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I decided to publish the material I collected about gas chambers. Maybe it will be interesting for someone to read, since there are not many materials on this topic, especially about the history, construction and operation of such a car. It is necessary to take into account that I did a report on the subject "History of the Holocaust", because the author's opinion may not coincide with the opinion of readers on the Holocaust. It would be nice to get comments about the car, documentation, facts, especially photos, if such exist.

Here you can download the version in .doc format: http://www.sendspace.com/file/84l9s8

Content:
1. Introduction. 4
2. The history of the creation of "gazvagen". five
3. Technology. 6
4. Documentary confirmation. 7
5. Conclusion. eighteen
6. Used materials. 21

1. INTRODUCTION.
This material is devoted to one topic that has rarely ever been studied in detail in works on the history of the Holocaust, as well as the global automotive industry - cars - "gas chambers". There are few eyewitness accounts, written works, documents that could help find the true and objective reasons for using such a strange and terrible means to destroy people, as well as any technical parameters to recreate an approximate idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthis car. A lot of questions immediately arise who, for what, when created such a strange technical invention? To what extent was it justified in application? Did it exist at all? In order to answer these questions, this report was created and the answer will be unequivocal - yes, such a weapon for killing people certainly existed. The material can be divided into three major parts. The first will be devoted to the history of the creation of the car - "gas chambers", the second - the technical characteristics of this car, and the third - the proof of the existence of "gas chambers". The last chapter is devoted to one of the directions, the supporters of which classify themselves as historical revisionists, revising the history of the Second World War and denying the Nazi policy of extermination of the Jews. When creating the material, information was used from works devoted to the Holocaust, periodicals, the Internet, books on the automotive industry, as well as legal literature.

2. HISTORY OF CREATION.
"Special car", colloquially "gas chamber". The fruit of the "creative" fantasy of SS Untersturmführer Dr. Becker. Produced since 1941 at the Saurer automobile plant. And widely used by the SS special teams during the Second World War, especially in the USSR and Eastern Europe. Outwardly, it was no different from ordinary covered trucks. But it was designed so that the exhaust gases flowed into a sealed body. Unsuspecting civilians numbering from 15 to 25 people were loaded into it to be destroyed. The car "Sonder" began to be produced in order to "humanize" ethnic cleansing after Himmler, who was present at the execution of a group of Jews in Minsk, could not stand such a sight and fainted. Ober - the Nazis felt how rude and impractical. It was necessary to urgently invent a way to destroy a large number of people, "worthy of a civilized European country." This is how the idea of ​​the “Vergazungsvagen” was born, or, speaking in Russian, a gas chamber machine. The operation of the device was considered successful if there were no signs of agony on the faces and bodies of the victims, that is, when they slowly fell asleep under the influence of poisonous gases. By January 1942, "worthy of a civilized country" "gas wagons" were at the disposal of all the Einsatzgruppen responsible for the implementation of the orders of the Ost plan. The idea is simple and effective. However, the unloading personnel were constantly poisoned. Because of what, some Sonderkommandos, in the end, returned to the "inhumane" methods of killing - executions. In addition to large trucks, there were also mini models. The author of "History of the Gestapo" (Paris, 1962, Smolensk, 1993) Jacques Delarue claimed that 340,000 Jews were "filtered" in Chełmno (Łódź region) with the help of such vehicles. As it became known later, in Kharkov alone, about 30,000 people were killed by gas chambers.

