Deceit & Misrepresentation The Meaning of "Special Treatment" In a hearing on November 9th, 1962, former SS-Gruppenführer Emil
Mazuw stated:
During the war, the SS gave no meaning to Sonderbehandlung other
than killing. I am certain that high-ranking officers knew it. I
don't know whether the ordinary SS man did or not. According to the
terminology used at the time, I understand "special
treatment" to mean only killing and nothing else.
[13]
In a hearing on May 4th, 1960, former SS-Obersturmführer
Heinrich Hamann stated:
Perhaps an explanation by the commander of the Security Police in
Cracow was required as to the meaning of "special treatment."
That's possible. But so far as I was concerned, I needed no explanation.
I knew this expression well from the time when I was assigned to the
Reich Security Main Office in Berlin.
In prominent cases, Himmler would write "special treatment"
in green in the margins of the daily reports. That meant "to be
liquidated." I didn't have to explain the meaning of this term to
my subordinates at Neu-Sandez either. Everyone knew what it meant.
[14]
In fact, during the war the term "special treatment" was so
commonly known as a euphemism for killing that Himmler decided
to replace it with "processed" (durchgeschleust). To that
end, a member of Himmler's staff, one SS-Obersturmbannführer Dr.
Brandt, wrote to Richard Korherr, the inspector of statistics on
"the final solution of the European Jewish question," on April
10th, 1943, saying:
The Reichsführer-SS [Himmler] has received your statistical
report.... He wishes that absolutely no mention should be made anywhere
of "special treatment for Jews."
Page 9 should therefore read as follows: "Transportation of Jews
from the eastern provinces to the Russian East: "Processed
[durchgeschleust] through camps in the General Government... through
camps in the Warthegau..." No other formulation is to be used.
[15]
We asked Mr. Gannon to enlighten us as to what sort of special
treatment the Jews were getting that was so dangerous that Himmler
wanted to even change the code word used to describe it. To
date, Gannon has remained silent - a not uncommon tactic among those
who deny the Holocaust who find themselves confronted with undeniable
facts.
In a letter from SS-Hauptsturmführer Trühe to the Reich
security office, room 2D3A, Trühe requests additional
gas vans:
A transport of Jews, which has to be treated in a special way,
arrives weekly at the office of the commandant of the Security Police
and the Security Service of white Ruthenia. The three S-vans which are
there are not sufficient for that purpose. I request assignment of
another S-van (five tons). At the same time I request the shipment of
twenty gas hoses for the three S-vans on hand since the ones on hand are
leaky already.
[16]
Did Truehe need the additional gas vans to transport the champagne?
Or perhaps to take the Jews to summer camp?
In a Memorandum of Gestapo Headquarters, 15 June 1944, the following
text appears:
In amending my directive of June 20 1944, I request that those people
subject to special treatment be sent to a crematorium to be cremated if
possible.
[17]
One might ask why, after providing their guests with the
champagne-and-French-lessons "special treatment," the Gestapo
would insist upon their cremation?
It seems a little strange that the camps through which the Jews were
"processed," to use Himmler's suggested euphemism, were not
extermination camps at all, but really schools of language and oenology.
It seems a little strange for the Nazis to:
...just so that they could all be better educated with respect to
foreign cultures and alcoholic beverages.
The argument employed by Holocaust-deniers is equivalent to claiming
that an SS officer who told his soldiers to "take the Jews out and
kill them" is innocent of murderous intent, because, a month
before, he told those same soldiers, who were preparing for a soccer
game, to "go out there and kill them." They ignore all the
counterexamples that, to say the least, cast doubt upon their claims. In
short, they are dishonest.
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The Techniques of Holocaust Denial
Part 3 of 3