Daily Life in Auschwitz from British Intelligence decrypts,
1942
British Intelligence successfully decoded messages from the German labour-camps
through the year 1942. It happened at Bletchley Park, where the famous Enigma
codebreaker, with the huge calculating-engine called Colossus beside it, opened
the German codes. That had a key role in Britain winning the War by giving vital
info about submarine positions etc, - but, little attention has been given to
its disclosures about the concentration-camps. Kept as top-secret for fifty
years, that material was finally released in the mid-1990s. Before that,
historians had little more to go on, than a summary of it made by the British
intelligence-analyst F.H. Hinsley, back in 1981, where he obscurely stated:
"The return from Auschwitz, the largest of the camps with 20,000 prisoners,
mentioned illness as the main cause of death, but included references to
shootings and hangings. There were no references in the decrypts to
gassings."[1]
Once this data was released, an unexpected problem arose: the priceless decrypts
– the most authentic information anyone could possibly want about daily camp
life under the Nazis – yielded no crumb of evidence that any ‘Final Solution’
had been ongoing! Quickly, experts had to start started apologising for how
British Intel had somehow ‘failed to apprehend’ the Holocaust.[2] More recently
the historian Nick Terry has concluded, ‘It would therefore seem as if British
intelligence was largely hoodwinked in the first half of 1942.’[3]
Was it?
Rather feebly, experts were obliged to conjecture – as Holo-historians had been
doing through the previous decade – that innocuous-sounding phrases concealed
the fiendish meaning and intention. For example, sending Jews ‘to the East’
alluded to mass gassing.[4] But is that really how historians are meant to
behave? Should not their conclusions be drawn from the data, rather than
imposed upon it? We here explore the view, that the understanding by British
Intelligence of these decrypts, was sound.
I came to peruse these top-secret wartime documents in the Public Record Office
in the autumn of 2012[5], thrilled to turn over the crinkly pages with old, blue
typewriter-print and MOST SECRET... NEVER TO BE REMOVED FROM THE OFFICE
red-inked across the top. Here were confidential wartime documents from the head
of MI6 to the Prime Minister Winston Churchill, plus decrypts straight from
Auschwitz! I apprehended why the Holo-historians had not wanted to know about
these priceless wartime texts...
Summer of 1942
The year 1942 is a turning-point in our story, when Exterminist
historians believe that the terrible mass gassing of Jews began, at Auschwitz.
The ‘machinery of mass murder’ to use Jean-Claude Pressac’s phrase, got going!
As Dr Terry explained, ‘the machinery of the death camps was in place and the
policy of “selection” on the ramps at Auschwitz was instituted from July 17,
1942[6].’ August was the month when the biggest and worst typhus epidemic hit
the camps. That shock reverberated though Auschwitz in particular as the
long-extinct disease of typhus, a bacillus carried by body lice, returned to
haunt the labour-camps. A Polish resistance movement might have introduced it to
the German military:[7] civilians entering the camp had brought it, not the
inmates deported there.[8] New protocols called ‘special treatment’ (‘Sonderbehandlung’)
were swiftly developed and implemented,[9] for all camp members, that involved
routines of hair shaving, cleansing and delousing of clothing, bedding and
living quarters.[10] Two uttely different interpretations of that summer, one
Exterminist and the other Revisionist, stand before us when reading the
following decrypts.
Here are inmate figures[11] from the decrypts, for Jews, Poles and Russians, at
quarter-year intervals:
Total
Jews Poles Russians
January 1942
9884 191 9186 2095
April
10242 1296 8475 354
July
16369 [12] 6241 7676 153
October
16996 7500 6470 -
January '43
28350 11332 12646 -
There were more Poles than Jews in the camp: Jews comprised 39% of the
inmates on average, Poles 65% and Russians a mere 3%. (The two categories of
Poles and Jews are overlapping, maybe why the ‘totals’ here given don’t add up.)
Many people have conjectured that far larger numbers than these had been
arriving but not departing, unmentioned in any monthly reports:[13] but in that
case, what would have been the point of keeping meticulous daily records of
people coming and going? Some eighty-five thousand persons arrived at the
Auschwitz camp that year.[14] It’s hard to see more than forty thousand Jews
arriving, from those figures, plus others coming and going. The camp’s Monthly
Reports often have many Jews leaving the camp, as well as arriving. Of the
deaths in the camp that year, nearly sixty percent were Jewish[15], and
in such a nightmarish situation one can appreciate how stories got going.
Each monthly bulletin reports on the previous month. The
report for June
(with camp names in capitals) said:
V Labour and Industry
The shortage of manpower leads to a considerable employment of prisoners
outside as well as inside concentration camps. There are constant enquiries
regarding the trade of prisoners and evidence on the part of undertakings and
firms of demand for prisoner labour.
