The “Bookkeeper of Auschwitz” trial dissolved into a farce after Oskar Groening accused “eyewitnesses” of exaggerating, while an analysis of his own account of a “gassing at Auschwitz” has shown it to be completely inconsistent with all established “evidence” and includes a patently bogus claim that dead male corpses achieved erections while they were being cremated.
According to a new article published by Holocaust historian Peter Winter, author of The Six Million: Fact or Fiction, the “outrageous” and even laughable” details of Groening’s wild delusions are apparent from a close reading of his original statement, and a comparison with all the established claims from the Holocaust Storytellers over the location of the “gas chambers’ at the camp.
Apart from rejecting many of the “eye-witnesses’ claims as “exaggerations,’ the following has also emerged from Groening’s testimony:
- Groening said the Red Cross visited Auschwitz and were shown around Camp 1 despite the Holocaust storytellers claiming that there was a “gas chamber’ at the entrance gates to that camp (the one still shown to tourists today);
- That there was a brothel for prisoner use in Auschwitz Camp 1.
- That Groening freely admitted that what knew about Auschwitz was limited to what “other people had told him.” This included his claim that the camp could “dispose’ of 5000 people every 24 hours, which he specifically said other people had told him.
- Groening said he never saw or experienced any of the “5000 per day death process” himself, despite spending about two years at the camp.
- That he contracted typhus from the prisoners and nearly died from the disease.
- That he was reading from a script prepared for him, and could not remember questions asked of him only a few minutes before.
- This prepared script was particularly relevant when it came to his account of witnessing a “gassing’ at the camp, and the fact that his account was completely different to the “gassing in crematoria bunkers’ told by the Holocaust storytellers.
- Groening had, contrary to the English-speaking media’s reporting, said so little of significance that one of the plaintiffs in the case, alleged “survivor’ Eva Kor told the German media that “He did not really say much. I’m a little disappointed.’
The English-language coverage of the Groening trial was subjected to strict censorship in the controlled media in Britain and America, where the editors and journalists have both cherry-picked what they wanted to report and have even fabricated statements and claimed that Groening has made them in court.
Ironically, the court proceedings were much more accurately reported by the media in Germany, as exemplified, for example, by the coverage provided by the Bild newspaper.
Two articles in Bild in particular covered Groening’s actual testimony in some detail, and, apart from a few sarcastic editorial insertions, have provided a completely different perspective on Groening’s “confession’ than claimed by the UK and US media.
The first Bild article, titled “Das Auschwitz-Geständnis des SS-Manns Oskar Gröning” (The Auschwitz confession of SS man Oskar Groening), dated 22-04-15, contains Groening’s exact testimony regarding the “gassing’ he claims to have witnessed. The original German is first and an English translation follows:
Im Dezember 1942 musste er bei der Suche nach Häftlingen helfen, die aus dem Vernichtungslager flüchten konnten: „Irgendwie sind bei einem Transport einige Juden entwischt.“ Er wurde Zeuge einer Vergasungsaktion in einem Bauernhaus im Wald. „Das war das einzige Mal, wo ich eine Vergasung komplett beobachtet habe.“
In December 1942, he had to help in the search for prisoners who escaped from the extermination camp: “Somehow, some Jews during transportation escaped.” He witnessed a gassing in a farmhouse in the forest. “That was the only time I have seen a complete gassing operation.”
„Einer schüttete Gas in die Klappe, dann wurden die Schreie immer lauter, aber bald wieder leiser.“ Erneut habe er um Versetzung gebeten – abgelehnt. „Über den Knüppel zu springen, dann komme ich noch nach Stalingrad, das war nicht immer so einfach.“
“One guard poured gas into the opening, then the screams became louder, but soon quiet again.” Again he asked for a transfer” declined. “To clear this hurdle, I would have to go to Stalingrad, which was not always such an easy matter.”
Groening’s Claims Completely Different to All Other “Eye-Witnesses” Accounts
Groening’s account differs radically from all the “eye-witnesses” and official accounts, which have claimed that the gassings were carried out in underground bunkers attached to the crematoria in Auschwitz Camp 2.
Instead, as detailed above, Groening said the gassing he witnessed took place in a “farmer’s house in the forest’” and in the middle of the night.
Firstly, although it is clear that his “gassing in a farmhouse in the middle of the nights in the forest” bears no relation to any other account, claim or eye-witness, the controlled media all over the world blindly accepted this claim as the truth, and propagated it without comment.
Holocaust Storytellers will doubtless try and claim that this “farmhouse in the forest” was one the so-called “provisional gas chambers,’ also known in Holocaust legend as the “red” and “blue” houses, or “bunker 1” and “bunker 2.”