3. TECHNOLOGY.
The fuel we commonly use (coal, wood, gasoline, etc.) is made up of carbon (C) and hydrogen (H) atoms. The combustion process is the process of attaching oxygen (O) atoms to these atoms, which, as a rule, are taken from the air. When hydrogen is burned, the product of combustion is always water (H2O). But carbon is more difficult. They try to attach one carbon atom to two oxygen atoms and get a gas (CO2), which in chemistry is called carbon dioxide (dioxide), or carbon dioxide. The last name is also used in everyday life. When carbon burns to produce carbon dioxide, the maximum possible amount of heat is released. But such a combustion process does not always work out (and sometimes it is not specially conducted). In some cases, carbon attaches only one oxygen atom and another gas, CO, is obtained as a product of combustion. Chemists call it carbon monoxide (oxide), and in everyday life it is called carbon monoxide. Water and carbon dioxide are harmless to humans, but carbon monoxide is a very strong and insidious poison. First, it cannot be felt. For example, hydrogen sulfide is also a poison, but you will smell the smell of rotten eggs long before the concentration of hydrogen sulfide reaches the limits at which poisoning occurs. And carbon monoxide is impossible to feel even in high concentrations. Secondly, there are no symptoms disturbing a person on the eve of poisoning - a person does not feel sick, he does not suffocate. A person just wants to take a nap. He falls asleep and, if no action is taken, never wakes up. Everyone used to know this because carbon monoxide poisoning was one of the most common causes of domestic accidents. After all, the huts and buildings were heated by stoves, and to save fuel, the housewives tried to block the chimney of the stove early so that less warm air would leave the house through the chimney. Coals remained in the furnace, due to the lack of draft with a closed pipe, air flow to the coals decreased and the combustion process began to proceed with the formation of not only carbon dioxide, but also carbon monoxide. The family fell asleep and it was not always possible to revive her in the morning. The household term for this death is "fat", hence the name of this gas. In addition, carbon monoxide used to be specially produced in huge quantities and diluted with pipes through the houses. It was also used to illuminate streets and houses, so it also has a second name - lighting. Leakage of this gas in houses gave the same effect of poisoning. Today, in cities, central heating and electric lighting, carbon monoxide has been forgotten and mostly motorists remain its victims. The standard situation of poisoning: a motorist repairs a car in the garage in winter. And to make it warmer, he leaves the engine running with the gates closed. Then he is found not only asleep, but also cold. Carbon monoxide is always contained in the exhaust of a carburetor car, especially a lot of it with an incorrectly adjusted carburetor (which is controlled by the traffic police today). Unlike a gasoline engine, a diesel engine is more economical and there is much less carbon monoxide in its exhaust.
The fact that there were cars-gas chambers, where the killing of people took place with the help of carbon monoxide from the exhaust of a car, can be explained by rationalization or economy. But there are rumors that the killing took place with the help of diesel exhaust gases - this is not so. The fact is that during the war in Germany there was a catastrophic shortage of liquid fuel, by the way, diesel fuel was even more scarce than gasoline. Hundreds of thousands of cars in Germany at that time were equipped with gas generators. The organization of a network of gas filling stations required significant capital investments for the production of high-strength cylinders; for compressed gas, alloy steel was needed. The lack of the necessary production base made these reasons decisive and put the creation of gas generators in the spotlight. Let's look at what it is. In a gasoline engine in a carburetor, gasoline is mixed with air and sucked into the cylinders. There, this mixture is ignited, and gasoline burns out: the hydrogen of gasoline burns to form water, and carbon - to form carbon dioxide (they strive for this) and carbon monoxide (an organic defect in the engine). The heat generated heats up and expands the gases, they push the pistons. When there is a shortage of gasoline, a small stove (gas generator) is hung on the car, into which easily accessible raw materials are laid (substandard wood, slab (there were experiments with peat, anthracite and even straw briquettes)). First, they burn with excess air and the formation of carbon dioxide, which goes into the chimney. A lot of heat is released in the stove, firewood turns into coals, and is heated. After that, the pipe is closed, and the air supply to the furnace is reduced. The product of this combustion is carbon monoxide, which is fed into the converted engine carburetor. There, carbon monoxide is mixed with air, sucked into the cylinders, ignited by a candle and burned to form carbon dioxide. Heat is released, gases expand, pistons push and the car moves. Great difficulties were caused by the creation of a durable and efficient combustion chamber - the choice of design and material, because. they burned out fairly quickly. The gas generators (generator, coolers and gas purifiers) were quite bulky and heavy. Their weight ranged from 400 to 600 kg. Bad, but it works. And there were hundreds of thousands of such stoves (gas generators) in Germany. Why was it necessary to poison people with the exhaust gases of a diesel engine, if there were gas generators? In a diesel engine, for the formation of 1 kg of poisonous gas (carbon monoxide), you need to burn hundreds of kilograms of the most scarce diesel fuel, and in a gas generator - less than a kilogram of non-deficient firewood. There is no documentation for the manufacture of "gas chambers", even with all the German pedantry - these are three or four sheets of writing format, which can be destroyed within a minute.
4. DOCUMENTARY CONFIRMATION.
On December 15-18, 1943, the first ever trial of German war criminals, the crew of a gas van, took place in Kharkov. The guilty verdict of the Kharkov court served as a legal precedent for the International Military Tribunal in the Nuremberg Palace of Justice, which delivered a harsh and fair verdict to National Socialism. At the Kharkov trial, the defendant Bulanov, the driver of the Fergazungswagen, described its device in a businesslike way: “This is a two-axle car, about five to seven tons. Painted in gray paint. The motor is six-cylinder. The body has a double door, it is hermetically closed. Inside the body is upholstered with galvanized iron, below - a wooden lattice. This is the floor on which the arrested stand. At the bottom of the car is the engine exhaust pipe, from which exhaust gas passes through a special hose into the body. The operating instructions forbade drivers to accelerate the “procedure” by pressing the accelerator to failure. As a result, the executed died from suffocation, and not from poisoning. With the correct position of the control lever, people "fell into a deep sleep." After the liberation of the city, the crew of one of these death machines - three Nazis and a Russian collaborator - ended up in Soviet captivity. Fascist executioners in the name of Justice itself had to be judged, but legal problems suddenly arose. In 1939, when World War II began, there was no law criminalizing aggression. How to judge for what is not in the law? After all, this would be a violation of the basic legal principle - nullum crimen sine