The Neuengamme and Sachsenhausen Gas Chambers: With a Focus on British Investigations for the Tesch Trial - Paperback

A major challenge for critical historical researchers is access to archival materials in European countries that dictate by penal law the results of research into the history of the Third Reich. If a well-known critical historian were to show up in such an archive and ask for access, he would be arrested.

Thank God, however, that there are a few conscientious established historians who have some backbone and help us critical researchers unofficially and out of sight of law enforcement by providing us with otherwise inaccessible archival material.

In the present case, Carlo Mattogno was given access to archival materials in England and in Germany concerning criminal proceedings conducted by those two countries after the war on alleged events at the Neuengamme and Sachsenhausen Concentration Camps. Of primary interest here are allegations of homicidal gassings in camp buildings converted or misappropriated for this purpose. The evaluation of many interrogation protocols and court testimonies shows that, as the number of statements increases, so do their discrepancies and contradictions.

Particularly illuminating is the way in which British interrogators proceeded in the British Occupation Zone in post-war Germany. Every incriminating statement made by former camp inmates was regarded from the outset as incontrovertible truth. If this "truth" was not confirmed by other witnesses, the interrogators used threats, blatant lies and misleading statements to confuse and trick these recalcitrant witnesses into giving false testimony.

A discussion of the technical absurdities that accompanied the gassing stories about Neuengamme and Sachsenhausen at every turn rounds out this work.