As can be seen from the “official’ map of the Auschwitz camp, which claims to show all the “gassing locations,” the “bunker 1” and “bunker 2” (“g” and “h” on the map above, circled) are located at the northern boundary at the western end of the Birkenau camp, and right up against the camp perimeter. Groening’s claim that the farmhouse gassing was “hidden in the forest” is therefore clearly inconsistent even with the official Auschwitz Holocaust story.
Furthermore—and this is the most telling part—Groening’s testimony in the Luneberg court room appears to be little more than a written summary of his 2005 interview with Der Spiegel magazine, titled “Der Buchhalter von Auschwitz,’ (The Accountant of Auschwitz, 09.05.2005).
According to the coverage of the trial reported by the Abendblatt newspaper, titled “KZ-Buchhalter Gröning: “Die SS galt als zackige Truppe” (Concentration Camp Accountant Groening: ‘The SS was considered a smart troop’ 21.04.15), it was here that it became obvious that Groening was just reading from a script prepared for him. As the Abendblatt said:
“Hier steht umgebracht”, sagt er fast irritiert mit einem kurzen Blick in das vor ihm liegende Manuskript.
“Here it says killed,” he said, almost irritated with a brief look at the manuscript before him.
In fact, it seems that most of the script from which he has been reading in court, has been extracted almost verbatim from that Spiegel interview. There is however one important exception to this verbatim retelling, and that is the part which deals with the “gassing in the forest’ allegation.
The Outrageous Claims in the Groening “Confession”
In the Spiegel interview, he described the “gassing’ he witnessed as follows (German original in Der Spiegel first, then English translation):
Eines Nachts wird er von Trillerpfeifen aus dem Bett geholt. Juden sind ausgebrochen. Er rennt durch die Dunkelheit und kommt an ein Bauerngehöft, davor liegen Leichen. Er sieht noch, wie nackte Menschen in das Gehöft getrieben werden. Er sieht, dass ein Oberscharführer die Tür schließt, eine Gasmaske über den Kopf zieht, eine Dose öffnet, den Inhalt in eine Luke kippt. Dann hört er Schreie. Die Schreie werden zu einem Tosen, das Tosen wird zum Summen, dann ist es still. Er geht mit einem anderen zurück zu seiner Baracke. Der andere sagt: Ich kenne eine Abkürzung. Unterwegs erzählt der andere, wie das aussieht, wenn Leichen auf Rosten verbrannt werden. Ihre Körper richten sich auf, den Männern erigiert der Penis, sagt der andere.
“One night, he is hauled out of bed by a whistle alarm. Jews have escaped. He runs through the darkness and come to a farm, in front of which lie dead bodies. He also sees naked people driven into the homestead. He sees a SS Squad Leader close the door, pull a gas mask over his head, open a can and dump the contents into a hatch. Then he hears screams. The cries become a roar, the roar becomes a buzz, and all becomes quiet.
“He returns to his barracks with another man, who tells him he knows a shortcut. On the way, he meets another man, who tells him what it looks like when the corpses are burned on grates. Their bodies are lined up, and the men’s penises are erect, he says.’
This account is clearly fantasy, particularly the part about the male corpses having erections as they are burned.
Apart from being physiologically impossible, such a claim smacks of the very worst of the hysterical lies and outrageous claims of the Holocaust storytellers.
Finally, it is highly significant that Groening’s Luneberg testimony on the “gassing procedure’ was deliberately vague compared with the detailed account in the Spiegel interview.
The “erect penises while being burned on grates” claim is the most obvious reason why this part has been edited out of Groening’s new script at Luneberg.
But another reason is clearly the “fact” that, according to the Holocaust Storytellers, the “gassed Jews” at Auschwitz were cremated in industrial-scale crematoria inside Auschwitz Camp 2, and not on “grates” in the forest.
Significantly, Groening spent at least two years at the camp, but somehow he never heard of the supposed “big gas chambers and crematoria” inside the camp, and instead claims only to have seen this mysterious “house” in the forest.
Inconsistencies in Groening’s Account Summarized
- Groening’s claim of a gassing facility “in a farmhouse in the forest” being operated in the middle of the night is completely unsubstantiated by any other evidence, even that put forward by the official Holocaust Storytellers;
- Groening’s claim in the 2005 Der Spiegel interview that the burning male corpses had erections while they were being cremated reveals confirms that the entire story is an outrageous fantasy; and
- Groening’s claim in the 2005 Der Spiegel interview that the cremations took place on “grates in the forest at night” is in complete contradiction to the Holocaust Storytellers’ claim that the “gassing victims” were cremated in the crematoria which could “dispose of” 5000 people every day.