On May 1st, LUBLIN can provide: 1200 clerical workers and students, 200 bakers,
150 butchers, 350 agricultural workers and 800 workers of various trades, total
2700. (85/7). On the same date DR. Caesar is informed that KL RAVENSBRUECK
disposes of 3 German speaking women horticulturalists and 2 botanists. (85/12).
The transfer of 95 skilled workers and 180 unskilled workers to the GUSTLOFF
works is arranged on May 13th at the rate of RM 5,00 per day and per prisoner
for skilled workers, and RM 4,00 for unskilled workers. (60/8). KL DACHAU sends
18 prisoners to the Versuchsanstald fuer Ernaehrung und Verpflegung on May
15th., at a rate of RM 0,30 per day per prisoner. (70/8) 20 prisoners are
required on June 22nd. For laying a field cable from ENNSDORF to MAUTHAUSEN
(139/15). In KL FLOSSENBUERG, prisoners who are not fit for heavier work will be
employed on repair work, and the finishing of children’s toys. (80/28). A demand
for 30 to 40 prisoners comes from a cement factory (131/18). Himmler himself
requires by 10 a.m. on May 27th the number of glass blowers available in KLA
(86/34); and canvassing of makers of musical instruments is proceeding in July
(174/1).[16]
At last it can be told - prisoners not fit for heavier work had to finish off
children's toys.
Beside the monthly totals, comments such as these were written:
Dachau: on 19 May, 18 prisoners to be transferred. 20 May, 67
prisoners leave. 20 carpenters sent from Dachau to Mauthausen.
Auschwitz: A Pole escaped, 13 May. 15 May, Himmler expresses his
interest in the tanning experiments.[17] 9 June: Typhus, 18 out of 106 died.
August: 'On 5 June AUSCHWITZ is told that for political reasons they will not
receive 2,000 Jewish workers, but on 17 June Jewish transports from Slowakia are
announced..’ June 9: 'Typhus dominates the camp: 18 out of 106 cases have died
before 15 June; 22 out of 77 further cases have died before 22nd June.' Camp
MAUTHAUSEN: ‘They are told that Dr. Ruscher is allowed to use coloured
photography which is necessary for his experiments. On 4 May a prisoner is shot
in flight.’
September'For the first time returns are given for deaths of
prisoners: the figures for August are: NIEDERHAGEN 21, AUSCHWITZ 6829 (or 6889)
men, 1525 women; BUCHENWALD 74; FLOSSENBURG 88. The AUSCHWITZ figure represents
about 30% of the total given in the IPCC figures; the cause is likely to be
typhus, as typhus was rife in June (see last summary) and a policeman is
suspected of typhus in September. Deaths must constitute a large proportion if
not all of the "departures" mentioned in the GPCC figures, which total 5325 for
19 days of August. During 19 days of August arrivals total 4989 so that they
nearly balance deaths. About half of the prisoners are Jews. AUSCHWITZ is said
to be under a ban on 4th September. Deaths in BUCHENWALD represent a tiny
proportion of the departures.'[18]
Suddenly, a vast mortality was reported in one camp – viewed by British
historian Nick Terry as part of a covert Jew-extermination program.[19] But that
is not a logical inference, on account of the way camp mortality then plummeted
after September,[20] once the epidemic had been brought under control. Typhus
plus typhoid fever and dysentery, diahorrea etc., were raging in the camp, a
real nightmare with inmates banned from leaving owing to the risk of infection:
as David Irving wrote: 'There was evidently a deadly epidemic raging at the
camp, since a message of September 4 in reply to a request for a thousand
prisoners for building the Danube railway, stated that Auschwitz could not
provide them until the 'ban' (Lagersperre) on the camp had been lifted.'[21] The
‘ban’ confirms that the terrible peak in mortality was caused by infectious
diseases and not something else.
Camp Kommander Rudolf Hoss applied for some rubber truncheons, but was advised
they were ‘unobtainable in Breslau.’[22] There is a report of some executions
taking place: 'Executions are reported: a Russian civilian is shot when
attempting to escape from NIEDERHAGEN. FLOSSENBERG is allowed a lorry and a bus
to convey Polish civilians to a wood for execution. A prisoner is hung in
HINZERT and nine more are shot.' One may conjecture that, if a Polish resistance
movement had indeed started the typhus epidemic, the execution of a whole
busload of Poles in September could have been payback.
October: ‘The large influx of Russian civilians, Jews and Poles
continues and it is reasonable to suppose that deaths from typhus are still high
in AUSCHWTZ and probably in other camps such as NIEDERHAGEN and HINZERT.
Concentration camp prisoners are being used in large numbers in COLOGNE, and
there is evidence of a cutting down of outside commitments to increase the
number of prisoners available for war work. A new camp is intended at DEBICA.