lege, that is, "there is no crime without law." In international law, there was also the doctrine of the immunity of heads of state, according to which the head of the country could only be convicted by his own, national, court. If the heads of state are not brought to justice, then on what basis can the executors be judged and punished - generals, officers, soldiers, who carried out the orders of their immediate superiors? After all, every soldier, lawyers said, wears "his own criminal code in his own satchel" - a crime, if committed by him, is subject only to the jurisdiction of his country. An excursion into the past also did not provide the necessary grounds for a trial - the history of wars, no matter how cruel and bloody they were, did not know the procedure for punishing the perpetrators of crimes. Was Attila, the king of the Huns, who devastated Gaul and destroyed Rome, judged? Or the crusaders who staged a massacre in Jerusalem? True, after the First World War, which claimed ten million human lives, the victorious countries made an attempt to bring the ruling elite of Kaiser Germany to justice. But in fact, none of the war criminals was punished. Until 1943, there was no unity on the issue of trial of the Nazis among the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition - wars, as Winston Churchill believed, should end with indemnities, reparations, changing borders, but by no means litigation. The Soviet leadership took a different position - the monstrous crimes of the Nazis in the occupied territories demanded revenge. On April 19, 1943, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR adopted a Decree, according to which cases of crimes committed by the German military were to be considered by Soviet military courts. Given the firmness of the position of the USSR, the leaders of Great Britain and the United States agreed to sign the "Declaration on the responsibility of the Nazis for the atrocities committed." This document was published on November 2, 1943, making the right-wing trial of the fascist executioners a reality. The crew of the Kharkov gas wagon - Captain Langheld, SS Lieutenant Ritz, Senior Corporal Retslav and Russian driver Bulanov were tried in December 1943. The process was open, the well-known writers Alexei Tolstoy, Konstantin Simonov, Ilya Ehrenburg, Leonid Leonov, numerous foreign journalists were present, all telegraph agencies of the world followed its progress. The defendants were provided with translators and lawyers. The Germans behaved calmly, cooperated with the court, answered questions clearly in a military way: yes, they killed, that was the order. One gets the impression that until the last moment they did not believe in the guilty verdict, because they were simple executors. Captain Langheld, who personally killed, by his own admission, at least a hundred Soviet people, stubbornly repeated: "I was not the only one who committed atrocities, such is the whole German army." But he had to answer. First. The guilt of the defendants was irrefutable, and the court, on behalf of the thousands of those who had been shot, burned, and gassed, sentenced all four to death by hanging. So on December 18, 1943, at the trial in Kharkov, the declaration of the three allied powers on the punishment of war criminals was first applied. For the first time, it was announced to the whole world that the notorious "befel" (order) does not release the perpetrators of bloody atrocities. The Kharkiv legal precedent was subsequently enshrined in the decisions of the Nuremberg International Tribunal, which condemned not Senior Corporal Retslav, but Reichsmarschall Goering. At the end of the 20th century, thanks to the first legal step in Kharkiv, the inevitability of punishment for war crimes became a universally recognized norm of international law. On December 19, 1943, the criminals were hanged at the Blagoveshchensky Bazaar, where the occupiers themselves carried out public executions in the presence of 40,000 Kharkiv residents.
EXTRACTS FROM THE NUREMBERG TRIAL. CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY.
SPEECH BY ASSISTANT OF THE CHIEF PROSECUTOR FROM THE USSR LN SMIRNOV.
(TsGAOR USSR, f 7445, op. 1, item 26.)
Transcript of the meetings of the military tribunal on February 14, 15, 18 and 19, 1946
I turn to the presentation of evidence related to the use by Nazi criminals of special machines for killing people with gasoline exhaust vapors - "sonder machines", "gas wagons", or "gas vans", as the Soviet people correctly called them. The very fact of the use of these machines for the mass killing of people is the gravest accusation against the leaders of German fascism. Special devices for the mass destruction of people in closed hermetic vehicles, the exhaust pipes of whose engines were connected to the bodies with the help of special movable hoses, were used by the Nazis for the first time in the USSR in 1942. I remind the esteemed Court that for the first time we find mention of "gas chambers" in the act presented by me to the Tribunal on the atrocities of the German fascist invaders in the city of Kerch (document numbered USSR-63); this refers to the spring of 1942. I remind the Tribunal, included in the act, of an excerpt from the testimony of the witness Darya Demchenko, who saw how German servicemen in Kerch threw the corpses of the dead into an anti-tank ditch from two "gas chambers". However, it is clear with indisputable evidence that the mass killing of people by "gas chambers" was first established by the Extraordinary State Commission in the Stavropol Territory. This can be seen from the document under the number USSR-1. The investigation of the atrocities of the German fascists in the Stavropol Territory was led by the late outstanding Russian writer, member of the Extraordinary State Commission, Academician Alexei Nikolayevich Tolstoy. A very thorough investigation was organized with the involvement of prominent specialists, forensic doctors, because human thinking, which sets certain logical boundaries for crimes, then hardly perceived the existence of these machines. However, as a result of the investigation and the testimony of eyewitnesses about the "gas chambers", the mass painful murders of civilians committed by the German fascists with their help were fully confirmed.
The Communication of the Extraordinary State Commission for the Stavropol Territory contains the first detailed description of the device of "gas chambers": "The mass extermination of the peaceful Soviet population by the Germans by carbon monoxide poisoning in specially equipped vehicles - "gas chambers" was established. get acquainted in detail with the device of motor vehicles specially adapted for suffocation - the destruction of people with exhaust gases. There were several such cars in the city of Stavropol under the Gestapo. Its device was as follows: the body was about 5 meters long, 2.5 meters wide, the height of the body was also about 2.5 meters. The body was in the shape of a wagon, without windows, inside it was upholstered with galvanized iron, on the floor, also upholstered in iron, there were wooden gratings; the body door is upholstered with rubber, with the help of an automatic lock it was tightly closed. On the floor of the car, under the bars, there were two metal pipes... These pipes were connected to each other by a transverse pipe of the same diameter... These pipes had frequent half-centimeter holes; a rubber hose exits from the transverse pipe down through a hole in the galvanized floor, at the end of which is a hexagonal nut with a thread corresponding to the thread on the end of the motor exhaust pipe. This hose is screwed onto the exhaust pipe, and when the engine is running, all the exhaust gases go into the inside of the body of this hermetically sealed car. As a result of the accumulation of gases, the person in the back died after a short time. The car body can accommodate 70-80 people. The motor on this car is installed brand "Saurer"..."