- Groening only came forward with these bizarre claims 40 years after the end of the war—until then, he had never said a word about this mysterious, and until then, completely unknown gassing facility “in a farmhouse in the forest.”
Why then would Groening make this bizarre—and completely unsubstantiated—claim of a new, never-before-heard-of “gassing’ facility in a “farmhouse in the forest?”
The only possible answer must be that he has simply imagined it after reading wild claims in this regard, and then has transposed himself into the story over time.
That this appears to be the case is apparent from the fact that he only went public with this claim for the first time in 1985—some forty years after the end of the war! All the time prior to that date, he had never said a word about this “gassing in a farmhouse in the forest” to anyone, despite being a witness in several prior court cases.
That Groening could even claim that dead male corpses could have erections as they were being burned, as part of his “evidence” about a gassing, brings into serious doubt the truthfulness of his other claims.
The Bild article of 22-04-15 provides further insights into Groening’s testimony:
Am Mittwoch bestritt Gröning jedoch, an der Selektion eintreffender Juden regelmäßig beteiligt gewesen zu sein. An der Rampe in Auschwitz sei er nur dreimal im Einsatz gewesen. Nach seiner Beförderung zum SS-Unterscharführer im Jahr 1944 habe die Bewachung des Gepäcks an der Rampe nicht mehr zu seinen regulären Aufgaben gehört, sagte Gröning auf Nachfrage der Richter. Er habe nur wenige Male Kollegen vertreten und gewusst, was an der Rampe abgelaufen sei.
On Wednesday Groening however denied to have been regularly involved in the selection of incoming Jews. He had only served three times at the ramp at Auschwitz. After his promotion to Unterscharführer in 1944 to guard the baggage, he had never been the ramp as part of his regular duties, Groening told the judge. He only been told from a small number of colleagues what had transpired at the ramp.
[Note the admission that he only knew of what happened from what he had been told by others].
Für die ankommenden Menschen sei das mit Gewehren bewaffnete Wachkommando zuständig gewesen. „Die Kapazität der Gaskammern oder auch der Krematorien war reichlich begrenzt”, sagte Gröning. „Man rühmte sich, dass man in 24 Stunden 5000 Tote entsorgen könnte.“
For the incoming people, an armed guard detachment was sufficient. “The capacity of the gas chambers and the crematoria was really limited,’ Groening said. “They boasted that they could kill 5,000 in 24 hours.”
[Note the “they boasted’ claim” Groening never actually witnessed this, contrary to the impression created by the English-language media.] Groening’s testimony continued, as reported by the Bild:
An seinem ersten Abend auf seiner Stube habe er gefragt, was denn in Auschwitz gemacht werde. „,Wie, das wisst ihr nicht?‘ Und dann wurde gesagt, dass die Personen, die nicht arbeiten konnten, – der Jargon war dort – entsorgt wurden.“
On his first night in his living quarters, he asked what was done in Auschwitz. “What, do you mean you do not know?” And then it was said that the people who could not work, the jargon was, “disposed of.”
[Once again, note the admission that he only knew of what happened from what he had been told by others].
The Bild article continued:
Gröning kam in die Devisenabteilung: „Ich hab diese Tätigkeit bekommen, weil ich Bankkaufmann gelernt hatte. Ich blieb dort bis Oktober 1944, bis ich aufgrund meines letzten Versetzungsgesuches an die Front gekommen bin. Ich war mit der Erfassung und Verwertung von Geldsachen befasst.“
Groening was put into the foreign exchange department: “I was given this job because was trained as a banker. I stayed there until October 1944 until I was sent to the front because of my transfer request. My job was the collection and recovery of money.”
Groening then went into his description of the killing of a baby by a SS Guard on the ramp at Auschwitz. This story also features prominently in his 2005 Der Spiegel interview, almost verbatim.
While there is no evidence one way or another to prove or disprove Groening’s claims with regard to this incident, the fact that he could simultaneously invent stories about bodies with erect penises being burned on “grates” casts a question mark over his outrageous story of baby-bashing as well.
The next part of the Bild article contains some editorial insertions, here highlighted by italics.
The Bild’s comments inadvertently show three things:
– that the inmates of Auschwitz 1 were for the most part real criminals and not just political prisoners or Jews;
– that when he is not reading from his prepared manuscript, Groening rambles on; and
-that the prisoners in Auschwitz were given access to prostitutes (in a supposed “extermination center” !)