SACHSENHAUSEN evidently contains Englishmen as it has asked for an English
interpreter. Some light on conditions in Concentration camps is shown by the
instruction that a visiting labour commission is not to be shown either “special
quarters” (Sonderunterbringung) or, if it can be avoided, “prisoners shot when
escaping.”
A fall in the inmate population was discussed:
Auschwitz: ‘The total falls from 22,455 on 1st Sept. to 17,365 on
30th Sept. and to 16966 on 20th Oct. No figures for deaths have been given this
month and therefore it cannot be said what proportion of the daily departures,
which amounts to 2395 on 7th Sept, 1429 on 8th Sept, and otherwise vary between
550 and 47, are due to death: it is however known that at least 11 SS men have
been taken into hospital on suspicion of typhus during October. As about 2,000
men in the total are always unaccounted for, it is difficult to be certain in
what categories the arrivals and departures belong. But on 7th Sept. the numbers
of political prisoners, Jews and Poles have fallen by 1, 2020 and 284
respectively, a net loss of 2305; the net loss in the total column in 2379;
therefore it is clear that the majority of the departures are Jews.
That sudden drop of several thousand in inmate population was due, the analyst
concluded, not to illness but to departures, chiefly Jews. He was
scrutinising the
several columns of data. Some ten percent of the total camp inmates
are ‘always unaccounted for’ he concluded – which helps to resolve the
vitally-important issue: with all the comings and goings in the labour-camps,
about ten percent - which here amounts to two thousand out of some twenty
thousand - remain unregistered. In this situation, there cannot be
tens of thousands of Jews continually arriving, as Hilbert wants to believe.
Instead, a majority of the departures are Jewish. That ought to settle
quite a bit of the ongoing debate.
November: 'the use of prisoners for war industries on a large scale
is discussed below...the largest transference is the move of Jews to AUSCHWITZ
for the synthetic rubber works. Another major movement is the transference of
sick prisoners to DACHAU. Meanwhile typhus continues, particularly at
AUSCHWITZ... the women's camp remains stationary at about 6500 because arrivals
balance departures.'
Jews are here being imported into AUSCHWITZ as skilled industrial labour,
at the Buna-Monowitz plant. The report for Dachau confirmed this: ‘Large
departures .. due to prisoners being sent on war work to Auchwitz and other
places, which removes all but 9 of the Jews and many Russian civilians.’ The
camp total was around ten thousand. Thus, sick prisoners were being farmed out
to the Dachau camp, while fit-to-work Jews went the other way.
In December there were over twenty thousand inmates at Auschwitz: ‘half of these
numbers are Jews and large numbers arrive and depart every day.’
For
January of 1943 at Auschwitz, 'The Buna-werk is still employing 2210
men of whom 1100 are on the actual work. Jewish watchmakers are sent to
SACHSENHAUSEN where they are urgently needed. Typhus cases continue to be
reported although strenuous measures have been adopted and 36 cases were found
among the new batch of prisoners on 22 Jan.’
Jews are alluded to in these decrypts with a respectful tone, being imported
into Auschwitz as skilled industrial labour, or urgently needed as watchmakers
somewhere else. Clearly, one can either have an ongoing program of
extermination or have workers capable of doing skilled work – but, not both.
This new and detailed info about the camps has to comprise a final stake through
the heart of the Exterminist thesis.
These decrypts allude several times to Heinrich Himmler in relation to the
camps: that he took an interest in some tanning experiments, that he asked about
how many glass blowers were available, and that he sought out makers of musical
instruments. On 17 July, 1942 he visited Auschwitz and it’s always claimed that
he ‘witnessed a mass gassing.’[23] One has a choice here, between two different
stories, between two different worlds.
These primary-source documents show a momentous change in the summer of 1942,
with the outbreak of typhus and the initiation of ‘special treatment’ routines.
Sudden death arrives, but I suggest that no intentional extermination is
happening. Winston Churchill’s speech about ‘We are in the presence of a crime
without a name...’ on 24 August 1940, no doubt alluded, as Dr Terry has made
clear, to what decrypts had been telling him about the brutal Russian campaign -
and not, as has been alleged in certain quarters, to ‘the Holocaust.’[24]
[25]
A focus upon these British Intelligence decrypts could exert a terminal effect
upon the ‘Holocaust’ industry. Holo-tomes tomes roll off the press (Dr Terry had
kindly sent three hundred titles published since 2000), but have they not
ignored this primary-source data? They omit discussing what the decrypts
describe, for the very reason that we are here concerned to expose it.
The Primary Sources
We seek out the primary-source data, in order to find the truth. For
example, there are two raw-data sources, which are more or less independent, for
how people died in the German labour-camps: the Death-Books of Auschwitz,
and the Arolsen Archives (now called the International Tracing Service), a
database collected by the International Red cross over the last sixty years. The
latter covers all the German labour-camps. These two sources have two important
things in common: a roughly similar number of Jewish deaths recorded, around
thirty thousand, for the Auschwitz camp, and also that neither source
records one single death by gassing.
