Friday, September 30, 2016

2nd Update on Rebuttal of Alvarez on Gas Vans: Why the Diesel Issue is Still Irrelevant

Rebuttal of Alvarez on Gas Vans
Part IX: The Just Memo

Three further additions on gasoline engines in the Saurer or other gas vans showing that the "Diesel issue" is just irrelevant

Zenon Rossa, car mechanic at the Kraft company in Kolo:
"The engine was a 6-cylinder from the company Saurer, on gasoline [benzyne]."
(interrogation of 15 June 1945, Archiwum Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej GK 165/271, tom I, p. 43)

Rudolf Sch., Einsatzkommando 11b:
"The gas van was a 3.5 or 5 tons truck with a gasoline engine [Benzinmotor]."
(interrogation of 23 July 1962, Bundesarchiv, B162/1053, p. 1226)

Friedrich Pr., head of the motor pool department of the Security Police:
"The first vehicles were 5 Saurer from Hauptsturmführer Ga., the other 10 Saurer vehicles came from Bal. [...] I still remember that Ju. once asked asked me what should happen with these vehicles. I replied that the vehicles are not suitable for service in Russia, at most they could be used in Germany; but this could pose problems, because these gasoline vehicles [Benzinfahrzeuge] had a volume of 5 liters."
(interrogation of 26 September 1961, Niedersächsisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, NDS. 721 Hannover Acc. 97/99 Nr.10/13, p. 4)

3 comments:

  1. Pradel's testimony is of course the most important one, as he took part in the gas vans' creation.

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  2. Another implicit reference to gasoline engines can be found in the testimony of the Einsatzgruppe C car mechanic Hans Ra.:

    "I remember that the the first gas van arrived at Einsatzgruppe C in March 1942...It was either a Dodge or a Diamond. I cannot imagine that Saurer vehicles were converted into gas vans. As far as I know all Saurer were Diesel vehicles, which were not suitable for the intended purpose."

    (interrogation of 27 February 1962, Niedersächsisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, NDS. 721 Hannover Acc. 97/99 Nr.10/24, p. 9)

    As shown in Why the Diesel Issue is Still Irrelevant, the equivalent of Saurer = Diesel is only true for those vehicles produced in the Austrian Saurer factories, which the witness has evidently in mind here, but not for the French Saurer factories, where the gas van chassis were actually produced.

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  3. "As far as I know all Saurer were Diesel vehicles, which were not suitable for the intended purpose."

    Heh, that's just great.

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