In the Stavropol Territory, a gas chamber was used to kill 660 sick people in a local hospital. Further, I draw the attention of the respected Court to the Report of the Extraordinary State Commission on the atrocities of the German fascist criminals in Krasnodar. I submit this document to the Court under Exhibit Number USSR-42. It also states the facts of mass murders of people with the help of gas chambers. I submit to the Court under Exhibit Number USSR-65 the verdict of the military tribunal of the North Caucasian Front. In order to shorten the time, I will quote from this verdict a short quote: “The judicial investigation also established the facts of the systematic torture and burning by the Nazi robbers of many arrested Soviet citizens who were in the basements of the Gestapo, and extermination by poisoning with carbon monoxide gases in specially equipped vehicles -“ gas chambers ”about 7 thousand innocent Soviet people, including over 700 sick people who were in medical institutions in the city of Krasnodar and the Krasnodar Territory, of which 42 are children aged 5 to 16 years. I then present to the Court the Communication of the Extraordinary State Commission on the atrocities of the German fascist invaders in the city of Kharkov and the Kharkov region. Document number USSR-43. I refer to the verdict of the military tribunal of the 4th Ukrainian Front, which is presented under the number USSR-32. "For the massacres of Soviet citizens, the Nazi invaders used the so-called "gas wagons" - large closed vehicles, which are known to the Russians as" gas chambers. "The Nazi invaders drove Soviet citizens into these" gas wagons "and killed them by launching a special deadly gas - carbon monoxide. In order to hide the traces of committed monstrous atrocities and the mass extermination of Soviet people by suffocation with carbon monoxide in gas wagons, Nazi criminals burned the corpses of their victims. As proof that "gas chambers" were used not only in those points about which I spoke, I refer to the Communication of the Extraordinary State Commission, presented to the Court under the number USSR-9, about the atrocities of the Germans in Kyiv. The court will find there evidence of the use of "gas chambers" in Kyiv. I will dwell on the data on the widespread use of "gas chambers" on the territory of the temporarily occupied regions of the USSR, that is, on the Report of the Extraordinary State Commission for the city of Rovno and the Rivne region. "...3. The destruction of civilians and prisoners of war in the city of Rovno was carried out by mass executions from machine guns and machine guns, by killing with carbon monoxide in gas chambers," and in some cases people were dumped into graves and covered up alive. Some of the people who were shot, in particular in the quarries near the village of Vydumka, were burnt on prepared and adapted sites. "I refer to the Report of the Extraordinary State Commission for Minsk as confirmation of this: "Thousands of Soviet citizens died at the hands of German executioners in concentration camps." I turn to the testimony of the witness Moisievich, who says: "I was an eyewitness of how the Germans destroyed people in the gas chambers." They forcibly pushed from 70 to 80 people into each “gas chamber” and took them away in an unknown direction.” Commissions...
PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS
FROM THE SPEECH OF THE REPRESENTATIVE OF THE PROSECUTION FROM THE USA W. WALSH
Gas vehicles were used as a means of mass extermination of Jews. The description of these horror and death machines and their operation is detailed in a top secret report dated May 16, 1942, which was addressed to SS-Obersturmbannführer Rauf in Berlin, Prinzalbrechtstraße 8, by Dr. Becker, SS-Unter-Sturmführer. Document PS-501, USA-288.
"Inspection of gas vehicles of group "O" and "C" is over. While gas vehicles of the first series can be used in bad weather, cars of the second series "Saurer" completely fail in rainy weather. For example, if they have been in the rain for half an hour, they cannot be used because they skid.These cars can only be used in absolutely dry weather.The question now is whether a gas car can be used when it is at the execution site.Firstly, it should to this place, which is possible only in good weather.Secondly, the place of execution is usually located 10 - 15 kilometers from the highway and it is difficult to get to it.In mud or wet weather, it cannot be reached at all.If the persons to be destroyed transported or led to this place, they quickly become aware of what is going on and begin to worry about what should be avoided as much as possible. us at one point, and then transported to the place of execution. I ordered the "O" motor vehicles to be disguised as residential trailers by attaching one pair of window shutters to each side of the small LPG vehicle and two pairs of shutters to each side of the larger vehicles so as to resemble the peasant houses that one sees in the countryside. terrain. These cars have become so well known that not only the authorities, but also the civilian population, call these cars "gas chambers", I think that it is impossible even for a short period of time not only to keep a gas car secret, but also to disguise it...” .
EXTRACTS FROM THE SPEECH OF THE ISRAELI ATTORNEY GENERAL AT THE TRIAL OF ADOLF EICHMANN (BY THE MATERIALS FROM THE BOOK "6,000,000 ACCUSE".
CHAPTER IV. THE FINAL SOLUTION OF THE JEWISH QUESTION (p.62).
“... Everything that concerns the extermination of Jews is his (Adolf Eichmann - approx. B.P.) business ... He tested the system of extermination in "gas chambers" even before they began to be used for mass use ... ".
CHAPTER VI. EXTERMINATION OF THE JEWS IN THE SOVIET UNION AND THE COUNTRIES ATTACHED TO IT (p. 99). EXTRACT OF THE COMMANDER OF THE "SPECIAL PURPOSE DERIVATION D" OTTO OHLENDORF, WHO DESCRIBED IN HIS DEPOSITION HOW THE ORDER TO MURDER 90 THOUSAND JEWS WAS IMPLEMENTED.
“... At the beginning of 1942, the chief of the Security Police and the SD sent us "gas chambers" ... and when a sufficient number of victims were recruited, these machines were put into action. We kept them close to the transit points where the victims were going. They were told that they were being transported to another place, they were loaded into a truck and, having closed the doors, gas was let in through the outlet pipes. In 10-15 minutes everyone was dead. Cars drove off to the place of burial; there they dragged out and buried the corpses.”
CHAPTER VII. EXTERMINATION OF THE JEWS IN NORTHERN WESTERN AND SOUTHERN EUROPE (p.120). BELGIUM. OFFICIAL REPORT OF THE BELGIAN GOVERNMENT ON THE EXPORT OF JEWS TO THE BELGIAN MALIN CAMP:
“When they arrived at Malin and the doors were opened, a terrible sight presented itself. Thick clouds of smoke with a disgusting smell escaped from each ill-fated truck. And from the doors, opened under pressure from within, poured out - like a fish unloaded from a fishing boat with one of the walls lowered - a terrible mass of swollen purple and bluish bodies, with eyes protruding from their sockets, and clothes soaked with sweat and feces. Nine corpses were removed from trucks; eighty half-dead people were sent to the infirmary."
EXTRACT FROM THE BOOK M. M. ALTMAN "HOLOCAUST DENIAL. HISTORY AND MODERN TRENDS".
INTRODUCTION (C.4)
