phantom
19-12-2007, 04:13 PM
The Crematoria Ovens of Auschwitz and Birkenau
CARLO MATTOGNO and FRANCO DEANA
Author's Note*
This article was compiled in 1993 before the publication of the book by Jean-Claude Pressac entitled, Les Crématoires d'Auschwitz: La machinerie du meurte de masse (CNSR Editions, Paris, August 1993) which is purportedly based on the archives of the Auschwitz Zentralbauleitung which are stored in Moscow, and I wrote this article before my research visits into these Moscow archives accompanied by Jürgen Graf in 1995.
While the enormous amount of documentation concerning the crematories of Auschwitz-Birkenau which we have found in the Moscow archives will lead to certain modifications of the following article, it nevertheless has seemed to me that despite some unavoidable inexactness herein which is an inevitable result in the wake of this research, it would be unfair to amputate the English version of this work by not granting translation authorization for its inclusion in this anthology.
As for the German text, this new research already indicates that relevant modifications are now in order, such as the elimination of section 5.7 concerning the matter of coke consumption, and of the number of deceased prisoners cremated in 1944, which was based upon documentation mentioned in the David Irving ACTION REPORT of December 1993, but regarding which, I found no traces in the Moscow archives.
I also would now recommend the elimination of the short section 6.2 which contains a critique on "cremation pits," because in the meantime I have discovered that such a procedure can be made to work [or suffice] if done in a determined fashion (although such a procedure is not a real or correct cremation, but is instead a combustion, and to be truthful, is not the procedure described by Auschwitz "eye witnesses").
The study of the 1995 publication of the work entitled Sterbebücher von Auschwitz (K.G. Saur, München, New Providence, London, Paris) in care of the Auschwitz Museum, into which the Sterbebücher [death-books] have been transferred from Moscow, will allow us to establish with greater precision the number of prisoners who died at Auschwitz during 1943. I had estimated that number to be 21,850 for the period from 01 April until 25 October 1943 on the basis of the assumption (which later turned out to be mistaken) that the female prisoners would have been registered in other registers. The 7,800 deaths which I had calculated in this manner as being extra (or rather, that I had overcalculated on this assumption) are, however, partly covered by the deaths in the Zigeunerlager [Gypsy camp] which, as we are now learning, were not registered in the Sterbebücher, but rather, were registered in the Hauptbücher des Zigeunerlagers [main books of the Gypsy camp]. In these registers, for the period of April-October 1943, there appear about 2,550 deaths. About another 350 are registered only with their year of death; and of 850, we do not know even this (their year of death). The maximum number of Gypsies who died in Auschwitz during the above-mentioned period is therefore about 3,750. The total number could [amount to] about 17,800. I am using the conditional "could" because there are still some uncertainties-uncertainties which the continuing study of the Sterbebücher should eventually clarify in a more precise manner. This number essentially agrees however with the deliveries of coke to the crematoria of Auschwitz-Birkenau, and represents a theoretic average fuel consumption of about 28 kg of coke per cremated corpse.
The Moscow documents allow us to better clarify certain aspects of the stories of the Auschwitz-Birkenau crematoria, but they do not change minimally the argumentative structure and the conclusions which are presented in this article; indeed, they give to it an extra value.
I would take the opportunity to amend the text of typographical and translation errors which appear in the German edition.
Carlo Mattogno
Introduction
If a monstrous extermination of many hundreds of thousands of people took place in gas chambers in Auschwitz and Birkenau during the Second World War, and if the bodies of the victims were disposed of in the cremation facilities in those camps, then the 'murder weapon' - the gas chamber - has an essential counterpart: the cremation oven.
The 'eyewitnesses' have tried to persuade us that the crematoria ovens of Auschwitz and Birkenau were satanic contraptions operating above and beyond the realm of physical laws,1 not ordinary cremation facilities subject to the same laws of chemistry, physics and heat engineering as all other such installations. Historians have chosen to trust blindly in these witnesses, and in the process have let themselves get carried away into making entirely erroneous claims.2
Aside from the Revisionists, Jean-Claude Pressac is the only researcher to have approached the historical problem of the cremation of bodies in Auschwitz and Birkenau from a technical perspective. In his book Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers3 he comes to the following conclusions:
· The three double-muffle ovens in Crematorium I of Main Camp Auschwitz had a capacity of 340 cremations in a 24-hour period.4
· The five three-muffle ovens in Crematoria II and III of Birkenau each had a maximum capacity of between 1,000 and 1,500 cremations per 24 hours,5 but their normal capacity was 1,000 to 1,100 cremations each per 24 hours.6
· The two eight-muffle ovens of Crematoria IV and V each had a capacity of 500 cremations per 24 hours.7
Pressac thus puts the total capacity of the crematoria of Auschwitz and Birkenau at 3,540 cremations per day. From a technical perspective this figure is completely unrealistic.8
Among the Revisionists it was particularly Fred A. Leuchter who, in his well-known Leuchter Report,9 turned his attention to the issue of the cremations. Relying primarily on the statements of Ivan Lagacé, the manager and operator of the Bow Valley Crematorium in Calgary, Canada,10 Leuchter arrived at a figure of 156 bodies per day as the total cremation capacity of the crematoria of Auschwitz and Birkenau. This figure is actually far below the actual capacity.
Pressac and Leuchter arrived at conclusions which, though diametrically opposed, are equally unfounded because no serious, fundamental studies have been conducted of the crematoria ovens at Auschwitz and Birkenau, whether by the orthodox historians or by the Revisionists. We intend to close this debilitating gap.
The present study represents an abridged version of a much more extensive work based on years of intensive research. We are deeply indebted to the late engineer H. O. N. of Danzig for his invaluable help in this project.11
1. Modern-Day Cremation
1.1 The Technology of Crematoria Ovens Up To World War One
The cremation of dead bodies was practised in Europe for more than a thousand years before Homer's time.12 This custom was carried on until 785 AD, when Charlemagne forbade it, on pain of death, in his Decree of Paderborn.13 In the following centuries cremation disappeared entirely from Christian Europe.
The idea of cremation regained some popularity during the French Revolution, but it was the second half of the 19th century before it gradually found general acceptance.14 The trend favoring cremation began to gain momentum in 1849, when the philologist Jakob Grimm gave a memorable lecture "on the cremation of corpses"15 at the Berlin Academy of Sciences. The idea was quickly taken up by eager pioneers, and enthusiastically promoted.16 The first cremation in a crematorium oven in Europe took place on October 9, 1874 in Dresden, in a makeshift oven designed by Friedrich Siemens. After a few cremations this experimental procedure was banned by the Saxon government.17 The first European crematorium was built in Milan in 1875, one year after cremation was recognized as a legal method for the disposal of the dead.18
These first cremation facilities of the 1870s were as yet very unreliable and costly to operate, so that as a rule they were torn down again after just a few cremations. The method of firing generally used was indirect, allowing only hot air but no flame gases to reach the body, and the cremation of one body usually took 5 to 6 hours.19 However, more modern ovens soon prevailed, requiring only one to two hours to cremate a body by means of direct incineration. In these ovens the body was directly exposed to the flames, which were produced either by the incineration of the fuel or by combustion of the fuel gases from the gas generator. Of course there were also ovens which combined the principles of direct cremation by fire and indirect cremation by heated air.
A principle devised by Friedrich Siemens introduced the process of wholly indirect cremation using heated air; this method predominated unchallenged in Germany until 1924. In this new procedure, cremation was performed by means of air heated to 1000°C (1830°F) in a regenerator or recuperator.20 A cremation took 135 minutes on average; the first cremation required 1,500 kg (3,300 lbs) of brown coal, subsequent ones took from 250 to 33 kg (550 to 73 lbs) or less, with the requirements decreasing step by step.21
The Swedish Klingenstierna oven was a distinct improvement over the Siemens oven. Besides a main burner, it had a secondary burner that served mostly to burn off the remaining gases and smoke particles; the combustion air was heated in a recuperator consisting of metal baffles (heat exchanger between the furnace gas and the combustion gas); the body was introduced into the ignition chamber on a small cart that remained there for the entire duration of the cremation cycle. In Germany this system was perfected by E. Dorovius and built by the firm of Gebrüder Beck in Offenbach. The first models, which were installed in the crematoria of Heidelberg (1891) and Jena (1898), still retained the cart for introduction the body, but the model of 1899 (Offenbach crematorium) already did without the cart, and the ignition chamber was replaced by a grating of refractory grilles beneath which two sloping surfaces angled like a funnel channelled the ash into the ash pit.22 This type of recuperator was gradually replaced by one with refractory brick, and the oven took on the typical structure of the German crematoria ovens with coke-fired gas generator.
The oven was a two-story structure: the gas generator and recuperator were in the basement, while the ignition chamber was on the first floor. The solid incineration products from the body collected in the settling chamber, while the gaseous products moved into the side flues of the recuperator and down through them into the waste-gas flue, whence they rose up the stack. The recuperator consisted of fireproof material through which three flues ran: the furnace gases moved downward through the side flues, giving off some of their heat to the refractory brick and thereby heating it, and fresh air moved up through the central flue and to the body, heating up in the process. The fresh air moved into the recuperator through an opening in the lower part of the oven. The remains of the body fell through the refractory grilles onto the ash slope, from which they were scraped into an ash tray which was then removed through the hatch of the settling chamber.23 The first cremation required some 325 kg (715 lbs) of coke fuel, including the amount needed to preheat the oven; the next cremation required from 175 to 150 kg (385 to 330 lbs). Each cremation took two hours.24
In its basic structure, this model represented the type of coke-fired gas generator crematoria oven from which all the ovens of this type that were built in Germany until the 1930s were derived.25
1.2 Technological Progress and Developments in the Inter-War Years
After the First World War and the peace dictate of Versailles which forced Germany to give up coal-rich regions as well as to supply coal to the victorious powers, Germany saw itself forced to use the coal reserves left to it as efficiently as possible. For these reasons, German industry endeavored to redesign, in terms of heat engineering, all facilities consuming coal and coal products so as to maximize the return achieved per unit of fuel consumption.
Crematoria ovens and their operation were by no means exempt from this need for the thrifty use of coal. Consequently, a Prussian law dating from September 14, 1911 was amended in 1924; this law had permitted only the wholly indirect cremation of bodies, for aesthetic reasons, but this process required more time and fuel than its alternative.26 The debate about this amendment was accompanied by at times heated arguments among the cremation experts, disputing about which of the two methods was the more economic one.27 This question could be resolved only by means of scientific cremation experiments. The most significant experiments of this period were carried out in 1926 and 1927 in the crematorium of Dessau by the engineer Richard Kessler, who also wrote a detailed scientific report on the subject.28 In the following we shall examine the results of these experiments.
