Why did Nazis bother with ovens if they had their "special process" of burning 3000 Jews at once without fuel?

Tuesday, 8 June 2010

From the Nuremberg Trial Transcripts
One Hundred and Ninety-Seventh Day: Wednesday, 7th August, 1946

"As soon as death taken place in, the ventilators were started. When the air could be breathed again, the doors were opened, and the Jewish workers removed the bodies. By means of a special process which Wirth had invented, they were burned in the open air without the use of fuel." - Konrad Morgen

Over 1,500,000 Jews were cremated at the Reinhard death camps in this manor: (these corpses, Germans in Dresden clearly didn't burn very well)

The three Reinhard death camps were dismantled by October 1943.

Why then did the Nazis then burn Jews in ovens at Auschwitz which only could fit 2 bodies in one oven at once (there were 52 ovens in total, capable of burning 4756 corpses per day), when they had this 'special process' which enabled them to burn up to 3000 corpses on one pyre so completely that none of the 45 million teeth of the victims has every been found at the locations of the Reinhard death camps?

2 comments:

Anonymous10 July 2012 09:36

4756 is actually a mistake. Not on your part, but on the Nazis, who are good at engineering to incinerate one corpse every 15 minutes instead of 1 hour current best practice 50 years on, but who are not good at math. Capacity for Krema II and III (3 * 5 muffles) are given as 1440 people, nicely divisible by 24 and 15 resulting in 4 bodies per hour. Capacity for Krema IV and V (8 muffles) are given as 768 people, nicely divisible by 24 and 8 resulting in 4 bodies per hour. Capacity of Krema I (3 * 2 muffles) is given as 340 people, which is neither divisible by 24 (number of hours) and not even by the number of muffles, 6.

Assuming it is of the same design as the other ovens, then if SS-Sturmbannfuehrer Jahrling was indeed an engineer like me he should have multiplied 4 bodies per hour times 6 muffles times 24 hours = 576.

Total capacity was hence 4992 corpses per day, not 4756. Maybe the figure was suspiciously close to the nice round figure of 5000 a day (stack 2 bodies on top and you have your Soviet figure of 10.000 a day) so someone felt the need to tamper with the figure for Krema I?
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Mike27 December 2012 03:04

We are told that the arrivals went straight into the 'chambers', thus no time to 'starve'. So, questionable if 2 can fit into one oven. Over 67 years later and we still can't find 'good engineering' to cremate corpses in 15 mins. Modern crematoriums that have adjustable control systems that monitor the furnace during cremation; it takes them over 1 hour.
Lets say then, 2 bodies a hour by 52 ovens = 104. So, 104 over a period of 24 hours = 2496 is more likely not 4756. Krema II and III (3 * 5 muffles) to achive that 1440 number would mean that 60 bodies per hour were disposed of in 15 muffles loaded with 4 bodies. To cremate 4 perfectly newly arrived bodies per hour = unrealistic.
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Tuesday, 8 June 2010

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