“For the extermination of Jews on Soviet soil, not only mass executions were used ... Already in the autumn of 1941, sinister machines -“ gas chambers ”in which people were killed by exhaust gases, were tested precisely on Soviet Jews.”
EXTRACTS FROM THE BOOK "AN UNKNOWN BLACK BOOK" OF EYEWITNESS EVIDENCE ON THE DISASTER OF SOVIET JEWS (1941-1944).
II. BELARUS.2.1. MINSK. FIVE POGROMS IN MINSK. STORIES BY PERLA AGINSKAYA, MALKA KOFMAN, DARIA LUSIK AND RAISA GELFOND. RECORDED BY MAJOR A. KRASKOV. (p.241)
“... After the third pogrom, night raids became more frequent. At night, the Germans destroyed the families of Jews suspected of having links with the partisans. From dusk until dawn, black covered cars darted through the ghetto. These were the slaughterhouses. Captured Jews were put into these cars. The motor worked and a strong knock was heard in the car, and after two or three minutes no sounds came from the car. Every night, except Saturday and Sunday, a gas chamber came up to the gates of the ghetto.
At the end of the summer of 1942, orders were pasted along the streets of the ghetto. The surviving Jews were invited to gather in the square on October 25th to instruct blue stripes. When the people gathered, the police surrounded the square. The same black covered cars that had been working for four days in a row came up. The corpses of the tortured Germans were taken to the town of Trostyanets, where they were dumped into a pit.
After the fourth pogrom it became comparatively quieter. However, the extermination of the Jews continued. At first, the ghetto had an orphanage and a nursing home, but soon their inhabitants were taken out in gas chambers.
Residents of Minsk remember how German robbers killed children with daggers, they remember children's requests to the Germans: "Uncles, don't beat us, we'll go to the car ourselves ...".
II. BELARUS. 2.1. MINSK. THEY TRADE CHILDREN. STORIES OF MARIA GOTOVTSEVA, MARF ORLOV, FENIA LEPESHKO. RECORDED BY A. VERBITSKY (p. 244).
“...Having captured Minsk, the Nazis for a long time did not pay attention to the children who vegetated in shelters and orphanages. In the summer of 1942, the local fascist authorities became aware that there were many Jewish children among the neglected, orphaned children, and they decided to begin the liquidation of thousands of small Soviet citizens.
Gas buses - "gas chambers" caught Jewish children on the streets, in courtyards, in hospitals and orphanages. Children stuffed huge car bodies. Piles of small bodies were thrown into the pits of the village of Bolshoi Trostyanets...”.
II. BELARUS. 2.1. MINSK. MEMORIES OF THE DOCTOR TSETSILIA MIKHAILOVNA SHAPIRO. RECORDED BY A. V. WEISBROD. SEPTEMBER 20, 1944 (p. 253).
“... The most advanced means of extermination were the notorious gas chambers, which soon began to be used on a large scale ...
During the extermination in gas chambers, young women were tied by scythes to the axles of cars and, in this form, were dragged alive around the city until death occurred. Inside the gas chambers, those who were there were being gassed at that time ... ”.
II. BELARUS. 2.1. MINSK. THE POISONING OF THE RESIDENTS OF MINSK WITH GAS IN CARS - GAUGERS AND THE SHOOTING OF MINSK JEWS. Transcript of the Interrogation of the German Officer Reichoff Julius. ON JULY 21, 1944 FROM THE DOCUMENTS OF THE ChGK (p. 264).
“... In a conversation with him in the canteen of the division headquarters in September 1942, I don’t remember what date, Gomeyer told me that in the city of Minsk, SD workers, he didn’t tell me their names, for the destruction of Soviet citizens with the help of poison gases a special machine is used, which is called a gas chamber. The device of the gas chamber is as follows: it has the form of a truck with a covered body. In the body, where the Germans planted Soviet citizens for the purpose of poisoning, a pipe was laid from the engine of the car. The car was hermetically sealed, and the people who were in it, under the influence of exhaust gases, were poisoned in a few minutes. I don’t know how long a gas chamber machine operated in Minsk and how many Soviet citizens were poisoned with it.
... Personally, I didn’t have to see the so-called gas chamber machine, with the help of which the mass poisoning of Soviet citizens was carried out, I first learned about it from Ober-Lieutenant Gomayer Ewald, and later from acquaintances from the city of Minsk. Which of the employees of the "SD" serviced a car in Minsk - a gas chamber and poisoned Soviet citizens with the help of this car, I do not know and I have nothing to show anything significant on this issue.
... All the atrocities and the destruction of Soviet citizens with the help of a gas chamber were carried out in accordance with the orders and instructions of the German government, as I showed above during the previous interrogation ... ".
5. CONCLUSION
Given the narrow focus of this topic, it is very difficult to find reliable information, since there is no accurate technical documentation; Few have addressed this issue in detail. There are eyewitness accounts and just mentions in various works that such cars existed. Therefore, it is very easy to mislead a person, which is what unscrupulous journalists use, trying to defend their point of view, based on false facts. When creating this work, I often had to deal with this phenomenon. Masquerading under the word "revisionism", they are trying to cross out the past, distort history, and outrage the memory of millions. This movement sweeps away all currently existing facts, archival documents, material sources and testimonies of participants in the events. It seems that the remaining at large Nazis and their accomplices launched a campaign aimed at denying, downplaying or justifying Hitler's Nazism. There are especially many publications whose authors question or directly deny the fact of the Holocaust and its scale. Unfortunately, this campaign is well organized and continues to serve as a justification and justification for anti-Semitism and the Holocaust. One of the reasons for statements denying or justifying the atrocities of Nazism and the Holocaust is their complete impunity in Russia. The country has not yet adopted a law on liability for publications that are offensive to the Jewish people and, moreover, incite national hatred and anti-Semitism. Thus, Holocaust denial is part of the ideology of modern extremism and is a danger to all who believe in freedom, democracy, sanity and universal human priorities. It is insulting not only to the memory of the Jews who were victims of the Holocaust, but also to all the victims of Nazism, as well as to all who today want to know and preserve the past for the sake of a common future for all. It should be noted that in a number of Western countries that suffered from Nazism - Germany, Austria, France, Belgium, Italy and others - there are legal norms that provide for criminal liability for denying or justifying the atrocities of Nazism. Thus, in Austria, the Constitutional Law on the Prohibition of the NSDAP (Nazi Party) of May 8, 1945 states: "Paragraph 3 (h). Anyone who, in a publication, on the radio or other media or in any other way, publicly denies, grossly underestimates, praises or attempts to refute National Socialist crimes against humanity." This section provides for a penalty of up to 20 years in prison. And these laws apply. For example, in France in 1998, well-known politicians Roger Garaudy and Le Pen were fined large sums for denying the fact of the Holocaust and anti-Semitic statements, and the latter was deprived of political rights.
As the few miraculous survivors of the Holocaust pass away, the voices of those who contradict the truth grow louder. Therefore, everything must be done so that new generations of people know the truth about the Holocaust.

