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The Holocaust History Project.
The Holocaust History Project.

The Holocaust and the Neo-Nazi Mythomania
© 1978, The Beate Klarsfeld Foundation
 
 
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immediately that Rassinier would have showered him with a flood of mockeries, sarcasms and insults.

Furthermore, the mystery is perhaps less dense than Rassinier thought. Numerous details lead us to believe that the man "of extreme distinction and exquisite politeness, senior officer of a very high rank in a very important department," denazified after the war, who speaks with Globocnik and asks him "what the Führer thinks of the definitive solution," who the next day visits the camp of Belzec with Gerstein, two days later is with him during the gassing operation where he notes "the prayers and the cries of the unfortunate victims" and who speaks to Dr. Grawitz "to denounce the scandal" to Himmler, could be Professor Dr. Wilhelm Pfannenstiel. Pfannenstiel was titular of the Chair of Hygiene at the University of Marburg. He held the rank of SS-Obersturmbannführer (lieutenant colonel). Arrested by the English, he was freed for lack of evidence but lost his chair. He was the protégé of Dr. Grawitz, SS-Gruppenführer, Chief of the Health Service of the SS and the Police, the man who, according to Gerstein, asks Globocnik "but what does the Führer say?", puts his ear against the door of the gas chamber and exclaims, "You can hear them crying as at the synagogue..."

Be that as it may, this "testimony," which we know only in Rassinier's wording, claims that Gerstein's account "is as false as can be from one end to the other." In reality, he confirms it almost entirely. The description of the places, the number and the dimensions of the gas chambers, their functioning by means of the exhaust fumes of a Diesel engine are indeed identical in both. So is the description of the hasty burial of the corpses of the men, women and children killed in the "Heckenholt Foundation." Even the references of Globocnik to Hitler are identical in both.

That is the real crux of the problem of the gas chambers in the extermination camps.

9. "Witness X" and the Legend of the Mad SS

Nevertheless, the version of "X" is made to measure to justify the legend of "accidents" due to some rare, mad SS. This legend was dear to Rassinier: there were scarcely two or three small convoys of four or five cars of fifty people each which arrived in Belzec up to August 18, 1942, that is to say, in the five months of the existence of this camp. All of that must illustrate the initiative of "rare madmen." In the same way, the affirmation that Wirth and his assistant implored the important visitor X to intervene in high places so that "this scandal" would cease, which happened quickly owing to the intervention of Dr. Grawitz, illustrates the thesis according to which those in high places were ignorant of everything, that when they were informed of it the whole enterprise of madmen was rapidly liquidated and the madmen punished. It was also a thesis of Rassinier.

These two elements of "testimony X" for Rassinier justified its publication. Moreover, this "testimony" very opportunely illustrates
    
   

 
The Holocaust and the Neo-Nazi Mythomania
© 1978, The Beate Klarsfeld Foundation
Previous Page  Back Page 136 Forward  Next Page

   

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