In September and October 1941, Arthur Nebe, commander of Einsatzgruppen B was ordered by Himmler to liquidate patients from the Minsk and Mogilev lunatic asylums. With the assistance of Dr. Albert Widmann, a chemist affiliated with the Forensics Institute in Berlin, they conducted what are believed to be the Nazis’ first experimental gassing of human beings.
A room in the lunatic asylum at Mogilev was hermetically sealed and two pipes were driven into the wall. A car (Adler 1939 convertible, registration number "Pol 28545") was parked outside and one of the pipes connected to the car’s exhaust. The car’s engine was turned on and the exhaust fumes flooded into the sealed room. When after eight minutes the people in the room were still alive, a second car (possibly a police van Opel Blitz, registration number "Pol 51628") was connected to the other pipe in the wall and both vehicles were operated simultaneously. A few minutes later all of those in the room were dead.
This is Dr Albert Widmann's description of events:
“During the afternoon Nebe had the window bricked in, leaving two openings for the gas hose… When we arrived, one of the hoses that I had brought was connected. It was fixed onto the exhaust of a touring car… Pieces of piping stuck out of holes made in the wall, onto which the hose could easily be fitted… After five minutes Nebe came out and said that nothing appeared to have happened. After eight minutes he had been unable to detect any result and asked what should be done next. Nebe and I came to the conclusion that the car was not powerful enough. So Nebe had the second hose fitted onto a transport vehicle which belonged to the regular police. It then took only another few minutes before the people were unconscious. Both vehicles were left running for about another ten minutes.”
Video below - the only known German footage of a homicidal gassing at the very point of it being committed.
There seems to be a few seconds missing from the middle of the youtube video showing the patients entering the building.
The video begins with a pan shot of the car and the truck standing next to a wall and the shadow of a person in military boots. An engine is roaring at full throttle.
The second film sequence is split into two parts: First we see five male patients - dressed in white hospital garments - passing the camera seated on a horse cart. Then we see a horse cart halting before a building, one man and two children have got out, whilst another man is still lying on the cart.
Since the patients are emaciated and weak they are helped by male and female Soviet doctors, and those who are naked are given blankets. In the background a German soldier is watching. The patients in white hospital garments on the horse cart are not the same patients as those seen getting off the cart.
The gassing was filmed by Nebe himself and the film was allegedly found in 1947 in Arthur Nebe's apartment in Berlin. Based in part on the success of this experiment, it's claimed the Nazis later applied this method of asphyxiation on a wider scale, deploying mobile gas vans in the occupied territories.
There's no doubt that Einsatgruppen B carried out an experimental gassing at the Mogilev lunatic asylum. The only question is whether the film is genuine or a post-war Soviet re-enactment.
To summarise:
1. The film was discovered by a Dr. Rudolph Goldschmidt who had acquired the Berlin apartment of Arthur Nebe, former commander of SS Einsatsgruppen B. Goldschmidt gave the film to documentary film maker Stuart Schulberg. However, Nebe was involved in the failed attempt to kill Hitler in July 1944 and his apartment was searched by the Gestapo. Why didn't they find the film? Nebe was executed in Berlin at Plötzensee Prison on 21 March 1945.
2. The film was first shown in the documentary Nuremberg: Its Lesson for Today, produced in 1948 by Stuart Schulberg. The whereabouts of the original film he used to make his documentary is now unknown, which means it's not possible to test if the footage was shot on a film produced before 1945.
3. Experts from the Imperial War Museum in London and USHMM in Washington, D.C. doubted the film's authenticity - at least until 2005. One historian at the IWM suggested it may have been 'mocked up' or assembled after the war by the East German state-sponsored film company DEFA (Deutsche Film Aktiengesellschaft). The director of the USHMM saidthat the experts she spoke with believed the gassing footage was a Soviet fake, staged to use against the Germans at the Nuremberg Trial.
4. In 2013, Klaus Schwensen published an article in the Holocaust denial journal "Inconvenient History" dealing with the gassing footage in some detail. He said, "Since the pictures were taken at close range, the photographer must have been authorized to document the scene. On the other hand, there can be no doubt that taking pictures of a secret operation was strictly forbidden."