The construction method of the new ovens took into account the decisive factors involved in the optimum use of combustion heat which engineer Kessler had discovered in his experiments, and as a result the degree of effectiveness of the oven increased considerably. The most important technological innovations of that time include the reduction of the horizontal cross-section of the gas generator; more efficient recuperators; the installation of an afterburning grate; an air intake system to allow for more efficient afterburning; and the installation of appropriate measuring instruments.29
In the early 1930s the coke-fuelled ovens with gas generator had reached the pinnacle of technological perfection, yet at the same time their inexorable decline began as they were being increasingly supplanted by significantly more economic heating systems, particularly ones using gas and electricity. From this point on, the existing coke-fuelled ovens were either torn down30 or restructured to accommodate gas heating.31 The new heating systems necessitated additional studies on the structure of the ovens as well as on the phenomenon of cremation per se, and these studies were presented in significant technical publications.32
Even though the first German crematorium had already been built in 1878, cremation was not legally permitted until 1911 and it took until the 1930s before formal legislation on this matter actually appeared. The first real and complete "Cremation Act" was passed on March 15, 1934. Specific guidelines pertaining to the cremation ovens and the cremation process followed soon after.33
As the following table shows, the number of cremations in Germany rose astronomically between the time when the first crematorium was opened, and the beginning of the Second World War:34
PERIOD - - - / # of Crematoria / # of Cremations / Annual Average
1878-1887 - - - - - - 1 - - - - - - - - 496 - - - - - - - - - 50
1888-1897 - - - - - - 2 - - - - - - - 2,192 - - - - - - - - 219
1898-1907 - - - - - - 15 - - - - - - 12,382 - - - - - - -1,238
1908-1917 - - - - - - 51 - - - - - - 88,687 - - - - - - -8,869
1918-1927 - - - - - - 81 - - - - - 283,976 - - - - - - 28,398
1928-1937 - - - - - -118 - - - - - 628,600 - - - - - -62,860
In 1938, 84,634 cremations were performed in 120 crematoria;35 in 1939 there were 102,112 cremations; in 1940, 108,130; in 1941, 107,103; and in 1942, 114,184.36
1.3 J. A. Topf & Söhne, Erfurt
Where crematoria ovens are concerned, the firm of J. A. Topf & Sons of Erfurt began manufacturing operations at the start of the First World War and was most notably successful as of the early 1920s.37 Their early models pioneered several innovations, particularly a system of muffle heating from outside.38 This prevented the cremation products from entering the muffle, thus allowing for an entirely indirect cremation process.
This cremation oven consisted of the coke generator; the self-contained cremation chamber (muffle); the system of baffles (recuperator) underneath, which served to preheat the air required for the cremation; and the diversion of the carbon monoxide gases around the muffle.39
The coke or wood gases produced in the coke generator rise up, enter the recuperator and escape via the waste-gas flue to the stack, giving off their heat to the firebrick along the way and thus bringing the oven to the point of red heat (1000°C, or about 1830°F). After heating and before the introduction of the coffin the firebrick damper in the generator neck is closed so that the gases pass around the muffle and keep it red-hot from outside. No gases can enter the muffle any longer. The air required for cremation works its way up the recuperator in counter-current to the direction taken by the waste gases in the baffles, and enters the top of the muffle at a very high temperature.
Shortly before exiting the muffle, the saturated combustion air is mixed with preheated air in the recuperator, which ensures an entirely smoke- and odor-free operation. The cremation process takes 60 to 75 minutes, depending on the size of the body.
The Topf oven combines both cremation methods: direct and indirect cremation. All modern aspects, including those of heat engineering, have been taken into account. The advantages of this oven are ease of operation and a good overview of the process from start to finish, low fuel consumption, very rapid cremation, and smoke- and odor-free operation.
The coke consumption for heating the oven and performing the first cremation varied from crematorium to crematorium and ranged from 160 to 260 kg (350 to 570 lbs).40
During the 1920s the firm of J. A. Topf & Sons became Germany's foremost commercial oven manufacturer. Between 1922 and 1927, no less than 18 of the 24 ovens installed in the German crematoria were built by Topf.41 In the early 1930s Topf's commercial supremacy was consolidated.42 By now Topf & Sons had achieved a very advanced technological level. They deserve the credit for designing Germany's first fully functional gas-heated cremation oven (1927, in Dresden), as well as the country's first electric cremation oven, which came into service in Erfurt in 1933. The firm also pioneered improvements in cremation technology such as the afterburning grate and the rotating grate.
Even though the electric Topf ovens had no competition in Germany, the company's supremacy in the oven manufacturing field was seriously threatened in those years by the newly developed gas oven of the Volckmann-Ludwig type.43 In technological respects, the firm of Topf responded to the competition posed by the new oven by designing a Model 1934 gas oven.44 In propagandistic terms they responded with rather harsh polemics in the form of a most aggressive article by engineer Kurt Prüfer,45 the man who would design the three- and eight-muffle ovens of Birkenau; the criticism advanced in this article, however, was refuted by Richard Kessler.46
1.4 The Coke Consumption of a Cremation Oven With Coke-Fired Generator
A cremation oven's fuel consumption depends in the main on the manner of the oven's construction, the cremation process, the frequency of cremations, the state of the bodies, and the operation of the oven. For this reason it is pointless to speak of an oven's fuel consumption without considering at least the following three factors: the oven's construction system, the manner of cremation (direct or indirect), and the frequency with which cremations are carried out.
The procedure involved in indirect cremation is much more fuel-intensive than that of direct cremation, since the former requires that the entire fireproof mass of the recuperator be heated to 1000°C (about 1830°F). The frequency of cremations has a very significant effect on fuel consumption, since the oven's firebrick absorbs most of the heat generated during the first cremations. For this reason fuel consumption is lowest when the oven is operating at thermal equilibrium.
The heat balance of a cremation oven with coke-fired generator is a problem very difficult to resolve in theory, since in practice the performance is affected by variable factors which cannot be predicted by theory and which affect the operation of the oven from case to case.
In the 1920s this problem was discussed by scientists like Fichtl47 and Tilly,48 but the most important contribution to its resolution was Wilhelm Heepke's 1933 article on this subject.49
Heepke's calculations showed that the per-cremation coke consumption of a medium-sized oven at thermal equilibrium amounts to 30 kg (66 lbs) of coke (plus the wooden coffin weighing 40 kg, or 88 lbs). However, Heepke's findings are marred by errors both in approach and in arithmetic, and his conclusions are thus questionable. If one takes his errors into account, one arrives at a coke requirement of 20.5 kg (45.1 lbs). This result is consistent with those of experimental origin. The experiment which R. Kessler conducted with coke fuel on January 5, 1927 indicated the following fuel consumption:
· total consumption: 436.0 kg (960 lbs) coke
· preheating of the oven: 200.0 kg (440 lbs) coke
· 8 successive cremations: 236.0 kg (520 lbs) coke
· consumption for 1 cremation, including preheating 54.5 kg (120.1 lbs) coke
· consumption for 1 cremation without preheating of the oven: 29.5 kg (65.0 lbs) coke
The fuel consumption relating to the eight cremations exclusive of the preheating of the oven still includes the consumption producing the heat that is absorbed by the oven's firebrick up to the point where thermal equilibrium is reached. A calculation to take into account the heat loss caused by radiation and conduction shows that the coke consumption for a cremation in an oven at thermal equilibrium is about 20 kg (44 lbs).
This confirms the correctness of this method of calculation, which can thus also be used to determine the thermal balance of the cremation ovens of Auschwitz and Birkenau.
1.5 The Duration of the Cremation Process With a Coke-Fired Generator
Cremation is a physical and chemical process requiring a certain minimum time that cannot be decreased further.50 This minimum time depends in the main on the chemical composition of the body to be cremated. As special experiments conducted in England in the 1970s showed, the body's protein structure is of great importance. Due to its relatively high nitrogen content, its high ignition temperature and the chemical transformations which the proteins undergo at high temperatures, there is a considerable degree of resistance to combustion, which is amplified further by the fact that the protein substance is submerged, as it were, in body fluid and cannot ignite before this fluid has evaporated. In other words: a cremation carried out under optimum conditions cannot take less time than the time perforce required for this process to take place. Conversely, the duration of the cremation cycle increases, of course, the more that actual conditions are removed from the optimum, regardless whether this discrepancy is due to careless operation of the oven or to a less-than-ideal oven construction system.
Before raising the question of the length of the cremation process (the cremation cycle), we must clarify just exactly what we mean by that. In very general terms, we can say that a cremation is completely finished once the ashes remaining of the body have been removed from the oven. For an oven not equipped with an afterburning grate, the cremation time may be defined as the time between the introduction of the coffin into the muffle and the transfer of the glowing ashes from the ash slope into the ash container, in which they gradually collapse altogether. In an oven equipped with an afterburning grate, such as the generator ovens of Beck and Topf and the Volckmann-Ludwig gas ovens of the 1930s, the end of the cremation process is set as the time at which the glowing ashes are removed from the ash slope or transferred from the bottom of the muffle to the afterburning grate.
Even though it violated the ethical norms set by R. Kessler in 1932, it was common practice in some crematoria to introduce the next body into the muffle while the remnants of the previous still burned on the ash slope, so that one oven actually contained two bodies at the same time, albeit at different stages of the cremation cycle. This process was used in ovens such as the Volckmann-Ludwig type in Stuttgart, which were equipped with a damper in the ash (settling) chamber.
As we have already mentioned, scientific experiments were carried out in England in the 1970s to determine which factors influence the cremation process. The results were announced in July 1975 at the annual conference of the Cremation Society of Great Britain. The experiments were grouped into two series: an introductory series in Ruislip's Breakspear Crematorium and the main series in Hull's Chanterlands Crematorium. The first group of project leaders selected the factors which, in their opinion, would affect the length of the cremation process. The influence of technical factors was equalized by using the same gas-fired oven (Dowson & Mason Twin Reflux Cremator) and the same heater for all experiments.51
On the basis of these experiments it was found that the truly decisive factors, where the time required for a cremation is concerned, are the maximum temperature of the oven and the sex of the deceased. Statisticians graphically summarized the results of the experiments. One of the analysts, Dr. E. W. Jones, commented as follows:51
"From his graph he was able to tell us (we thought this rather interesting) that there is a maximum point, or rather a minimum point, of incineration time below which it is impossible to go, and our statistician defined this as a thermal barrier that, because of the make, the nature of human tissues, you cannot incinerate them at a rate which is below round about 63 minutes. Now some people will come up with readings of 60, 59, 58, they are the lower ends of this scatter of readings, and that this thermal barrier's optimum temperature is round about 800-900°C."