The Bild article continues (remember, Bild commentary text in italics):
Dann spricht Gröning über einen Besuch des Roten Kreuzes. „Das Lager 1 bestand nur aus Berufsverbrechern, die ihre Strafe abgesessen hatten, Asozialen und Leuten der Wachturmgesellschaft.“ Damit meint er verschleppte Zeugen Jehovas. „Einmal hatte sich das Rote Kreuz zur Besichtigung angemeldet, denen wurde natürlich nur das Lager 1 gezeigt.“
Then Groening spoke of a visit by the Red Cross [to Auschwitz]. “Camp 1 [Auschwitz I] consisted of professional criminals who had served their sentence, social misfits and people of the Watchtower Society.” By this he means Jehovah’s Witnesses who had been deported. “Once the Red Cross had registered for the tour, then they were of course only shown Camp 1.”
Vor dem Besichtigungstermin seien „zehn Damen aus einem Bordell“ ins Lager 1 geschickt worden; warum, erklärt Gröning nicht. Warum er das alles überhaupt erzählt, bleibt unklar, er neigt zum Abschweifen.
Before the [Red Cross] tour stated, “ten women from a brothel” were sent to Camp 1;Groening did not explain why [this was so]. Why he was saying this at all remains unclear, as he started digressing.
Vor dem Besichtigungstermin seien „zehn Damen aus einem Bordell“ ins Lager 1 geschickt worden; warum, erklärt Gröning nicht. Warum er das alles überhaupt erzählt, bleibt unklar, er neigt zum Abschweifen.
The “ladies of the brothel” were for those [prisoners] who still were strong enough [to use them]. That it amounted to forced prostitution, Groening appears not to have known before today.
The Bild continues:
Ende 1943 erkrankte Gröning an Fleckthyphus, kam in Quarantäne in Kattowitz, sein Vater wurde einbestellt, weil man mit seinem Tod rechnete. „Und eines Tages stand mein Vater an meinem Bett. Das sind Szenen, die man nicht vergessen kann.“ Nach dem Genesungsurlaub geht es zurück nach Auschwitz.
As at the end of 1943, Groening contracted typhus and was put into quarantine in Katowice. His father was summoned because it was expected that Groening would die [from the disease]. “And one day my father stood by my bed. These are the sort of scenes that you cannot forget.” After convalescing, he went back to Auschwitz.
[It is of significance that, according to Groening’s own testimony, he contracted typhus from being at the camp. As it is now well-known, the use of Zyklon-B was precisely to exterminate typhus-bearing lice, and this was the reason for the delousing chambers at the camp, which have now been misrepresented as homicidal gas chambers” although, if Groening is to be believed, he had never heard of such a thing. The fact that a German guard could catch typhus was an indication of how serious the problem was, and also provides a rational explanation why the Germans would use the Zyklon-B insecticide at all the camps, not just Auschwitz].
Erst im Herbst 1944 wurde er an die Front versetzt – nach der sogenannten Ungarn-Aktion im Jahr 1944, die allein für die juristische Anklage im aktuellen Prozess zählt. Damals wurden innerhalb weniger Wochen mehr als 300 000 Juden aus dem Land in das Vernichtungslager gebracht. Die meisten von ihnen wurden sofort in Gaskammern ermordet. Der Richter möchte wissen, was an der „Ungarn-Aktion“ anders war.
„Der Aufwand war größer“, sagt Gröning.
It was not until the autumn of 1944 he was sent to the front—after the so-called Hungarian Action in 1944, one alone for legal prosecution in the current process. At that time, more than 300,000 Jews were taken out of the country to the extermination camp within a few weeks. Most of them were immediately murdered in gas chambers. The judge wants to know what was different about the “Hungarian Action.”
“The effort was greater,” said Groening.
[This is only relevant because Groening has been specifically charged with participation in the claimed “extermination’ of 300,000 (!) Hungarian Jews. This figure dates from the time when it was claimed that over 4 million people had been exterminated at Auschwitz, whereas today the “official’ estimate has been reduced to one million” but somehow the original “6 million’ figure has never been reduced accordingly.]
Groening’s testimony was met with disappointment by one of the plaintiffs in the case, alleged survivor Eva Kor. As the Bild reported:
„Er hat nicht wirklich viel gesagt. Ich bin ein wenig enttäuscht“, sagt Eva Kor, Auschwitz-Überlebende und ebenfalls Nebenklägerin.
“He did not really say much. I’m a little disappointed,” said Eva Kor, Auschwitz survivor and co-plaintiff.