By poisoning with carbon monoxide or exhaust gas. The start of the use of serial gas wagons dates back to November - December 1941 (Kyiv, Poltava, Riga and Chelmno). Since the spring of 1942, their use in Yugoslavia (Serbia) has been documented.

The use of gas wagons by the Nazis became known in 1943 after the trial of participants in crimes against humanity committed on the territory of the Krasnodar Territory of the USSR, where about 6,700 civilians were killed by gas poisoning in gas chambers. Materials about the use of these death machines on the territory of the USSR were presented by Soviet prosecutors at the Nuremberg trials of the main war criminals.

The total number of victims of this instrument of death during the Second World War is unknown. In a Nazi document from occupied Minsk, dated June 5, 1942, it is indicated that from December 1941 to June 1942, 97 thousand people were killed in 3 gas wagons. At least 152,000 were killed in the Chelmno concentration camp near Lodz (Poland). It is known that on June 23, 1942, the manufacturing company Gaubschat Fahrzeugwerke GmbH transferred 20 gas wagons of 2 versions (for 30-50 and 70-100 people) out of 30 originally ordered. None of the produced gas wagons survived.

About the name

Captured German documents referred to this device as Sonder-Wagen, Sonderfahrzeug, Spezialwagen and S-Wagen (special transport); a variant of the Entlausungswagen (disinfection vehicle) is also found. The first known mention of the term Vergasungswagen (vehicle for the application of gases) is given in the documents of the Nuremberg Tribunal (document 501-PS). At the same time, in Western popular, scientific literature and memoirs published after the end of World War II, the term Gaswagen or English-language tracing paper (gas-van) is used. In Russian-language publications, the term "gazenvagen" is more common than the original transcription from German - "gasvagen". In Soviet historical literature, the name "gas chamber" is also used.

The choice of the Gaswagen name for gas-fired vehicles has a fairly simple basis. Germany during the war experienced a serious shortage of motor fuel, and non-responsible transportation was carried out using cars running on generator gas. These cars were called "generator gas wagons" or simply "gas wagons". If they worked on a burnt tree (which was the majority), then they were also called "holzgaswagen", which literally means "wood gas vans". In English-speaking countries, such vehicles are usually called gas-generating vehicles (producer gas vehicles).

The prosecutors at the Nuremberg trials had no difficulty in choosing a name; after the "gas chambers" of the camps, it is quite logical to use "gas cars", especially since there were about 500 thousand cars running on generator gas, and everyone knew the name "gas car".

