The Gas Chamber of Sherlock Holmes - And Other Writings on the Holocaust, Revisionism, and Historical Understanding

The Gas Chamber of Sherlock Holmes

And Other Writings on the Holocaust, Revisionism, and Historical Understanding

Reading Samuel Crowell's The Gas Chamber of Sherlock Holmes is a little like stumbling across a rational mind in an insane asylum years after being taken hostage by the inmates. The dispassionate use of evidence and logic to arrive at a sensible conclusion comes as a jolting but thoroughly pleasant surprise. And Crowell's modesty in stating that conclusion tentatively, knowing that genuinely rational inquiry will and should be superseded by later efforts, is an equally refreshing departure from polemical norms.
Drawing on establishment and revisionist authors, along with a careful scrutiny of German source documents, Crowell deftly evaluates contending claims arguing that Nazi "gas chambers" were (1) weapons of extermination (2) disinfection chambers (3) bomb shelters designed to protect against aerial gas attacks. Aligning eyewitness testimony with the material and documentary record, he sketches out the basis for a rational opinion, putting readers in a position to make their own judgments, without first requiring that they join in partisan warfare. Thanks to this effort we can simply weigh evidence.

The whole book - as PDF

Read also:

In-depth interview with the author, Samuel Crowell

Contents overview:

Preface

PART 1

The Gas Chamber of Sherlock Holmes

An Attempt at a Literary Analysis of the Holocaust Gassing Claim
1. Introduction

2. The First Reports

3. German Disinfection Procedures

4. The First Reports from Auschwitz and Majdanek

5. The Eastern Camps, Polevoi’s Report, and the Gerstein Statement

6. The Canonical Holocaust

7. The Nuremberg Trials

8. The Confessions of Rudolf Höss

9. Interpreting Documents and the Postwar Literature

10. Retrofitting the Euthanasia Campaign

11. The Fear of Cremation and Poison Gas

12. German Civil Defense and the Specter of Chemical Warfare

13. Civil Defense in the Concentration Camps

14. Pressac’s “Criminal Traces” and the Number of Victims

15. The Gas Chamber of Sherlock Holmes

16. Conclusions

PART 2

Bomb Shelters in Birkenau

A Reappraisal

Introduction

PART 1: Background of the Criminal Traces

    1.1 The Nuremberg Trials and Other Postwar Trials

    1.2 The Criminal Traces

    1.3 The Lay of the Land

    1.4 Technique and Operation of German Anti-Gas Shelters

    1.5 Defending against the Allied Bombing Campaign

    1.6 Precursors op the Bomb Shelter Thesis

PART 2: Bomb Shelter Documents

    2.1 Introduction: The Wider Context

    2.2 High-Level Documents about Bomb Shelter

    2.3 Mid-Level Documents about Bomb Shelters

    2.4 Low-Level Documents about Bomb Shelters

    2.5 Summary and Conclusions

PART 3: Reviewing the Criminal Traces

    3.1 Overview

    3.2 Drahtnetzeinschiebvorrichtung

    3.3 Drei Gasdichte

    3.4 Other Gastight Doors/Krakow Protocols

    3.5 Gasskammer

    3.6 Undressing Rooms and 14 Showers

    3.7 Vergasungskeller

    3.8 Gas Detectors

    3.9 Conclusions

PART 4: A Disinfection Chronology

    4.1 Introduction

    4.2 Documents on Disinfection

    4.3 Analysis of Disinfection Interpretation

PART 5: CRITICS OF THE BOMB SHELTER THESIS

PART 6: CONCLUSIONS

PART 3

Revisiting the Bomb Shelter Thesis

A Postscript to “Bomb Shelters in Birkenau”

PART 4

The Holocaust in Retrospect

A Historical and Revisionist Assessment

1. Introduction

2. Two Worlds

3. Proving the Holocaust

    3.1 The Massacre at Babi Yar (September 29-30, 1941)

    3.2 The Wetzel-Lohse Memorandum (October 25, 1941)

    3.3 The Wannsee Conference (January 20, 1942)

    3.4 Goebbels’ Diary (March 27, 1942)

    3.5 Himmler to Hitler, NO-1128 (December 29, 1942)

    3.6 Hitler’s Remarks to Admiral Horthy (April 17, 1943)

    3.7 Himmler’s Secret Speeches (October 4, 6, 1943)

    3.8 The Gerstein Statement (April—May, 1945)

    3.9 Assessing the Documents

4. Forensic Issues and Revisionism

    4.1 Zyklon B

    4.2 Diesel Engines and Gas Vans

    4.3 Mass Graves

    4.4 Body Disposal

5. Aktion Reinhardt and the Legacy of Forced Labor

    5.1 Globocnik Report to Himmler, 4024-PS

    5.2 Globocnik Report, Addendum

    5.3 The Höfle Telegram

    5.4 The Korherr Report

    5.5 The Franke-Gricksch Report

    5.6 Jewish Forced Labor in Occupied Poland

6. Recent Literature, Broader Concepts, and the Convergence of Evidence

    6.1 Overview of Recent Literature

    6.2 The Death Matrix

    6.3 The Hoax Concept

    6.3.1 The Conspiracy Concept

    6.4 The No Gassing Concept

    6.5 The Convergence of Evidence

7. Conclusion

Acknowledgments

Bibliography

Index

The Gas Chamber of Sherlock Holmes (PDF)

Back to our section on Revisionism

Back to our Books section