The graph shows that the time that most closely approximates the "thermal barrier" is 60 minutes, given a temperature of 800°C (1470°F). If the temperature is increased to 1000°C (1830°F), the time required for cremation increases to 67 minutes, and at 1100°C (2010°F) it drops again, to 65 minutes. At higher temperatures, which were not investigated, the time would presumably decrease further, and at extremely high temperatures it probably drops below the thermal barrier. Dr. Jones stated that if one wanted to decrease the cremation time in this way to 20 or even to 15 minutes, one would have to construct an oven capable of working at 2000°C (3630°F).51
In reality, the cremation process must take place between fairly precise thermal boundaries. At temperatures of over 1100 to 1200°C (2010 to 2190°F) one encounters the phenomenon of "sintering", where the bones of the corpse and the oven refractory begin to soften and to melt together (fuse), and at temperatures under 700 to 600°C (1290 to 1110°F) the body merely chars.52 Dr. E. W. Jones then reports an observation of particular interest to us:51
"Our statistician colleague did some work, he looked into the records of crematoria in Germany during the last war, and it would appear that the authorities there were presented with a similar problem - that they came up against a thermal barrier. They could not design a furnace that reduced the mean incineration time to a very practical effective level. So we started to look at why there is this thermal barrier with human tissues."
It was found that the cause of this factor was that the proteins in the human body - when they are heated to 800 to 900°C (1470 to 1650°F) - undergo a chemical transformation. They dissociate and form compounds "that can only be described as a hard crust."51
Naturally the cremation process took longer in ovens operating with a coke-fired gas generator. Regarding the time required for the cremation cycle, the data to be found in contemporaneous literature is almost never entirely reliable, first and foremost because what is meant by "the time required" is very rarely clearly defined, and secondly because one must expect that the data has been distorted for reasons of competition or propaganda.
This is why we shall take data supplied by the technical measuring instruments in the ovens themselves as our objective and incontrovertible starting point. From this perspective, the diagram summarizing the cremations performed by R. Kessler with coke fuel on January 5, 1927 is especially significant. This was a case where one is completely justified in saying that the cremations were carried out under the optimum conditions for an oven with a gas generator, because:
· the construction system of the oven was excellent;
· Kessler had taken every measure necessary to ready the oven in terms of heat engineering;
· the appropriate technical instruments were used to observe the cremation cycle in every phase;
· under the knowledgeable supervision of an expert engineer the operation of the oven went off especially smoothly.
During these experiments the average cremation time was 1 hour and 26 minutes, while the shortest cremation took 1 hour. The average temperature in the muffle was about 870°C (1600°F). We shall return to this point later on. In this context it is important to stress that engineer Kessler was using the method of direct cremation. For comparison we refer to a different series of eight cremations which Kessler performed in the same oven, using briquettes instead of coke fuel. That time the average cremation took 1 hour and 22 minutes. Two weeks later the same experiment, using gas heating for the oven, returned an average cremation time of 1 hour and 12 minutes for each of the eight cremations.53
2. The Topf Cremation Facilities of Auschwitz and Birkenau
As of the late 1930s, Topf & Söhne as well as other manufacturers, especially the firm of H. Kori in Berlin and the Didier-Werke (also in Berlin), began to design cremation ovens for the concentration camps. These ovens were constructed more simply than those for civilian use. The firm of Topf developed six projects for cremation ovens of this type, but the only ones of interest to us here are those installed in the crematoria of Auschwitz and Birkenau.
2.1 The Coke-Fired Topf Double-Muffle Cremation Ovens
As far as we know Topf built four ovens of this type, of which three were installed in Crematorium I, the old crematorium of Main Camp Auschwitz, while the fourth was located in the crematorium of Mauthausen.
Work on building the first oven for Auschwitz began in early July 1940. A September 16, 1940 letter from the Auschwitz Administration reveals that the oven had been "in service for weeks already".54 One can thus assume that the oven was first taken into service around the end of July 1940. According to J.-C. Pressac it was built between June 28 and July 5, 1940, and the first cremation took place on August 15.55
The cost estimate for the second oven is dated November 13, 1940. The firm of Topf delivered the various components of the oven to Auschwitz on December 20 and 21, 1940 and January 17 and 21, 1941,56 so that it was likely constructed in February 1941. J.-C. Pressac claims that this oven was assembled between January 20 and February 22, 1941.57
Construction of the foundation for the third oven began on November 19, 1941 and was completed on December 3;58 work was then discontinued due to a lack of fireproof material. The pertinent invoice issued by Topf is dated December 16, 1941,59 but as the rubber stamp it bears would show, it was not mailed until May 22, 1942. Therefore this oven was no doubt built in June 1942.
The oven for Mauthausen was ordered from the firm of Topf on October 16, 1941, but the SS Office for Construction Management hesitated for a long time before having it built. The components of the oven were shipped to Mauthausen between February 6, 1942 and January 12, 1943,60 but the decision to put it together was not made until late 1944.61 The oven was finally built in January-February 1945, which explains the fact that it is relatively well preserved.
The two Topf double-muffle cremation ovens presently on display in the crematorium of Auschwitz were reconstructed after the War, but in a rather awkward manner, using original parts that had been removed from the ovens by the SS. It is thus entirely pointless to examine these reconstructions in the hopes of gaining an understanding of this type of oven. For this reason our investigation is based wholly on the examination of the oven from Mauthausen, and on the documents available to us relating to the ovens of Auschwitz and that of Mauthausen - all of which were the same model.62
The components of the oven of Mauthausen are also included on Topf's shipment list of January 12, 1943.63 The construction of the double-muffle cremation oven is shown on diagram "Topf D57253", which dates from June 10, 1940 and refers to the first oven built in Auschwitz. The oven is solid brick and sealed with a row of wrought-iron anchors. The dimensions of the Mauthausen oven are virtually identical to those shown on diagram D57253, which correspond to the measurements of the anchor irons itemized on Topf's shipment list of January 17, 1941 with respect to the second oven of Auschwitz. The oven is equipped with two cremation chambers, or muffles.64 The oven's operation is explained in the "Operation Manual for the Coke-Fired Topf Double-Muffle Cremation Oven."65
The crematorium of Auschwitz was originally constructed in accordance with diagram "Topf D50042" of September 25, 1941 which had been drawn up for the construction of the third oven.66 Each oven was equipped with its own forced-air installation; this consisted of an air blower which was operated with a 1.5 hp three-phase AC motor coupled directly to the blower shaft, and an appropriate duct. The square stack originally had an area of 500 x 500 mm (19.7 x 19.7"). The exhaust installation, with a capacity of about 4,000 m3/h (141,200 cu.ft./h) of stack gas, consisted of an exhaust fan powered with a 3 hp three-phase AC motor coupled directly to the blower shaft; an air shutter separated the high and low pressure chambers. The function of this installation is described in the relevant operation manual from the firm of Topf.67
The oven loading system was made up of a carriage via which the body was introduced into the muffle. This conveyance consisted of a carriage which moved on special rails and on which the coffin was introduced, and of a shunting carriage running above it.
On July 19, 1943 the crematorium was taken out of service,68 and the ovens were then dismantled.
After the end of the War the Poles reconstructed ovens 1 and 2, for which purpose they used the original parts which had been removed by the SS and of which many were still in the former coke fuel storage room. The reconstruction was done in a remarkably slipshod manner, and the ovens would not be functional in their present state.
2.2 The Coke-Fired Topf Three-Muffle Cremation Ovens
Just like the eight-muffle oven, this oven was designed by engineer Prüfer during the last months of 1941. On October 22, 1941 the Central Construction Management of Auschwitz ordered from the firm of Topf, five Topf three-muffle ovens with forced-air blower, for the new crematorium which the Office intended to construct in the Main Camp. These ovens were later installed in Crematorium II of Birkenau. The final bill for this was dated January 27, 1943. The cost per oven was RM 6,378.69 The five three-muffle cremation ovens for Crematorium III were first ordered by the Central Construction Management on September 25, 1942, per telephone, and on September 30 per registered letter.70 On October 28 the firm of Topf sent the Central Construction Management diagram D59394 for the construction of the ovens in Crematoria II and III. This diagram has been lost.71 The final bill for the five three-muffle cremation ovens for Crematorium III of Birkenau is dated May 27, 1943. The cost per oven was RM 7,830.72
The first two three-muffle ovens supplied by Topf went into service in the concentration camp Buchenwald, on August 23 and October 3, 1942.73
The following description of the Topf three-muffle cremation oven is based on direct examinations of the ovens of Buchenwald and on the documents available. Three photographs from SS sources74 confirm that the three-muffle ovens installed in Crematoria II and III of Birkenau were the same model as those in Buchenwald; one of these, however, could also be fired with fuel oil.
Regarding its construction, the three-muffle oven consisted of an oven with two muffles, each with one coke gas generator, and an additional third, central muffle and other technical modifications which we have already set out elsewhere.11
The oven is contained within a solid brick structure with fittings of wrought and cast iron. Each oven's fireproof brickwork weighed some 10,400 kg (22,900 lbs).75 Considering that the fireproof brickwork of the double-muffle cremation oven of the type installed at Auschwitz weighed about 10,000 kg (22,000 lbs), it is clear that the three-muffle oven was a more economical facility, as one can also deduce from the considerably lower price. The third double-muffle oven of Auschwitz cost RM 7,332 and included a forced-air blower and a conveyance, with the appropriate rails, to introduce the body into the muffle. The ovens of Crematorium II of Birkenau cost RM 6,378 each and included a forced-air installation. Considering that two body conveyances and the rails for five ovens cost RM 1,780, the three-muffle oven with the same equipment actually cost less than a double-muffle oven. The unit price for the ovens for Crematorium III, on the other hand, was a little higher (RM 7,380, without the body conveyance), but still much more reasonable.