On the third day of the trial, Groening expanded on some of his earlier testimony, reported once again by the Bild newspaper in an article titled “SS-Mann: Dienst an de Rampe war „nervig“ (“SS man: Duty on the ramp was ‘annoying’”).
It was during this testimony that Groening accused the “eye-witnesses’ giving testimony in the court room of having exaggerated their descriptions:
Heute, am dritten Verhandlungstag, befragten die Anwälte der Nebenkläger Oskar Gröning. Sie wollten ihm entlocken, welche Rolle er bei den Vernichtungen gespielt hat. Er selbst hält viele Schilderungen aus Auschwitz für „übertrieben“. Außerdem wurden die ersten Zeugen gehört: Max Tibor Eisen (86) aus Toronto (Kanada), der die Hölle von Auschwitz als 15-Jähriger überlebte und William Bill Glied (85).
Today, on the third day of the trial, the lawyers interviewed the co-plaintiffs against Oskar Groening. They wanted to elicit from him the role he has played in the extrermination [process]. He said [in turn] that many descriptions of Auschwitz [as claimed by the witnesses] were “exaggerated.”
Als ein Anwalt der Nebenklage Gröning aus der Anklage vorliest, dass „die Gruppen der Ankömmlinge immer von Aufsehern umzingelt waren und eine Flucht ausgeschlossen war“ sowie beim kleinsten Widerstand geschossen wurde, sagt Gröning: „Die meisten Dinge kann ich bestätigen, manche habe ich nie erlebt. Trotzdem halte ich die Schilderungen für übertrieben.“
Groening’s advocate read out in court from the charge sheet, [quoting] that the “the groups of arrivals were always surrounded by guards and escape was impossible” and would have been shot at the slightest sign of resistance.
[In response] Groening said “Most of these things I can confirm, but others I have never experienced. Nevertheless, I think these descriptions have been exaggerated.”
Groening’s refusal to listen to any more testimony on Thursday April 23, 2015, for example, after being forced to hear a “survivor’ rehash the “I pulled gold teeth from dead corpses’ fake horror story, provided yet another uncomfortable moment.
The Meaning of “Entlassung”
Then came the part where, according to many media reports, Groening was supposed to have said that he “could not imagine Jews leaving Auschwitz alive.”
A close reading of the actual testimony, detailed in the Bild report, reveals that he in fact did not say this, and instead actually only said that he could “not imagine Jews being released.”
The German word “entlassung” was deliberately mistranslated by the English-language mass media to mean “murdered” instead of its actual meaning, to be “released” or “laid off” (as in being laid off work).
Furthermore, the fact that Groening was reading off a prepared script became obvious once again when the judge asked him a question not related to the prepared manuscript, as the Bild reported:
Frage: „Haben Sie sich damals vorstellen können, dass die Juden jemals lebend aus dem Lager rauskommen und Nachkommen haben könnten?“
Gröning zögert sehr lange, bespricht sich mit seinen Anwälten. Dann: „Jetzt habe ich leider Ihre Frage vergessen.“
Question: “Could you imagine at the time that the Jews ever could get out alive from the camp and could have descendants?”
Groening hesitated for a long time, and then conferred with his lawyers. Then [he said]: “Now I have unfortunately forgotten your question.”
Wieder bespricht er sich mit seinen Anwälten. Schließlich sagt er: „Ich konnte mir nur vorstellen, in Auschwitz 1 sind Entlassungen getätigt worden.“
Frage: „Auch Entlassungen von Juden?“
Antwort: „Nein.“
Nachfrage: „Konnten Sie sich das vorstellen?“
Gröning: „Nein, ich konnte mir das nicht vorstellen.“
Again he conferred with his lawyers. Finally, he said: “I could only imagine in Auschwitz 1 that releases were made.”
Question: “Even Entlassungen of the Jews?”
Answer: “No.”
Another question: “Could you imagine that?”
Groening: “No, I could not imagine that.”
In other words, Groening actually said that he could NOT imagine Jews being released in Auschwitz: and not that he could not imagine Jews being killed there —which is precisely the opposite of how most English-language media outlets presented the exchange.
The Groening “Confession”: Invented Hearsay
From the above it can be seen that Groening’s ridiculous claims about “erect penises” on “dead men being cremated on grates” after being gassed in a “farmhouse hidden in the woods in the middle of the night” are clearly invented.
The “gassing in the forest” is clearly a fiction developed in his Groening’s own mind, brought on by who knows what psychological impulse. Once caught up in the story, Groening was left with little alternative to follow the “don’t-deny-it-happened-but-I-was-not-involved” type confession. It was a dangerous game which ultimately saw him sentenced to four years in prison —on the basis of a claim which was clearly untrue.