Schwensen was wrong because it would depend on rank. As commander of Einsatzgruppen B, Arthur Nebe was of sufficiently high rank to decide if filming should be allowed to take place. While shooting the film was legal, storing it at his apartment was definitely not.
Eyewitness accounts about Mogilev
At the beginning of the German investigations of 1959/60 the two main defendants were still available: Dr. Albert Widmann and his laboratory assistant Hans Schmidt who had accompanied him to Mogilev. They were both present when the experimental gassing took place. What did they have to say about the pictures?
Interrogation of Hans Schmidt by the Public Prosecutor’s Office at the Regional Court, Stuttgart
During his interrogation, Schmidt was shown stills of the footage showing “a building and vehicles” While identifying an automobile of the brand “Adler”, he objected:
Interrogation of Dr. Albert Widmann in Düsseldorf, 18 April 1962:
Before being shown the pictures, and before knowing what his interrogators had in mind, the defendant Widmann stated that the building where the gassing had taken place had been “neither a wooden house nor a building made of brick” but “covered with white plaster”. When he was confronted with the pictures, he made the following statement:
References:
Part 3 - Responsibility (I)
http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2016/06/german-footage-of-homicidal-gassing.html
Part 4 - Responsibility (II)
http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2016/07/german-footage-of-homicidal-gassing.html
Part 4 - Responsibility (III)
http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2016/07/german-footage-of-homicidal-gassing_23.html
Part 5 - Forgery Allegation
http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2016/09/german-footage-of-homicidal-gassing.html
The film has also been discussed on the CODOH Forum.
https://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?t=2418
An article also exists on the Inconvenient History website.
https://www.inconvenienthistory.com/5/1/3203
There seems to be a few seconds missing from the middle of the youtube video showing the patients entering the building.
The video begins with a pan shot of the car and the truck standing next to a wall and the shadow of a person in military boots. An engine is roaring at full throttle.
The second film sequence is split into two parts: First we see five male patients - dressed in white hospital garments - passing the camera seated on a horse cart. Then we see a horse cart halting before a building, one man and two children have got out, whilst another man is still lying on the cart.
Since the patients are emaciated and weak they are helped by male and female Soviet doctors, and those who are naked are given blankets. In the background a German soldier is watching. The patients in white hospital garments on the horse cart are not the same patients as those seen getting off the cart.
The gassing was filmed by Nebe himself and the film was allegedly found in 1947 in Arthur Nebe's apartment in Berlin. Based in part on the success of this experiment, it's claimed the Nazis later applied this method of asphyxiation on a wider scale, deploying mobile gas vans in the occupied territories.
There's no doubt that Einsatgruppen B carried out an experimental gassing at the Mogilev lunatic asylum. The only question is whether the film is genuine or a post-war Soviet re-enactment.
To summarise:
1. The film was discovered by a Dr. Rudolph Goldschmidt who had acquired the Berlin apartment of Arthur Nebe, former commander of SS Einsatsgruppen B. Goldschmidt gave the film to documentary film maker Stuart Schulberg. However, Nebe was involved in the failed attempt to kill Hitler in July 1944 and his apartment was searched by the Gestapo. Why didn't they find the film? Nebe was executed in Berlin at Plötzensee Prison on 21 March 1945.
2. The film was first shown in the documentary Nuremberg: Its Lesson for Today, produced in 1948 by Stuart Schulberg. The whereabouts of the original film he used to make his documentary is now unknown, which means it's not possible to test if the footage was shot on a film produced before 1945.
3. Experts from the Imperial War Museum in London and USHMM in Washington, D.C. doubted the film's authenticity - at least until 2005. One historian at the IWM suggested it may have been 'mocked up' or assembled after the war by the East German state-sponsored film company DEFA (Deutsche Film Aktiengesellschaft). The director of the USHMM saidthat the experts she spoke with believed the gassing footage was a Soviet fake, staged to use against the Germans at the Nuremberg Trial.
4. In 2013, Klaus Schwensen published an article in the Holocaust denial journal "Inconvenient History" dealing with the gassing footage in some detail. He said, "Since the pictures were taken at close range, the photographer must have been authorized to document the scene. On the other hand, there can be no doubt that taking pictures of a secret operation was strictly forbidden."
