already being murdered.

Fair enough. It wouldn't be fair to ask you to defend your friend Nessie's position.

They were clearly selected to work on AR, because they had shown themselves to be morally and mentally fine with mass killing of people considered to be unworthy of living, useless eaters, enemies of the state.

The obvious universal link, is that people who could cope with the killing of disabled people including children, would also cope with the gassing of Jews including children. They could be trusted to follow orders and keep quiet.

That is a positive selection, based on past performance and suitability.

This "positive selection" and "universal link" of course breaks down when you scratch the surface and the staff "selected for" killing people are actually drivers, cooks, cermatory operators etc. Not so universal after all. Hence my challenge to Nessie, which I acknowledge you have diverged from.

[Stubble]

If there were an order, it wouldn't have stopped at 6.

Why not? You’re aware a war was going on, yes?

The premise that 'salvation marches' also ironically called 'death marches' took place so the evil nazis would have hostages is so fucking stupid. They would have killed those people where they stood if it was genocide. They would have consolidated their resources, and sent the staff from the concentration camps to the field.

[Numar Patru]

You’re not taking into account the fluid nature of the goals of both Germany as a whole and individual decision makers with regard to what to do with Jews, particularly in the final days of the war.

Thinking it might be a good idea to keep Jews alive to ransom or just to prevent them from acting as witnesses for Soviet trials isn’t fundamentally at odds with a genocidal order, particularly a past order.

[Stubble]

You’re not taking into account the fluid nature of the goals of both Germany as a whole and individual decision makers with regard to what to do with Jews, particularly in the final days of the war.

Thinking it might be a good idea to keep Jews alive to ransom or just to prevent them from acting as witnesses for Soviet trials isn’t fundamentally at odds with a genocidal order, particularly a past order.

We can explore this again in another thread Dr Patru.

It is a point of contention that merits debate in my opinion, and you do make a case.

I'm at odds with it, for a number of reasons, but this isn't the thread for debating it, and I apologize for the drift in topic in my response to Archie.

[Archie]

I would like to make a more general point about all of this.

The question really starts with the extermination decision/order. Once the German government decided to execute millions of Jews, then you would expect some discussions over the means to do this, including technical considerations.

Imagine you are Hitler and you have just decided that the entire Jewish race must be exterminated (in the sense that they all must be executed). The Holocaust scholars can't decide when this happened but among the anti-revisionist crowd the theory is late 1941. Okay, let's go with that (we can ignore the problems with that issue for the time being). If I am planning on rounding up and killing millions of Jews, wouldn't the next logical consideration be over the technical and logistical means to accomplish this? Wouldn't there be some discussions over how to do this? Yet with the Holocaust we presented on the one hand with an "industrialized," mass murder program but on the other a program that is essentially improvised.

I noted the seemingly improvised nature of the supposed T4 gas chambers here.
https://codohforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=5356#p5356

But this theme recurs elsewhere, including at AR and at Auschwitz. Arthur Butz made this general point way back in 1976 in Hoax.

This is a good point at which to raise objections regarding lines of responsibility and authority in these operations. Höss says he received his order directly from Himmler during – we have agreed to pretend – the summer of 1942. This means that Himmler not only bypassed Glücks, but also Pohl in giving this order directly to the camp commandant, specifying that Glücks was not to learn what was going on. Himmler reached three levels or more down to give the order and specified that Höss was to maintain an impossible secrecy. Most irregular.

That is not all. The story we are offered by the Höss affidavit and testimony and all other sources is that (except for certain later developments to be discussed) the German government left the means of killing, and the materials required, a matter for the judgment and ingenuity of the local camp commandant. Höss decides to convert two old peasant houses. Höss found the Zyklon kicking around the camp and decided that it offered a more efficient method of solving the Jewish problem than that employed at Treblinka, where they had scrounged up some captured Russian tanks and trucks to use for exterminations.

All of this is idiotic, and Reitlinger is obviously uncomfortable with the “problem” of the responsibility of the Zyklon decision but gets nowhere with the difficulty except to make it graver by suggesting that Hitler (!) finally decided on Zyklon “with misgiving.”[33]

https://www.unz.com/book/arthur_r_butz_ ... p_27_1:1-1

Butz gives a textbook argument from incredulity — one he presumably wouldn’t have made if he’d read a book like Broszat’s Hitler State. Indeed, it’s a major work in the field and wasn’t even that old when Butz wrote his book.

The book is important not because of what it says about the Holocaust but because of what it says about Nazi Germany and its characterization of it as a “weak dictatorship.” Kershaw’s “working towards the Führer” falls within the school of thought, and both are perfectly commensurate with Hitler enunciating a goal and letting multiple subordinates work on that goal using the means they think potentially most efficient and the staff they have at hand.

Once one wraps one’s head around this idea, Butz’s argument looks pathetic.

You have it backwards. Kershaw’s “working towards the Führer” bunkum fails for the reasons explained by Butz (and which could be expanded upon at length).

Isn't it convenient how the story has moved away from planned industrial mass murder and toward something so unplanned and improvised that it becomes nearly unfalsifiable? This is the tell that you guys have a story that just isn't working.

Just in terms of common sense, if I tell you the Germans executed MILLIONS of people in gas chambers, might we expect some sort of discussion, planning, engineering, etc? Yet because none of this documentation exists, you are forced to come up with a story that is consistent with this lack of evidence: impromptu gas chambers.

[Numar Patru]

Weird then that Höß testified way back in 1946 that the gas chambers he ran were improvised.

[Stubble]

This inconsistency oddly actually extends into t4.

All impromptu and order free with no technical or feasibility discussion, no design consideration and no safety protocols.