Crematoria II and III of Birkenau had a large oven room measuring 30 x 11.24 m (98.4 x 36.9'). The five three-muffle cremation ovens were located along the longitudinal axis. Adjoining the oven room was a crematorium wing 10 x 12 m (33 x 39') in size and split into two sections by a dividing wall. The smaller section directly adjoining the oven room was in turn subdivided into three rooms: two engine rooms and a room for one of the three exhaust installations with which the crematorium was equipped. The other section contained the stack, the other two exhaust installations and a garbage incinerator, which is why this room was labelled "garbage incinerator" on the corresponding blueprints.76 The flue gases from the ovens were sucked up by an exhaust installation housed in an adjoining room, and blown into the stack at high velocity.77 In March 1943 the three exhaust blowers of Crematorium II were seriously damaged and had to be dismantled. As a result, the facilities intended for Crematorium III were not installed.
Unlike Crematorium II, Crematorium III was not equipped with the rails via which ovens were loaded; rather, these body conveyances were replaced with litters.78 Such a litter - they were also used in the Topf double-muffle ovens of Mauthausen and in the Kori ovens in other concentration camps - consisted of two parallel metal pipes 3 cm (approx. 1") in diameter and some 350 cm (11.5') in length. A slightly concave metal sheet 190 cm (6.2') long and 38 cm (15") wide was soldered onto their front, where they were to enter the muffle. The two pipes of the litter were soldered onto the oven door at the same distance apart as the guiding rollers, so that they could glide on them easily. In March 1943 it was decided that this system would also be introduced in Crematorium II.79
The operation of the coke-fired three-muffle oven is explained in the corresponding Operation Manual for the Coke-Fired Topf Three-Muffle Cremation Oven,80 which was based on the manual for the double-muffle cremation oven. The only significant difference relates to the heat tolerance of the muffles, which were not to be heated to more than 1000°C (1830°F), whereas the double-muffle oven could be heated to 1100°C (2010°F). This lower heat tolerance is due to the lesser quantity of fireproof brickwork per muffle of this oven type (approximately 2,100 kg, or 4,630 lbs) as compared to that of the double-muffle oven (approximately 3,000 kg, or 6,600 lbs), and probably also to the lesser quality of the materials used.
In Germany, cremation in concentration camps had been regulated at the beginning of World War Two by the "decree regarding cremations in the crematorium of concentration camp Sachsenhausen", which Himmler had issued on February 28, 1940.81 This decree was entirely in accordance with the legal stipulations in effect for civilian crematoria.82 Whether these legal regulations were later modified or rescinded, and/or whether other regulations applied to the concentration camps located in the occupied eastern territories than applied to those in the Reich proper, is not known, but it is certain that the Topf double- and three-muffle cremation ovens were designed along the same norms as the civilian ovens. The Topf cost estimates for these ovens also list carriages or devices for the introduction of coffins into the muffle, which proves that cremation was intended to include the coffin. This is further established by the operating guidelines, which recommended starting the forced-air blower immediately after the introduction of the body, and to leave it on for about 20 minutes. This recommendation is tailor-made for the circumstance that the bodies enter the oven in coffins, since the rapid and intensive combustion of the coffin requires a large quantity of air. In a cremation without a coffin, on the other hand, this stipulation would be completely pointless, because adding a large quantity of cold air during the beginning stage of cremation, where moisture evaporates from the body - a process which robs the oven of a large amount of heat - would only have slowed the cremation process.
The operating instructions also indicate that the ovens were designed for the cremation of one body at a time per muffle, since they specify that the bodies had to be introduced successively.
2.3 The Coke-Fired Topf Eight-Muffle Cremation Oven
This oven, whose construction was probably shown on the missing diagram D59478 from the firm of Topf,83 was designed by engineer Prüfer, presumably in late 1941. In any case it was designed along the lines of the three-muffle oven, whose design diagram bears a lower number, namely D59394.
On December 4, 1941 the Main Office for Budget and Buildings in Berlin ordered from the firm of Topf, "4 double-Topf-4 muffle cremation ovens" for Mogilew in Russia, where POW transit camp 185 was located.84 The order was confirmed on December 9, but only half the oven (four muffles) was shipped to Mogilew on December 30, while the rest remained in Topf's storehouse for the time being. On August 26, in accordance with the suggestion engineer Prüfer had made on the occasion of his visit to Auschwitz on August 19, 1942, the SS Economic-Administrative Main Office ordered that two of the ovens for Mogilew should instead be sent to Auschwitz. However, the Central Construction Management waited two-and-a-half months before requesting a cost estimate for this model of oven. Topf sent the estimate on November 16. The total price of RM 55,200 - RM 13,800 for each oven - included a 6% surcharge because the company had had to revise the drafts and design new models for the ovens' fittings so often.84
The blueprints of Crematorium IV (and Crematorium V, in mirror image) of Birkenau which show the foundations and the vertical cross-section of the "eight-muffle cremation oven", the photos taken by the Poles in 1945 of the ruins of Crematorium V, and the direct examination of these ruins, enable us to reconstruct this model of oven with sufficient accuracy.85
The coke-fired Topf eight-muffle cremation oven consisted of eight ovens with one muffle each, as shown on Topf's diagram 58173. Four ovens together make up each of two groups. Each group consists of two pairs of ovens, set up in mirror image so that the back and two central walls of the muffle are shared. The two oven groups are connected by four generators and set up in pairs along the same lines, so that they ultimately form one single oven with eight muffles which is referred to in the corresponding invoice as the "large-area cremation oven", due to its size (its base covered an area of about 32 m2, or 344 sq.ft.).
The oven is encased in a solid brick structure containing a series of anchor irons. These are clearly visible on the Polish photographs of 1945 and are still present today in the ruins of this crematorium.
The heating grates were also designed to burn wood, as one can see from Topf's invoice of April 5, 1943, where "wood heating" is mentioned. The system for introducing the bodies into the muffles used a litter like that in Crematoria II and III; it was affixed on two simplified rollers bolted to the anchor irons underneath the muffle damper.
The oven was probably not equipped with forced-air blowers, since none are mentioned on the bill of April 5, 1943. The stacks were designed without exhaust systems. The base unit of the Topf eight-muffle cremation oven consisted of two muffles and one generator, and the flue system for the stack gases corresponded to that of the "single-muffle cremation oven" shown on Topf design D58173.
2.4 The Cremation Ovens of the Firm of H. Kori, Berlin
Where the supply of cremation ovens to German concentration camps is concerned, the Berlin manufacturer H. Kori was Topf's major competitor. Kori's coke- or heating oil-fired ovens were installed at Dachau, Mauthausen, Majdanek, Stutthof near Danzig (not to be confused with the Alsatian camp Struthof near Natzweiler), Ravensbrück and Neuengamme, among other places.
Strictly speaking, these ovens have no immediate significance to a study of the crematoria at Auschwitz and Birkenau. However, since we shall eventually use some data from Kori ovens to draw certain conclusions about characteristics also present in the Birkenau ovens, we have also analyzed these Kori ovens in detail. Since these analyses would go beyond the scope of the present study, we shall just briefly refer the reader to the relevant sources.86
3. The Coke Consumption of the Topf Cremation Ovens of Auschwitz and Birkenau
3.1 Heat Balance of the Topf Double-Muffle Cremation Ovens of Auschwitz and Birkenau
In order to determine the thermal equilibrium of the Topf ovens of Auschwitz and Birkenau with sufficient accuracy, one can apply the method of calculation used by engineer Wilhelm Heepke with respect to the Topf double-muffle oven, since structurally speaking this model was the most similar to the civilian ovens. Since this method of calculation is relatively complicated we shall not tax our readers unnecessarily, and refer instead to the detailed calculations we have set out elsewhere.11
At the end of these calculations one arrives at the quantity of coke fuel that is required, in an ideal-case scenario, to keep the double-muffle oven, loaded with two normal bodies (@70 kg, or 154 lbs), at a temperature of 800°C (1470°F) for 60 minutes. In other words, it is the quantity of coke which is required to cremate the two normal bodies under ideal conditions. In this particular case the quantity is 22.7 kg (50.0 lbs).
For two moderately skinny bodies with an assumed weight of 54.5 kg (120 lbs) each, with a 25% protein and a 37.5% fat loss, the requirement is 25.3 kg (55.7 lbs) coke per body; and for two entirely emaciated bodies (called 'Moslems' in concentration camp jargon) weighing 39 kg (86 lbs) each, with a 50% protein and a 75% fat loss, it is 27.8 kg (61.3 lbs) per body.
3.2 Coke Consumption of the Topf Double-Muffle Cremation Oven at Gusen
Practical experience confirms these findings fully. With respect to the crematorium of Gusen, which was equipped with a Topf double-muffle cremation oven, there is a document which records the number of bodies cremated and the daily consumption of coke for 28 days between September 26 and November 12, 1941.87
First, let us derive the average coke fuel consumption per body from the number of cremations per day. In the period from September 26 to October 15, 1941, ie. in the course of 20 days, 193 cremations were done, and the oven was in service for eleven days. It was not in use for nine days, during which time it cooled off; for this reason the average fuel consumption per body was particularly high: about 47.5 kg (104.7 lbs).
From October 26 to 30, ie. in a five-day period, 129 cremations were done - an average of 26 per day. The oven was in use every day; thus, the average consumption of coke was lower, about 37.2 kg (82.0 lbs) per body.
From October 31 to November 12, 1941, ie. in a 13-day period, 677 cremations were done - an average of 52 per day. The oven was constantly at thermal equilibrium, which is why the average coke consumption dropped to a minimum value of about 30.5 kg (67.2 lbs) per body. During this period the lowest average coke consumption was recorded on November 3. On this day, 42 bodies were cremated, using an average of 27.1kg (59.7 lbs) coke per body. The highest average consumption - 35.7 kg (78.7 lbs) per body - was recorded on November 6.
These figures may be extrapolated with certainty to the Topf double-muffle cremation ovens at Auschwitz. Assuming that the 677 bodies mentioned in the document were all emaciated ('Moslems') - which is highly unlikely - then the average coke consumption for one body would have been 22.7/27.8 x 30.5 kg @25 kg (@55 lbs), while a moderately skinny body would, on average, have required 25.3/27.8 x 30.5 kg @28 kg (@61.5 lbs) of coke fuel.
From this it follows that in continuous operation the Topf double-muffle cremation oven, Auschwitz model, required the following average quantities of coke for the cremation of one body:
· normal body: 25 kg (55 lbs) coke;
· moderately skinny body: 28 kg (61.5 lbs) coke;
· emaciated body ('Moslem'): 30.5 kg (67.2 lbs) coke.
These figures are based on the assumption that the oven was in operation 19 hours per day (one hour for lighting and preheating and 18 hours for cremations). Re-establishing thermal equilibrium - that is, the recovery of the heat lost during the five-hour break - causes a 3% increase in consumption. In other words, if the oven could be in operation 24 hours a day, coke consumption would be lower by 3%.