Schwensen was wrong because it would depend on rank. As commander of Einsatzgruppen B, Arthur Nebe was of sufficiently high rank to decide if filming should be allowed to take place. While shooting the film was legal, storing it at his apartment was definitely not.
Eyewitness accounts about Mogilev
At the beginning of the German investigations of 1959/60 the two main defendants were still available: Dr. Albert Widmann and his laboratory assistant Hans Schmidt who had accompanied him to Mogilev. They were both present when the experimental gassing took place. What did they have to say about the pictures?
Interrogation of Hans Schmidt by the Public Prosecutor’s Office at the Regional Court, Stuttgart
During his interrogation, Schmidt was shown stills of the footage showing “a building and vehicles” While identifying an automobile of the brand “Adler”, he objected:
"In my opinion these pictures were not taken during the action in Mogilev. I only remember a connecting piece and a hose. I also believe that the boards lying before the wall and the post which can be seen on the picture did not exist at Mogilev. Furthermore I remember that only the window was walled up with bricks and that the rest of the building was not made of bricks. Finally I think that in Mogilev the vehicle stood further away from the house and that the position of the connecting piece [in the wall of the house] was lower. The license plates of the vehicles visible on the picture are unknown to me, this means that I do not know these license plates…
"My memory of the action in Mogilev strongly differs from the scenes on these pictures. Therefore I think that these pictures do not show the action in Mogilev. The facility shown on the photographs seems to be quite sophisticated whereas the facilty used at the action in Mogilev was clearly provisional.“During another interrogation of Schmidt, the investigators wanted to know which driver had driven the “Adler” close to the wall of the house so that the metal hose from the exhaust pipe could be attached to the connecting piece in the wall. This question was a delicate one as it directly touched upon the problem of responsibility (participation in a crime). Schmidt remembered that the “Adler” had been backed up to the connecting piece; however the vehicles on the alleged Mogilev photographs are standing parallel to the wall of the house.
Interrogation of Dr. Albert Widmann in Düsseldorf, 18 April 1962:
Before being shown the pictures, and before knowing what his interrogators had in mind, the defendant Widmann stated that the building where the gassing had taken place had been “neither a wooden house nor a building made of brick” but “covered with white plaster”. When he was confronted with the pictures, he made the following statement:
"The scene shown on this picture cannot show the events at Mogilev. As I already made clear, the building was covered with white plaster and had a foundation block. Moreover, one of the two hoses we had brought with us was much thicker than the other one. The vehicles used at Mogilev did not stand parallel to, but perpendicular to, the wall of the house. To the best of my remembrance, the hose did not have a support. I am unable to identify the vehicles on the picture as vehicles of the RKPA [Reichspolizeiamt]. The RKPA did not have any trucks at all. I do not know the license plates of the vehicles, in particular I cannot explain the tactical sign on the platform of the truck. I do not know this sign.
After a second look at the pictures he said, "I wish to point out that the window walled up with bricks sharply stood out against the wall of the house, which was covered with white plaster, and looked abominably ugly. Finally I did not see anybody taking pictures.”Apparently the statements of Schmidt and Dr. Widmann, which were made independently of each other and basically agreed, convinced the Public Prosecutors, so they refrained from using the photographs as evidence in their trials.
References:
This film footage has been discussed in great detail on the Holocaust Controversies website with a lot of informative comments.
Part 1 - Provenance
http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2016/05/german-footage-of-homicidal-gassing.html
Part 2 - Location
http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2016/05/german-footage-of-homicidal-gassing_23.html Part 1 - Provenance
http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2016/05/german-footage-of-homicidal-gassing.html
Part 2 - Location
Part 3 - Responsibility (I)
http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2016/06/german-footage-of-homicidal-gassing.html
Part 4 - Responsibility (II)
http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2016/07/german-footage-of-homicidal-gassing.html
Part 4 - Responsibility (III)
http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2016/07/german-footage-of-homicidal-gassing_23.html
Part 5 - Forgery Allegation
http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2016/09/german-footage-of-homicidal-gassing.html
The film has also been discussed on the CODOH Forum.
https://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?t=2418
An article also exists on the Inconvenient History website.
https://www.inconvenienthistory.com/5/1/3203
