The four documents which "prove" Nazis gassings

American Revisionist Samuel Crowell (a pseudonym) in his excellent 2011 book

The Gas Chamber of Sherlock Holmes, writes how the Allies presented just

four German documents at the Nuremberg Trials to prove the Nazis gassed

people. And those were all mistranslated or completely out of context.

Nuremberg Trials documents, from left to right (click image to enlarge)

1. NO-4473, 2. NO-4465, 3. NO-4344 4. NO-4345.

All found in Nuremberg Military Tribunals "Green Series" Volume 5.

Library of Congress

It is surprising to note that it appears no documents referencing gas chambers were entered into the record of the International Military Tribunal, if we exclude affidavits and testimony. Most of the few documents that we have were recorded by the Nuremberg Military Tribunal, an American court that ran from 1946 to 1949, and which comprised 12 cases against the Nazi leadership. The most important of these, in terms of the gassing claim, was Case #4, the "Concentration Camp Case" which occupied most of 1947. Of the seven hundred documents entered by the prosecution, only four can be interpreted as referencing gas chambers: NO-4473, the so-called "Vergasungskeller" letter, NO-4465, a letter referencing "three gas chambers" specified as "gasdichte Türme", and NO-4344 and 4345, which references the construction of "extermination chambers" specified as "Entwesungskammern" at the concentration camp of Gross-Rosen.

Two of these documents are definite mistranslations, and the third is quite possibly so. As we have seen, "Entwesungskammern" were standard delousing and disinfestation chambers, and had nothing to do with extermination gas chambers. Similarly, "gasdichte Türme" are better translated as "gastight turrets" or "towers" but in any case cannot be associated with "gas chambers." Finally, as we have seen, "vergasen" (to gas) was widely used as a synonym for "begasen" (to fumigate) -- even in Auschwitz documents -- and has no necessary relationship to extermination gassing. The fact that at least two of these documents were clearly misused goes far to prove the argument that in the immediate postwar period the gassing claim was buttressed by the ignorant misuse of German documents taken completely out of context.

The Gas Chamber of Sherlock Holmes (2011)