Continued below.........
CARLO MATTOGNO and FRANCO DEANA
Author's Note*
This article was compiled in 1993 before the publication of the book by Jean-Claude Pressac entitled, Les Crématoires d'Auschwitz: La machinerie du meurte de masse (CNSR Editions, Paris, August 1993) which is purportedly based on the archives of the Auschwitz Zentralbauleitung which are stored in Moscow, and I wrote this article before my research visits into these Moscow archives accompanied by Jürgen Graf in 1995.
While the enormous amount of documentation concerning the crematories of Auschwitz-Birkenau which we have found in the Moscow archives will lead to certain modifications of the following article, it nevertheless has seemed to me that despite some unavoidable inexactness herein which is an inevitable result in the wake of this research, it would be unfair to amputate the English version of this work by not granting translation authorization for its inclusion in this anthology.
As for the German text, this new research already indicates that relevant modifications are now in order, such as the elimination of section 5.7 concerning the matter of coke consumption, and of the number of deceased prisoners cremated in 1944, which was based upon documentation mentioned in the David Irving ACTION REPORT of December 1993, but regarding which, I found no traces in the Moscow archives.
I also would now recommend the elimination of the short section 6.2 which contains a critique on "cremation pits," because in the meantime I have discovered that such a procedure can be made to work [or suffice] if done in a determined fashion (although such a procedure is not a real or correct cremation, but is instead a combustion, and to be truthful, is not the procedure described by Auschwitz "eye witnesses").
The study of the 1995 publication of the work entitled Sterbebücher von Auschwitz (K.G. Saur, München, New Providence, London, Paris) in care of the Auschwitz Museum, into which the Sterbebücher [death-books] have been transferred from Moscow, will allow us to establish with greater precision the number of prisoners who died at Auschwitz during 1943. I had estimated that number to be 21,850 for the period from 01 April until 25 October 1943 on the basis of the assumption (which later turned out to be mistaken) that the female prisoners would have been registered in other registers. The 7,800 deaths which I had calculated in this manner as being extra (or rather, that I had overcalculated on this assumption) are, however, partly covered by the deaths in the Zigeunerlager [Gypsy camp] which, as we are now learning, were not registered in the Sterbebücher, but rather, were registered in the Hauptbücher des Zigeunerlagers [main books of the Gypsy camp]. In these registers, for the period of April-October 1943, there appear about 2,550 deaths. About another 350 are registered only with their year of death; and of 850, we do not know even this (their year of death). The maximum number of Gypsies who died in Auschwitz during the above-mentioned period is therefore about 3,750. The total number could [amount to] about 17,800. I am using the conditional "could" because there are still some uncertainties-uncertainties which the continuing study of the Sterbebücher should eventually clarify in a more precise manner. This number essentially agrees however with the deliveries of coke to the crematoria of Auschwitz-Birkenau, and represents a theoretic average fuel consumption of about 28 kg of coke per cremated corpse.
The Moscow documents allow us to better clarify certain aspects of the stories of the Auschwitz-Birkenau crematoria, but they do not change minimally the argumentative structure and the conclusions which are presented in this article; indeed, they give to it an extra value.
I would take the opportunity to amend the text of typographical and translation errors which appear in the German edition.
Carlo Mattogno
Introduction
If a monstrous extermination of many hundreds of thousands of people took place in gas chambers in Auschwitz and Birkenau during the Second World War, and if the bodies of the victims were disposed of in the cremation facilities in those camps, then the 'murder weapon' - the gas chamber - has an essential counterpart: the cremation oven.
The 'eyewitnesses' have tried to persuade us that the crematoria ovens of Auschwitz and Birkenau were satanic contraptions operating above and beyond the realm of physical laws,1 not ordinary cremation facilities subject to the same laws of chemistry, physics and heat engineering as all other such installations. Historians have chosen to trust blindly in these witnesses, and in the process have let themselves get carried away into making entirely erroneous claims.2
Aside from the Revisionists, Jean-Claude Pressac is the only researcher to have approached the historical problem of the cremation of bodies in Auschwitz and Birkenau from a technical perspective. In his book Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers3 he comes to the following conclusions:
· The three double-muffle ovens in Crematorium I of Main Camp Auschwitz had a capacity of 340 cremations in a 24-hour period.4
· The five three-muffle ovens in Crematoria II and III of Birkenau each had a maximum capacity of between 1,000 and 1,500 cremations per 24 hours,5 but their normal capacity was 1,000 to 1,100 cremations each per 24 hours.6
· The two eight-muffle ovens of Crematoria IV and V each had a capacity of 500 cremations per 24 hours.7
Pressac thus puts the total capacity of the crematoria of Auschwitz and Birkenau at 3,540 cremations per day. From a technical perspective this figure is completely unrealistic.8
Among the Revisionists it was particularly Fred A. Leuchter who, in his well-known Leuchter Report,9 turned his attention to the issue of the cremations. Relying primarily on the statements of Ivan Lagacé, the manager and operator of the Bow Valley Crematorium in Calgary, Canada,10 Leuchter arrived at a figure of 156 bodies per day as the total cremation capacity of the crematoria of Auschwitz and Birkenau. This figure is actually far below the actual capacity.
Pressac and Leuchter arrived at conclusions which, though diametrically opposed, are equally unfounded because no serious, fundamental studies have been conducted of the crematoria ovens at Auschwitz and Birkenau, whether by the orthodox historians or by the Revisionists. We intend to close this debilitating gap.
The present study represents an abridged version of a much more extensive work based on years of intensive research. We are deeply indebted to the late engineer H. O. N. of Danzig for his invaluable help in this project.11
1. Modern-Day Cremation
1.1 The Technology of Crematoria Ovens Up To World War One
The cremation of dead bodies was practised in Europe for more than a thousand years before Homer's time.12 This custom was carried on until 785 AD, when Charlemagne forbade it, on pain of death, in his Decree of Paderborn.13 In the following centuries cremation disappeared entirely from Christian Europe.
The idea of cremation regained some popularity during the French Revolution, but it was the second half of the 19th century before it gradually found general acceptance.14 The trend favoring cremation began to gain momentum in 1849, when the philologist Jakob Grimm gave a memorable lecture "on the cremation of corpses"15 at the Berlin Academy of Sciences. The idea was quickly taken up by eager pioneers, and enthusiastically promoted.16 The first cremation in a crematorium oven in Europe took place on October 9, 1874 in Dresden, in a makeshift oven designed by Friedrich Siemens. After a few cremations this experimental procedure was banned by the Saxon government.17 The first European crematorium was built in Milan in 1875, one year after cremation was recognized as a legal method for the disposal of the dead.18
These first cremation facilities of the 1870s were as yet very unreliable and costly to operate, so that as a rule they were torn down again after just a few cremations. The method of firing generally used was indirect, allowing only hot air but no flame gases to reach the body, and the cremation of one body usually took 5 to 6 hours.19 However, more modern ovens soon prevailed, requiring only one to two hours to cremate a body by means of direct incineration. In these ovens the body was directly exposed to the flames, which were produced either by the incineration of the fuel or by combustion of the fuel gases from the gas generator. Of course there were also ovens which combined the principles of direct cremation by fire and indirect cremation by heated air.
A principle devised by Friedrich Siemens introduced the process of wholly indirect cremation using heated air; this method predominated unchallenged in Germany until 1924. In this new procedure, cremation was performed by means of air heated to 1000°C (1830°F) in a regenerator or recuperator.20 A cremation took 135 minutes on average; the first cremation required 1,500 kg (3,300 lbs) of brown coal, subsequent ones took from 250 to 33 kg (550 to 73 lbs) or less, with the requirements decreasing step by step.21
The Swedish Klingenstierna oven was a distinct improvement over the Siemens oven. Besides a main burner, it had a secondary burner that served mostly to burn off the remaining gases and smoke particles; the combustion air was heated in a recuperator consisting of metal baffles (heat exchanger between the furnace gas and the combustion gas); the body was introduced into the ignition chamber on a small cart that remained there for the entire duration of the cremation cycle. In Germany this system was perfected by E. Dorovius and built by the firm of Gebrüder Beck in Offenbach. The first models, which were installed in the crematoria of Heidelberg (1891) and Jena (1898), still retained the cart for introduction the body, but the model of 1899 (Offenbach crematorium) already did without the cart, and the ignition chamber was replaced by a grating of refractory grilles beneath which two sloping surfaces angled like a funnel channelled the ash into the ash pit.22 This type of recuperator was gradually replaced by one with refractory brick, and the oven took on the typical structure of the German crematoria ovens with coke-fired gas generator.
The oven was a two-story structure: the gas generator and recuperator were in the basement, while the ignition chamber was on the first floor. The solid incineration products from the body collected in the settling chamber, while the gaseous products moved into the side flues of the recuperator and down through them into the waste-gas flue, whence they rose up the stack. The recuperator consisted of fireproof material through which three flues ran: the furnace gases moved downward through the side flues, giving off some of their heat to the refractory brick and thereby heating it, and fresh air moved up through the central flue and to the body, heating up in the process. The fresh air moved into the recuperator through an opening in the lower part of the oven. The remains of the body fell through the refractory grilles onto the ash slope, from which they were scraped into an ash tray which was then removed through the hatch of the settling chamber.23 The first cremation required some 325 kg (715 lbs) of coke fuel, including the amount needed to preheat the oven; the next cremation required from 175 to 150 kg (385 to 330 lbs). Each cremation took two hours.24
In its basic structure, this model represented the type of coke-fired gas generator crematoria oven from which all the ovens of this type that were built in Germany until the 1930s were derived.25
1.2 Technological Progress and Developments in the Inter-War Years
After the First World War and the peace dictate of Versailles which forced Germany to give up coal-rich regions as well as to supply coal to the victorious powers, Germany saw itself forced to use the coal reserves left to it as efficiently as possible. For these reasons, German industry endeavored to redesign, in terms of heat engineering, all facilities consuming coal and coal products so as to maximize the return achieved per unit of fuel consumption.
Crematoria ovens and their operation were by no means exempt from this need for the thrifty use of coal. Consequently, a Prussian law dating from September 14, 1911 was amended in 1924; this law had permitted only the wholly indirect cremation of bodies, for aesthetic reasons, but this process required more time and fuel than its alternative.26 The debate about this amendment was accompanied by at times heated arguments among the cremation experts, disputing about which of the two methods was the more economic one.27 This question could be resolved only by means of scientific cremation experiments. The most significant experiments of this period were carried out in 1926 and 1927 in the crematorium of Dessau by the engineer Richard Kessler, who also wrote a detailed scientific report on the subject.28 In the following we shall examine the results of these experiments.