History of appearance

According to the surviving archival documents, it is known that the Nazis, at least since the autumn of 1939, used carbon monoxide to kill the mentally ill, mentally retarded and physically handicapped people. According to eyewitnesses, a pressurized van towed by a tractor was used for this, into which carbon monoxide (CO) was supplied from cylinders. The vans were marked Kaisers-Kaffee-Geschäft (Kaiser's Coffee House). Responsible for the development and application of the technique of killing with carbon monoxide was the Kriminaltechnisches Institut (KTI) of the Imperial Security Headquarters.

Rauff gave the order to his subordinate Pradel (SS-Hauptsturmführer Pradel), noting that this was Heydrich's order. Pradel, in turn, instructs his subordinate Wentritt to investigate and report on the technical feasibility of this task (delivery of gases to a pressurized van). Having received a positive answer, Pradel reported upstairs and soon received instructions from Heath on the design and use of a special vehicle. By order of Rauff, Pradel and Ventrit visit the company in Berlin Gaubschat Fahrzeugwerke GmbH, which produces pressurized structures, under the pretext of the need to produce pressurized vans for transporting corpses from epidemic zones. The contract stipulated that RSHA would supply the chassis, and the company would install the necessary equipment on it. Soon the first 6 cars were ready.

Tests

Tests of one of the finished samples were carried out in November in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. 30 men were placed in the car, whose death from carbon monoxide was pronounced by KTI chemist Leiding. Several other samples were sent to Kyiv, where they arrived in November 1941, and one of them was soon used during the extermination of the Jewish population in Poltava. One copy arrived at the Chelmno concentration camp (Poland). In December 1941, two gas wagons were delivered to Riga.

Application practice

Based on testimonies at a trial in Germany in 1960, researchers provide the following information about the use of this device:

Before boarding the van, people were ordered to hand over all valuables and clothing. After that, the doors were closed, and the gas supply system switched to exhaust. In order not to cause premature fear in the victims, the van had a light bulb that turned on when the doors were closed. After that, the driver turned on the engine in neutral for about 10 minutes. After the movement in the van stopped, the corpses were taken to the place of cremation / burial and unloaded (a number of cases are also known when gas wagons were placed right next to the crematoria / ditches).

The first models of "gas wagons" had a design flaw, due to which the people placed in them died painfully from suffocation, and then the bodies had to be removed from excrement and other secretions, which caused dissatisfaction with the attendants. From the beginning of the spring of 1942, this defect was eliminated - those placed in the body gradually lost consciousness and only then died.

Design

According to the surviving documents on the development and production of this device, it is indicated that it was a gas-tight van with hermetically sealed doors, with a gas inlet (in the floor) covered with a perforated metal sheet. It is known about the production of vans of 2 types - for 30-50 people and 70-100 people (according to the latter, information is provided that a special device for unloading corpses was developed for it). The vans were mounted on the chassis of trucks with a carrying capacity of about 3.5 tons (small van) - Opel Blitz, Diamond Reo, Renault - and a 6.5-ton "Saurer" - a large van. The chassis and engine were modified and retrofitted in a special way.

According to several mechanics who repaired gas wagons from the Chełmno concentration camp, the engine installed on gas wagons was different from other engines that they had seen on similar machines. It also consumed twice as much fuel as a conventional engine and had an unusual exhaust system.

Geography of application

In the USSR, it coincided with the areas of responsibility of the Einsatzgruppen A, B, C and D - in particular, they were involved in the destruction of the Minsk ghetto and in the Maly Trostenets concentration camp. In Poland, their use in Chełmno has been documented. Since the spring of 1942, they have been used in Yugoslavia (Serbia) and a number of other places of mass extermination of people in Europe.

These machines were commonly used to kill women, children, the elderly and the sick.

Photos gas wagon

A number of sources provide information that a gas wagon left by the Germans on the Magirus chassis was found in the Chelmno concentration camp. A more detailed study of this van in November 1945 at a plant in Poland revealed that there were no traces of the installation of elements similar to the description of the design of a gas wagon.

Number of produced gas vans

It is known that on June 23, 1942, the manufacturing company Gaubschat Fahrzeugwerke GmbH delivered 20 gas wagons of two versions (30-50 and 70-100 people) out of 30 originally ordered. The remaining 10, due to lack of materials and workload, planned to be completed at the Sodomka plant in Hohenmauth (modern Vysoké Mýto, in the Czech Republic) - but due to the fact that all the workers were Czechs - for reasons of secrecy, they refused to transfer production, and the entire initial order was completed in Berlin.

Archival documents

Field mail 32/704 Kyiv, May 16, 1942 Secret document of national importance! SS-Obersturmbannführer Rauf:

The overhaul of motor vehicles in groups D and C has been completed. ... I ordered the cars of group D to be disguised as cars for housing, for which on small cars I ordered to make one window on each side, and on large cars - two windows similar to those that we often see on peasant houses in the countryside. These machines became so famous that not only officials, but also the civilian population called them “gas chambers”, as soon as one of these machines appeared. In my opinion, these machines cannot be disguised and kept secret for any length of time. … Gas poisoning often goes wrong. In order to complete the procedure as soon as possible, drivers always give full throttle. As a result, the executed die of suffocation, and do not fall asleep, as was intended. My instructions led to the fact that now, with the correct setting of the lever, death occurs faster and, moreover, the prisoners peacefully fall asleep. Distorted faces and bowel movements that were observed before were no longer noticed. During the day I will be moving to group B where you can send me further messages. Dr. Becker, SS-Untersturmführer

Encyclopedia of delusions. Third Reich Likhacheva Larisa Borisovna

Gas chamber. Who invented the "gazenvagen"?

