SOBIBÓR - Holocaust Handbooks

J. GRAF, T. KUES, C. MATTOGNO, SOBIBÓR 259
tein’s reports on his “mission” are at the heart of this dichotomy. Here
Yitzak Arad has this to say: 770
“The gassing system that had been developed and introduced by
Wirth in the Operation Reinhard death camps proved only partially
satisfactory. The frequent engine breakdowns caused disturbances
and delays in the entire extermination process. Globocnik was
aware of these shortcomings and, in coordination with the higher
authorities of the SS, decided to look into the possibility of introducing
an alternative gassing system. The prevailing opinion among the
higher SS authorities in charge of the extermination of Jews was that
Zyklon B was more suitable for this task.
Obersturmführer Kurt Gerstein, the chief disinfection officer in
the Main Hygienic Office of the Waffen SS, and SS Obersturmbannführer
Wilhelm Pfannenstiel, professor and director of the Hygienic
Institute at the University of Marburg/Lahn, who had also
served as hygienic adviser of the Waffen SS, were sent to Lublin in
the middle of August 1942. Gerstein’s main mission was to check the
possibility of introducing the gas Zyklon B into the gas chambers.
Zyklon B had already been successfully used in Auschwitz instead of
the engines that were still supplying the monoxide gas in the death
camps of Operation Reinhard.”
As we have seen elsewhere, 771 Gerstein’s “mission” is a chain of absurdities
which ends with an even greater absurdity: although he had
been ordered by the RSHA to change the alleged gas chambers running
on Diesel engine exhaust gases into chambers operating with hydrocyanic
acid and having gone to Be��ec for this purpose with 45 bottles of
HCN (which is nonsense, as there never was such a thing as bottled
HCN), he then went back to Berlin without having done anything,
without having caused any changes, without reporting to anyone, and
without being asked anything by anyone about his trip!
This absurdity was noticed by the French investigating judge Mattei
in his interrogation of Gerstein: 772
“Q: To whom did you report about the results of your mission?
770
Y. Arad, op. cit. (note 49), p. 100.
771
C. Mattogno, J. Graf, op. cit. (note 10, Engl. ed.), “The ‘Mission’ of Kurt Gerstein,” pp.
126-133.
772
G. Wellers, “Encore sur le Témoignage Gerstein,” in: Le Monde Juif, Jan.-Mar. 1980,
No. 97, p. 29, 32.