The construction method of the new ovens took into account the decisive factors involved in the optimum use of combustion heat which engineer Kessler had discovered in his experiments, and as a result the degree of effectiveness of the oven increased considerably. The most important technological innovations of that time include the reduction of the horizontal cross-section of the gas generator; more efficient recuperators; the installation of an afterburning grate; an air intake system to allow for more efficient afterburning; and the installation of appropriate measuring instruments.29
In the early 1930s the coke-fuelled ovens with gas generator had reached the pinnacle of technological perfection, yet at the same time their inexorable decline began as they were being increasingly supplanted by significantly more economic heating systems, particularly ones using gas and electricity. From this point on, the existing coke-fuelled ovens were either torn down30 or restructured to accommodate gas heating.31 The new heating systems necessitated additional studies on the structure of the ovens as well as on the phenomenon of cremation per se, and these studies were presented in significant technical publications.32
Even though the first German crematorium had already been built in 1878, cremation was not legally permitted until 1911 and it took until the 1930s before formal legislation on this matter actually appeared. The first real and complete "Cremation Act" was passed on March 15, 1934. Specific guidelines pertaining to the cremation ovens and the cremation process followed soon after.33
As the following table shows, the number of cremations in Germany rose astronomically between the time when the first crematorium was opened, and the beginning of the Second World War:34
PERIOD - - - / # of Crematoria / # of Cremations / Annual Average
1878-1887 - - - - - - 1 - - - - - - - - 496 - - - - - - - - - 50
1888-1897 - - - - - - 2 - - - - - - - 2,192 - - - - - - - - 219
1898-1907 - - - - - - 15 - - - - - - 12,382 - - - - - - -1,238
1908-1917 - - - - - - 51 - - - - - - 88,687 - - - - - - -8,869
1918-1927 - - - - - - 81 - - - - - 283,976 - - - - - - 28,398
1928-1937 - - - - - -118 - - - - - 628,600 - - - - - -62,860
In 1938, 84,634 cremations were performed in 120 crematoria;35 in 1939 there were 102,112 cremations; in 1940, 108,130; in 1941, 107,103; and in 1942, 114,184.36
1.3 J. A. Topf & Söhne, Erfurt
Where crematoria ovens are concerned, the firm of J. A. Topf & Sons of Erfurt began manufacturing operations at the start of the First World War and was most notably successful as of the early 1920s.37 Their early models pioneered several innovations, particularly a system of muffle heating from outside.38 This prevented the cremation products from entering the muffle, thus allowing for an entirely indirect cremation process.
This cremation oven consisted of the coke generator; the self-contained cremation chamber (muffle); the system of baffles (recuperator) underneath, which served to preheat the air required for the cremation; and the diversion of the carbon monoxide gases around the muffle.39
The coke or wood gases produced in the coke generator rise up, enter the recuperator and escape via the waste-gas flue to the stack, giving off their heat to the firebrick along the way and thus bringing the oven to the point of red heat (1000°C, or about 1830°F). After heating and before the introduction of the coffin the firebrick damper in the generator neck is closed so that the gases pass around the muffle and keep it red-hot from outside. No gases can enter the muffle any longer. The air required for cremation works its way up the recuperator in counter-current to the direction taken by the waste gases in the baffles, and enters the top of the muffle at a very high temperature.
Shortly before exiting the muffle, the saturated combustion air is mixed with preheated air in the recuperator, which ensures an entirely smoke- and odor-free operation. The cremation process takes 60 to 75 minutes, depending on the size of the body.
The Topf oven combines both cremation methods: direct and indirect cremation. All modern aspects, including those of heat engineering, have been taken into account. The advantages of this oven are ease of operation and a good overview of the process from start to finish, low fuel consumption, very rapid cremation, and smoke- and odor-free operation.
The coke consumption for heating the oven and performing the first cremation varied from crematorium to crematorium and ranged from 160 to 260 kg (350 to 570 lbs).40
During the 1920s the firm of J. A. Topf & Sons became Germany's foremost commercial oven manufacturer. Between 1922 and 1927, no less than 18 of the 24 ovens installed in the German crematoria were built by Topf.41 In the early 1930s Topf's commercial supremacy was consolidated.42 By now Topf & Sons had achieved a very advanced technological level. They deserve the credit for designing Germany's first fully functional gas-heated cremation oven (1927, in Dresden), as well as the country's first electric cremation oven, which came into service in Erfurt in 1933. The firm also pioneered improvements in cremation technology such as the afterburning grate and the rotating grate.
Even though the electric Topf ovens had no competition in Germany, the company's supremacy in the oven manufacturing field was seriously threatened in those years by the newly developed gas oven of the Volckmann-Ludwig type.43 In technological respects, the firm of Topf responded to the competition posed by the new oven by designing a Model 1934 gas oven.44 In propagandistic terms they responded with rather harsh polemics in the form of a most aggressive article by engineer Kurt Prüfer,45 the man who would design the three- and eight-muffle ovens of Birkenau; the criticism advanced in this article, however, was refuted by Richard Kessler.46
1.4 The Coke Consumption of a Cremation Oven With Coke-Fired Generator
A cremation oven's fuel consumption depends in the main on the manner of the oven's construction, the cremation process, the frequency of cremations, the state of the bodies, and the operation of the oven. For this reason it is pointless to speak of an oven's fuel consumption without considering at least the following three factors: the oven's construction system, the manner of cremation (direct or indirect), and the frequency with which cremations are carried out.
The procedure involved in indirect cremation is much more fuel-intensive than that of direct cremation, since the former requires that the entire fireproof mass of the recuperator be heated to 1000°C (about 1830°F). The frequency of cremations has a very significant effect on fuel consumption, since the oven's firebrick absorbs most of the heat generated during the first cremations. For this reason fuel consumption is lowest when the oven is operating at thermal equilibrium.
The heat balance of a cremation oven with coke-fired generator is a problem very difficult to resolve in theory, since in practice the performance is affected by variable factors which cannot be predicted by theory and which affect the operation of the oven from case to case.
In the 1920s this problem was discussed by scientists like Fichtl47 and Tilly,48 but the most important contribution to its resolution was Wilhelm Heepke's 1933 article on this subject.49
Heepke's calculations showed that the per-cremation coke consumption of a medium-sized oven at thermal equilibrium amounts to 30 kg (66 lbs) of coke (plus the wooden coffin weighing 40 kg, or 88 lbs). However, Heepke's findings are marred by errors both in approach and in arithmetic, and his conclusions are thus questionable. If one takes his errors into account, one arrives at a coke requirement of 20.5 kg (45.1 lbs). This result is consistent with those of experimental origin. The experiment which R. Kessler conducted with coke fuel on January 5, 1927 indicated the following fuel consumption:
· total consumption: 436.0 kg (960 lbs) coke
· preheating of the oven: 200.0 kg (440 lbs) coke
· 8 successive cremations: 236.0 kg (520 lbs) coke
· consumption for 1 cremation, including preheating 54.5 kg (120.1 lbs) coke
· consumption for 1 cremation without preheating of the oven: 29.5 kg (65.0 lbs) coke
The fuel consumption relating to the eight cremations exclusive of the preheating of the oven still includes the consumption producing the heat that is absorbed by the oven's firebrick up to the point where thermal equilibrium is reached. A calculation to take into account the heat loss caused by radiation and conduction shows that the coke consumption for a cremation in an oven at thermal equilibrium is about 20 kg (44 lbs).
This confirms the correctness of this method of calculation, which can thus also be used to determine the thermal balance of the cremation ovens of Auschwitz and Birkenau.
1.5 The Duration of the Cremation Process With a Coke-Fired Generator
Cremation is a physical and chemical process requiring a certain minimum time that cannot be decreased further.50 This minimum time depends in the main on the chemical composition of the body to be cremated. As special experiments conducted in England in the 1970s showed, the body's protein structure is of great importance. Due to its relatively high nitrogen content, its high ignition temperature and the chemical transformations which the proteins undergo at high temperatures, there is a considerable degree of resistance to combustion, which is amplified further by the fact that the protein substance is submerged, as it were, in body fluid and cannot ignite before this fluid has evaporated. In other words: a cremation carried out under optimum conditions cannot take less time than the time perforce required for this process to take place. Conversely, the duration of the cremation cycle increases, of course, the more that actual conditions are removed from the optimum, regardless whether this discrepancy is due to careless operation of the oven or to a less-than-ideal oven construction system.
Before raising the question of the length of the cremation process (the cremation cycle), we must clarify just exactly what we mean by that. In very general terms, we can say that a cremation is completely finished once the ashes remaining of the body have been removed from the oven. For an oven not equipped with an afterburning grate, the cremation time may be defined as the time between the introduction of the coffin into the muffle and the transfer of the glowing ashes from the ash slope into the ash container, in which they gradually collapse altogether. In an oven equipped with an afterburning grate, such as the generator ovens of Beck and Topf and the Volckmann-Ludwig gas ovens of the 1930s, the end of the cremation process is set as the time at which the glowing ashes are removed from the ash slope or transferred from the bottom of the muffle to the afterburning grate.
Even though it violated the ethical norms set by R. Kessler in 1932, it was common practice in some crematoria to introduce the next body into the muffle while the remnants of the previous still burned on the ash slope, so that one oven actually contained two bodies at the same time, albeit at different stages of the cremation cycle. This process was used in ovens such as the Volckmann-Ludwig type in Stuttgart, which were equipped with a damper in the ash (settling) chamber.
As we have already mentioned, scientific experiments were carried out in England in the 1970s to determine which factors influence the cremation process. The results were announced in July 1975 at the annual conference of the Cremation Society of Great Britain. The experiments were grouped into two series: an introductory series in Ruislip's Breakspear Crematorium and the main series in Hull's Chanterlands Crematorium. The first group of project leaders selected the factors which, in their opinion, would affect the length of the cremation process. The influence of technical factors was equalized by using the same gas-fired oven (Dowson & Mason Twin Reflux Cremator) and the same heater for all experiments.51
On the basis of these experiments it was found that the truly decisive factors, where the time required for a cremation is concerned, are the maximum temperature of the oven and the sex of the deceased. Statisticians graphically summarized the results of the experiments. One of the analysts, Dr. E. W. Jones, commented as follows:51
"From his graph he was able to tell us (we thought this rather interesting) that there is a maximum point, or rather a minimum point, of incineration time below which it is impossible to go, and our statistician defined this as a thermal barrier that, because of the make, the nature of human tissues, you cannot incinerate them at a rate which is below round about 63 minutes. Now some people will come up with readings of 60, 59, 58, they are the lower ends of this scatter of readings, and that this thermal barrier's optimum temperature is round about 800-900°C."