The death stars were above us

And innocent Rus' writhed

Under the bloody boots

And under the tires of black "marus".

Anna Akhmatova

Come on, boy, rise above the gate,

Rise above the gate and hold on.

Oh, "black raven", "black raven", "black raven"

Moved my little life.

folk song

There is a misconception that the creator of the famous "gasenvagen" - a gas chamber car, in which the transported prisoners actually suffered a painful death from carbon dioxide entering the van from the exhaust pipe connected to the body - is the head of the administrative and economic department of the NKVD Directorate for the Moscow Region I. D. Berg. They say that it was he who first guessed that the transportation of "suicide bombers" and their killing can be successfully combined. So to say, two in one bottle. More precisely, in one van with the inscription "Bread". Moreover, the emphasis is usually placed on the surname of the inventor, similar to German, but still not German - Berg. The Soviet, or rather, in the language of unfortunate patriots, the “Judeo-Bolshevik” trace in the creation of gas chambers appeared around the beginning of the 90s of the XX century, when it was considered special chic to defame one’s own history and prove that, compared with the Stalinist regime, the crimes of the Third Reich are nothing more than childish pranks.

So, in 1993, in the weekly Arguments and Facts, the words of Lieutenant Colonel of the Main Security Directorate of the Russian Federation A. Oligov were published: “Indeed, the father of the gas chamber - a specially equipped van of the Khleb type with an exhaust pipe connected to the body - was the head of the administrative and economic department Department of the NKVD in Moscow and the Moscow region I. D. Berg. According to its intended purpose - to destroy people - the gas chamber was first used in 1936. In 1939, Berg was shot.” By the way, there is a version that in 1939 he was sentenced to death precisely for the invention of the gas chamber. The defendant himself denied his authorship at the trial. Later, when in 1956 the case of the father of the "death machine" was reviewed, Berg's involvement in the "Gazenvagen" was also not proven. However, he was not rehabilitated even in the conditions of Khrushchev's "thaw" - and without the invention of the gas chamber, this murderer had many human lives on his conscience.

In addition, it will be said not in defense of the Soviet shoulder cases, the name of the terrible death machine has not been preserved in Russian folklore. Gasenwagens were called "black funnels", "black maruses", but never - gas chambers.

Without trying to justify the atrocities of Stalinism, meanwhile, we dare to assume that gas chambers were not invented in the Soviet Union. First of all, due to the technical backwardness of the USSR. The fact is that building a mobile gas chamber is much more difficult than simply taking a covered wagon and bringing its exhaust pipe to it.

On December 15–18, 1443, the first trial in world history of German war criminals, the crew of a gas van, took place in Kharkov. In addition to three fascists - so to speak, operators of a deadly car - a Soviet citizen, a certain Bulanov, turned out to be in the dock. He, being the driver of this moving gas chamber, described its device in a business-like manner at the court: “This is a two-axle car, weighing about 5-7 tons. It is painted gray. The motor is six-cylinder. The body has a double door, it is hermetically closed. Inside the body is upholstered with galvanized iron, below - a wooden lattice. This is the floor on which the arrested stand. At the bottom of the car is the engine exhaust pipe, from which exhaust gas passes through a special hose into the body.

By the way, about a special hose. A whole series of internal SS and Gestapo documents show that even pedantic German artisans did not immediately succeed in adapting exhaust gases for mass executions. So, in a top-secret report of the Reich Main Directorate of Security, special hoses for gas chambers are requested. Ordinary metal pipes apparently did not fit due to the fact that “the hose connecting the exhaust pipe to the van has a tendency to rust, as the exhaust pipe is corroded from the inside by liquids entering it ...”

In addition, Hitler's executioners at the highest level justified the need to constantly improve the performance of gas wagons: “To facilitate the rapid spread of CO (carbon monoxide), two slots should be made in the upper part of the rear wall ... the locking system needs more protection: experience shows that when the tailgate is closed and it becomes dark inside, the weight is heavily wrapped around the door. The reason is that when it gets dark inside, the load rushes to where there is still some light left ... More protection is needed for the lighting system. The grate should cover the lamps and be high enough so that it is impossible to break the flasks ... ”and so on. Agree, for the Soviet jailers, the implementation of all these instructions seemed too difficult.

Gasenwagens were equipped according to a special order of the head of the SD. Gas chambers were used very actively. So, in a top secret report by Lieutenant Colonel Walter Rauff, closely involved in gas chambers, dated June 5, 1942, it says: “Since December 1941, 7 thousand people have been processed using three vans and without a single failure in the operation of machines ...” In other words, in six months only in three cars, 7 thousand prisoners were destroyed (“processed”), and none of them remained alive after the trip in the “gazenvagen”. This is what the vaunted German accuracy means ...

In addition, diesel engines were used in gas chambers, and in the USSR, almost all vehicles ran on gasoline.

So do not be mistaken: if someone in the Soviet Union made a mobile gas chamber in a single bread van, then there is no reason to consider it a “working model” of the very infamous gas chamber. The technical characteristics of an ordinary, not converted bread van with an exhaust pipe connected to the body do not allow it to be considered an instrument of mass executions. It was in the Third Reich that the truly “death machine” was invented and put on stream.

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