The British-intel decrypts didn’t record the deaths but only ‘departures’ –
which includes deaths - except for the one month of August 1942 when it gave a
figure, and we’ve shown how this is fully compatible with the number given by
the Death-Books for that month.
But, if anyone still wants to believe in huge numbers of Jews brought into the
camps, not being recorded as ‘arrivals’ and then gassed right away – a
quintessentially unverifiable concept – then a different kind of argument will
have to become relevant, of intact coke records. This has not here concerned us,
but the records of coke consumed by the cremation-ovens do impose a strict
ceiling upon the number of bodies that can have been cremated.
Thus we emerge from Storyland, we leave behind us the Fairy Tale from Hell,
which a Culture of Untruth wanted to manipulate. Instead we choose to analyse
the actual, primary-source data. Nowadays hardly anyone believes the words of
politicians, and we respectfully suggest that uncensoring the truth would be the
best way to make progress towards a civilisation that would be worth living in.
We politely request open debate concerning the meaning of these
British-intelligence decrypts.
[1] British Intelligence in World War Two, HMSO, 1981 F.Hinsey Ed., Vol. II,
p.673.
[2] BBC Radio 4 ‘Holocaust Documents Released’ 20 May 1997: Holocaust-historian
Sir Martin Gilbert on how historians ‘failed to notice....’ etc. http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/holocaust/5114.shtml
[3] Nick Terry, Conflicting Signals: British Intelligence on the ‘Final
Solution’, 1941-1942’, Yad Vashem Studies 32, 2004, pp. 351-396, p.382.
[4] Robert van Pelt, Auschwitz 1270 to the Present, 1996: ‘...the words “further
East” meant gas chambers.’ Also, of course, ‘passing through’ (as in the numbers
that ‘passed through the camp’) alluded to ‘the process of extermination,’
p.326. The East was a ‘domain of redemption’ for the German nation, he
explained!
[5] Search for ‘Public Record Office’ then go to the Discovery catalogue, and
insert a file name, eg HW 16/65.
[6] N. Terry, Op. Cit. p.382.
[7] Irving, Churchill’s War, p.964 ref. 28 (citing archive sources in US)
[8] Rudolf Report, 2003, p.60.
[9] On July 29, a radio message authorized the camp administration to pick up
gas for disinfestation: “The permit for travel by truck, from Auschwitz to
Dessau for the collection of gas, which is urgently required for the
disinfestation of the camp, is hereby issued.” Mattogno, Special Treatment,
p.45.
[10] See Carlo Mattogno’s book Special Treatment in Auschwitz for evidence of
the meaning of this term.
[11] Go to our What really happened site and click on ‘Auschwitz population in
Excel’ and the excel spreadsheet will give you the monthly means: or for raw
data examine the decrypt-data starting here.
[12] This total for July was published by the Red Cross, see Mattogno op cit
p.23.
[13] That number cited by Hilberg is wholly impossible in relation to mortality
figures: the muffle-furnaces or cremation-ovens, about fifty of them in
Auschwitz-Birkenau, take one hour per body-cremation, were operated over twelve
hours of the day, and were each online for about half of the time: which gives a
maximum of around one hundred thousand cremations possible in the year: see
Carlo Mattogno, ‘The Crematoria ovens of Asuchwitz and Birkenau’, in Dissecting,
ed. Rudolf.
[14] For that computation, see our ‘Deaths at Auschwitz in 1942.’
[15] This figure comes from ‘The Death Books of Auschwitz,’ analysed in Ref. 13.
But, there was a far lower proportion in 1943, a mere 24%: see our ‘Deaths at
Auschwitz, 1942’
[16] Decrypt HW 16/65 August 1942, p.21.
[17] But NB Himmler’s visit to Auchwitz was on 17-18th July: Mattogno, ref. 10,
p.17
[18] This September report is enormously important, as giving a link or a
comparison with the monthly deaths recorded in the Death Books of Auschwitz
(2005) - discussed here.
[19] Terry op. Cit., p.386.
[20] For analysis, see NK, Deaths at Auschwitz in 1942.’
[21] David Irving, Churchill’s War, p548.
[22] Decrypt HW 16/6 5 Oct 1942: Irving ibid., p.700 (NB I couldn’t find that
decrypt).
[23] This claim is ‘ incessantly repeated and never proven:’ Mattogno, ref 10,,
p.17.
[24] See Terry op. Cit. P.360.
[25] See Jurgen Graf’s Giant with Feet of Clay for this topic: it’s a rebuttal
of Raol Hilberg’s three-volume ‘classic’ Destruction of the European Jews, 2003,
which treats of the Russian campaign in its 2nd Volume.