The graph shows that the time that most closely approximates the "thermal barrier" is 60 minutes, given a temperature of 800°C (1470°F). If the temperature is increased to 1000°C (1830°F), the time required for cremation increases to 67 minutes, and at 1100°C (2010°F) it drops again, to 65 minutes. At higher temperatures, which were not investigated, the time would presumably decrease further, and at extremely high temperatures it probably drops below the thermal barrier. Dr. Jones stated that if one wanted to decrease the cremation time in this way to 20 or even to 15 minutes, one would have to construct an oven capable of working at 2000°C (3630°F).51
In reality, the cremation process must take place between fairly precise thermal boundaries. At temperatures of over 1100 to 1200°C (2010 to 2190°F) one encounters the phenomenon of "sintering", where the bones of the corpse and the oven refractory begin to soften and to melt together (fuse), and at temperatures under 700 to 600°C (1290 to 1110°F) the body merely chars.52 Dr. E. W. Jones then reports an observation of particular interest to us:51
"Our statistician colleague did some work, he looked into the records of crematoria in Germany during the last war, and it would appear that the authorities there were presented with a similar problem - that they came up against a thermal barrier. They could not design a furnace that reduced the mean incineration time to a very practical effective level. So we started to look at why there is this thermal barrier with human tissues."
It was found that the cause of this factor was that the proteins in the human body - when they are heated to 800 to 900°C (1470 to 1650°F) - undergo a chemical transformation. They dissociate and form compounds "that can only be described as a hard crust."51
Naturally the cremation process took longer in ovens operating with a coke-fired gas generator. Regarding the time required for the cremation cycle, the data to be found in contemporaneous literature is almost never entirely reliable, first and foremost because what is meant by "the time required" is very rarely clearly defined, and secondly because one must expect that the data has been distorted for reasons of competition or propaganda.
This is why we shall take data supplied by the technical measuring instruments in the ovens themselves as our objective and incontrovertible starting point. From this perspective, the diagram summarizing the cremations performed by R. Kessler with coke fuel on January 5, 1927 is especially significant. This was a case where one is completely justified in saying that the cremations were carried out under the optimum conditions for an oven with a gas generator, because:
· the construction system of the oven was excellent;
· Kessler had taken every measure necessary to ready the oven in terms of heat engineering;
· the appropriate technical instruments were used to observe the cremation cycle in every phase;
· under the knowledgeable supervision of an expert engineer the operation of the oven went off especially smoothly.
During these experiments the average cremation time was 1 hour and 26 minutes, while the shortest cremation took 1 hour. The average temperature in the muffle was about 870°C (1600°F). We shall return to this point later on. In this context it is important to stress that engineer Kessler was using the method of direct cremation. For comparison we refer to a different series of eight cremations which Kessler performed in the same oven, using briquettes instead of coke fuel. That time the average cremation took 1 hour and 22 minutes. Two weeks later the same experiment, using gas heating for the oven, returned an average cremation time of 1 hour and 12 minutes for each of the eight cremations.53
2. The Topf Cremation Facilities of Auschwitz and Birkenau
As of the late 1930s, Topf & Söhne as well as other manufacturers, especially the firm of H. Kori in Berlin and the Didier-Werke (also in Berlin), began to design cremation ovens for the concentration camps. These ovens were constructed more simply than those for civilian use. The firm of Topf developed six projects for cremation ovens of this type, but the only ones of interest to us here are those installed in the crematoria of Auschwitz and Birkenau.
2.1 The Coke-Fired Topf Double-Muffle Cremation Ovens
As far as we know Topf built four ovens of this type, of which three were installed in Crematorium I, the old crematorium of Main Camp Auschwitz, while the fourth was located in the crematorium of Mauthausen.
Work on building the first oven for Auschwitz began in early July 1940. A September 16, 1940 letter from the Auschwitz Administration reveals that the oven had been "in service for weeks already".54 One can thus assume that the oven was first taken into service around the end of July 1940. According to J.-C. Pressac it was built between June 28 and July 5, 1940, and the first cremation took place on August 15.55
The cost estimate for the second oven is dated November 13, 1940. The firm of Topf delivered the various components of the oven to Auschwitz on December 20 and 21, 1940 and January 17 and 21, 1941,56 so that it was likely constructed in February 1941. J.-C. Pressac claims that this oven was assembled between January 20 and February 22, 1941.57
Construction of the foundation for the third oven began on November 19, 1941 and was completed on December 3;58 work was then discontinued due to a lack of fireproof material. The pertinent invoice issued by Topf is dated December 16, 1941,59 but as the rubber stamp it bears would show, it was not mailed until May 22, 1942. Therefore this oven was no doubt built in June 1942.
The oven for Mauthausen was ordered from the firm of Topf on October 16, 1941, but the SS Office for Construction Management hesitated for a long time before having it built. The components of the oven were shipped to Mauthausen between February 6, 1942 and January 12, 1943,60 but the decision to put it together was not made until late 1944.61 The oven was finally built in January-February 1945, which explains the fact that it is relatively well preserved.
The two Topf double-muffle cremation ovens presently on display in the crematorium of Auschwitz were reconstructed after the War, but in a rather awkward manner, using original parts that had been removed from the ovens by the SS. It is thus entirely pointless to examine these reconstructions in the hopes of gaining an understanding of this type of oven. For this reason our investigation is based wholly on the examination of the oven from Mauthausen, and on the documents available to us relating to the ovens of Auschwitz and that of Mauthausen - all of which were the same model.62
The components of the oven of Mauthausen are also included on Topf's shipment list of January 12, 1943.63 The construction of the double-muffle cremation oven is shown on diagram "Topf D57253", which dates from June 10, 1940 and refers to the first oven built in Auschwitz. The oven is solid brick and sealed with a row of wrought-iron anchors. The dimensions of the Mauthausen oven are virtually identical to those shown on diagram D57253, which correspond to the measurements of the anchor irons itemized on Topf's shipment list of January 17, 1941 with respect to the second oven of Auschwitz. The oven is equipped with two cremation chambers, or muffles.64 The oven's operation is explained in the "Operation Manual for the Coke-Fired Topf Double-Muffle Cremation Oven."65
The crematorium of Auschwitz was originally constructed in accordance with diagram "Topf D50042" of September 25, 1941 which had been drawn up for the construction of the third oven.66 Each oven was equipped with its own forced-air installation; this consisted of an air blower which was operated with a 1.5 hp three-phase AC motor coupled directly to the blower shaft, and an appropriate duct. The square stack originally had an area of 500 x 500 mm (19.7 x 19.7"). The exhaust installation, with a capacity of about 4,000 m3/h (141,200 cu.ft./h) of stack gas, consisted of an exhaust fan powered with a 3 hp three-phase AC motor coupled directly to the blower shaft; an air shutter separated the high and low pressure chambers. The function of this installation is described in the relevant operation manual from the firm of Topf.67
The oven loading system was made up of a carriage via which the body was introduced into the muffle. This conveyance consisted of a carriage which moved on special rails and on which the coffin was introduced, and of a shunting carriage running above it.
On July 19, 1943 the crematorium was taken out of service,68 and the ovens were then dismantled.
After the end of the War the Poles reconstructed ovens 1 and 2, for which purpose they used the original parts which had been removed by the SS and of which many were still in the former coke fuel storage room. The reconstruction was done in a remarkably slipshod manner, and the ovens would not be functional in their present state.
2.2 The Coke-Fired Topf Three-Muffle Cremation Ovens
Just like the eight-muffle oven, this oven was designed by engineer Prüfer during the last months of 1941. On October 22, 1941 the Central Construction Management of Auschwitz ordered from the firm of Topf, five Topf three-muffle ovens with forced-air blower, for the new crematorium which the Office intended to construct in the Main Camp. These ovens were later installed in Crematorium II of Birkenau. The final bill for this was dated January 27, 1943. The cost per oven was RM 6,378.69 The five three-muffle cremation ovens for Crematorium III were first ordered by the Central Construction Management on September 25, 1942, per telephone, and on September 30 per registered letter.70 On October 28 the firm of Topf sent the Central Construction Management diagram D59394 for the construction of the ovens in Crematoria II and III. This diagram has been lost.71 The final bill for the five three-muffle cremation ovens for Crematorium III of Birkenau is dated May 27, 1943. The cost per oven was RM 7,830.72
The first two three-muffle ovens supplied by Topf went into service in the concentration camp Buchenwald, on August 23 and October 3, 1942.73
The following description of the Topf three-muffle cremation oven is based on direct examinations of the ovens of Buchenwald and on the documents available. Three photographs from SS sources74 confirm that the three-muffle ovens installed in Crematoria II and III of Birkenau were the same model as those in Buchenwald; one of these, however, could also be fired with fuel oil.
Regarding its construction, the three-muffle oven consisted of an oven with two muffles, each with one coke gas generator, and an additional third, central muffle and other technical modifications which we have already set out elsewhere.11
The oven is contained within a solid brick structure with fittings of wrought and cast iron. Each oven's fireproof brickwork weighed some 10,400 kg (22,900 lbs).75 Considering that the fireproof brickwork of the double-muffle cremation oven of the type installed at Auschwitz weighed about 10,000 kg (22,000 lbs), it is clear that the three-muffle oven was a more economical facility, as one can also deduce from the considerably lower price. The third double-muffle oven of Auschwitz cost RM 7,332 and included a forced-air blower and a conveyance, with the appropriate rails, to introduce the body into the muffle. The ovens of Crematorium II of Birkenau cost RM 6,378 each and included a forced-air installation. Considering that two body conveyances and the rails for five ovens cost RM 1,780, the three-muffle oven with the same equipment actually cost less than a double-muffle oven. The unit price for the ovens for Crematorium III, on the other hand, was a little higher (RM 7,380, without the body conveyance), but still much more reasonable.
Crematoria II and III of Birkenau had a large oven room measuring 30 x 11.24 m (98.4 x 36.9'). The five three-muffle cremation ovens were located along the longitudinal axis. Adjoining the oven room was a crematorium wing 10 x 12 m (33 x 39') in size and split into two sections by a dividing wall. The smaller section directly adjoining the oven room was in turn subdivided into three rooms: two engine rooms and a room for one of the three exhaust installations with which the crematorium was equipped. The other section contained the stack, the other two exhaust installations and a garbage incinerator, which is why this room was labelled "garbage incinerator" on the corresponding blueprints.76 The flue gases from the ovens were sucked up by an exhaust installation housed in an adjoining room, and blown into the stack at high velocity.77 In March 1943 the three exhaust blowers of Crematorium II were seriously damaged and had to be dismantled. As a result, the facilities intended for Crematorium III were not installed.
Unlike Crematorium II, Crematorium III was not equipped with the rails via which ovens were loaded; rather, these body conveyances were replaced with litters.78 Such a litter - they were also used in the Topf double-muffle ovens of Mauthausen and in the Kori ovens in other concentration camps - consisted of two parallel metal pipes 3 cm (approx. 1") in diameter and some 350 cm (11.5') in length. A slightly concave metal sheet 190 cm (6.2') long and 38 cm (15") wide was soldered onto their front, where they were to enter the muffle. The two pipes of the litter were soldered onto the oven door at the same distance apart as the guiding rollers, so that they could glide on them easily. In March 1943 it was decided that this system would also be introduced in Crematorium II.79
The operation of the coke-fired three-muffle oven is explained in the corresponding Operation Manual for the Coke-Fired Topf Three-Muffle Cremation Oven,80 which was based on the manual for the double-muffle cremation oven. The only significant difference relates to the heat tolerance of the muffles, which were not to be heated to more than 1000°C (1830°F), whereas the double-muffle oven could be heated to 1100°C (2010°F). This lower heat tolerance is due to the lesser quantity of fireproof brickwork per muffle of this oven type (approximately 2,100 kg, or 4,630 lbs) as compared to that of the double-muffle oven (approximately 3,000 kg, or 6,600 lbs), and probably also to the lesser quality of the materials used.
In Germany, cremation in concentration camps had been regulated at the beginning of World War Two by the "decree regarding cremations in the crematorium of concentration camp Sachsenhausen", which Himmler had issued on February 28, 1940.81 This decree was entirely in accordance with the legal stipulations in effect for civilian crematoria.82 Whether these legal regulations were later modified or rescinded, and/or whether other regulations applied to the concentration camps located in the occupied eastern territories than applied to those in the Reich proper, is not known, but it is certain that the Topf double- and three-muffle cremation ovens were designed along the same norms as the civilian ovens. The Topf cost estimates for these ovens also list carriages or devices for the introduction of coffins into the muffle, which proves that cremation was intended to include the coffin. This is further established by the operating guidelines, which recommended starting the forced-air blower immediately after the introduction of the body, and to leave it on for about 20 minutes. This recommendation is tailor-made for the circumstance that the bodies enter the oven in coffins, since the rapid and intensive combustion of the coffin requires a large quantity of air. In a cremation without a coffin, on the other hand, this stipulation would be completely pointless, because adding a large quantity of cold air during the beginning stage of cremation, where moisture evaporates from the body - a process which robs the oven of a large amount of heat - would only have slowed the cremation process.
The operating instructions also indicate that the ovens were designed for the cremation of one body at a time per muffle, since they specify that the bodies had to be introduced successively.
2.3 The Coke-Fired Topf Eight-Muffle Cremation Oven
This oven, whose construction was probably shown on the missing diagram D59478 from the firm of Topf,83 was designed by engineer Prüfer, presumably in late 1941. In any case it was designed along the lines of the three-muffle oven, whose design diagram bears a lower number, namely D59394.
On December 4, 1941 the Main Office for Budget and Buildings in Berlin ordered from the firm of Topf, "4 double-Topf-4 muffle cremation ovens" for Mogilew in Russia, where POW transit camp 185 was located.84 The order was confirmed on December 9, but only half the oven (four muffles) was shipped to Mogilew on December 30, while the rest remained in Topf's storehouse for the time being. On August 26, in accordance with the suggestion engineer Prüfer had made on the occasion of his visit to Auschwitz on August 19, 1942, the SS Economic-Administrative Main Office ordered that two of the ovens for Mogilew should instead be sent to Auschwitz. However, the Central Construction Management waited two-and-a-half months before requesting a cost estimate for this model of oven. Topf sent the estimate on November 16. The total price of RM 55,200 - RM 13,800 for each oven - included a 6% surcharge because the company had had to revise the drafts and design new models for the ovens' fittings so often.84
The blueprints of Crematorium IV (and Crematorium V, in mirror image) of Birkenau which show the foundations and the vertical cross-section of the "eight-muffle cremation oven", the photos taken by the Poles in 1945 of the ruins of Crematorium V, and the direct examination of these ruins, enable us to reconstruct this model of oven with sufficient accuracy.85
The coke-fired Topf eight-muffle cremation oven consisted of eight ovens with one muffle each, as shown on Topf's diagram 58173. Four ovens together make up each of two groups. Each group consists of two pairs of ovens, set up in mirror image so that the back and two central walls of the muffle are shared. The two oven groups are connected by four generators and set up in pairs along the same lines, so that they ultimately form one single oven with eight muffles which is referred to in the corresponding invoice as the "large-area cremation oven", due to its size (its base covered an area of about 32 m2, or 344 sq.ft.).
The oven is encased in a solid brick structure containing a series of anchor irons. These are clearly visible on the Polish photographs of 1945 and are still present today in the ruins of this crematorium.
The heating grates were also designed to burn wood, as one can see from Topf's invoice of April 5, 1943, where "wood heating" is mentioned. The system for introducing the bodies into the muffles used a litter like that in Crematoria II and III; it was affixed on two simplified rollers bolted to the anchor irons underneath the muffle damper.
The oven was probably not equipped with forced-air blowers, since none are mentioned on the bill of April 5, 1943. The stacks were designed without exhaust systems. The base unit of the Topf eight-muffle cremation oven consisted of two muffles and one generator, and the flue system for the stack gases corresponded to that of the "single-muffle cremation oven" shown on Topf design D58173.
2.4 The Cremation Ovens of the Firm of H. Kori, Berlin
Where the supply of cremation ovens to German concentration camps is concerned, the Berlin manufacturer H. Kori was Topf's major competitor. Kori's coke- or heating oil-fired ovens were installed at Dachau, Mauthausen, Majdanek, Stutthof near Danzig (not to be confused with the Alsatian camp Struthof near Natzweiler), Ravensbrück and Neuengamme, among other places.
Strictly speaking, these ovens have no immediate significance to a study of the crematoria at Auschwitz and Birkenau. However, since we shall eventually use some data from Kori ovens to draw certain conclusions about characteristics also present in the Birkenau ovens, we have also analyzed these Kori ovens in detail. Since these analyses would go beyond the scope of the present study, we shall just briefly refer the reader to the relevant sources.86
3. The Coke Consumption of the Topf Cremation Ovens of Auschwitz and Birkenau
3.1 Heat Balance of the Topf Double-Muffle Cremation Ovens of Auschwitz and Birkenau
In order to determine the thermal equilibrium of the Topf ovens of Auschwitz and Birkenau with sufficient accuracy, one can apply the method of calculation used by engineer Wilhelm Heepke with respect to the Topf double-muffle oven, since structurally speaking this model was the most similar to the civilian ovens. Since this method of calculation is relatively complicated we shall not tax our readers unnecessarily, and refer instead to the detailed calculations we have set out elsewhere.11
At the end of these calculations one arrives at the quantity of coke fuel that is required, in an ideal-case scenario, to keep the double-muffle oven, loaded with two normal bodies (@70 kg, or 154 lbs), at a temperature of 800°C (1470°F) for 60 minutes. In other words, it is the quantity of coke which is required to cremate the two normal bodies under ideal conditions. In this particular case the quantity is 22.7 kg (50.0 lbs).
For two moderately skinny bodies with an assumed weight of 54.5 kg (120 lbs) each, with a 25% protein and a 37.5% fat loss, the requirement is 25.3 kg (55.7 lbs) coke per body; and for two entirely emaciated bodies (called 'Moslems' in concentration camp jargon) weighing 39 kg (86 lbs) each, with a 50% protein and a 75% fat loss, it is 27.8 kg (61.3 lbs) per body.
3.2 Coke Consumption of the Topf Double-Muffle Cremation Oven at Gusen
Practical experience confirms these findings fully. With respect to the crematorium of Gusen, which was equipped with a Topf double-muffle cremation oven, there is a document which records the number of bodies cremated and the daily consumption of coke for 28 days between September 26 and November 12, 1941.87
First, let us derive the average coke fuel consumption per body from the number of cremations per day. In the period from September 26 to October 15, 1941, ie. in the course of 20 days, 193 cremations were done, and the oven was in service for eleven days. It was not in use for nine days, during which time it cooled off; for this reason the average fuel consumption per body was particularly high: about 47.5 kg (104.7 lbs).
From October 26 to 30, ie. in a five-day period, 129 cremations were done - an average of 26 per day. The oven was in use every day; thus, the average consumption of coke was lower, about 37.2 kg (82.0 lbs) per body.
From October 31 to November 12, 1941, ie. in a 13-day period, 677 cremations were done - an average of 52 per day. The oven was constantly at thermal equilibrium, which is why the average coke consumption dropped to a minimum value of about 30.5 kg (67.2 lbs) per body. During this period the lowest average coke consumption was recorded on November 3. On this day, 42 bodies were cremated, using an average of 27.1kg (59.7 lbs) coke per body. The highest average consumption - 35.7 kg (78.7 lbs) per body - was recorded on November 6.
These figures may be extrapolated with certainty to the Topf double-muffle cremation ovens at Auschwitz. Assuming that the 677 bodies mentioned in the document were all emaciated ('Moslems') - which is highly unlikely - then the average coke consumption for one body would have been 22.7/27.8 x 30.5 kg @25 kg (@55 lbs), while a moderately skinny body would, on average, have required 25.3/27.8 x 30.5 kg @28 kg (@61.5 lbs) of coke fuel.
From this it follows that in continuous operation the Topf double-muffle cremation oven, Auschwitz model, required the following average quantities of coke for the cremation of one body:
· normal body: 25 kg (55 lbs) coke;
· moderately skinny body: 28 kg (61.5 lbs) coke;
· emaciated body ('Moslem'): 30.5 kg (67.2 lbs) coke.
These figures are based on the assumption that the oven was in operation 19 hours per day (one hour for lighting and preheating and 18 hours for cremations). Re-establishing thermal equilibrium - that is, the recovery of the heat lost during the five-hour break - causes a 3% increase in consumption. In other words, if the oven could be in operation 24 hours a day, coke consumption would be lower by 3%.
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