Operation T4

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Extermination in Gas Vans in the Ukraine

Kiev, May 16, 1942
Field Post Office No. 32704
B. Nr 40/42
Reich Secret Document
To SS-Obersturmbannfuehrer Rauff Berlin
The overhauling of the vans of [Einsatz] Gruppe D and C has been completed....
I have had the vans of [Einsatz] Gruppe D disguised as house-trailers, by having a single window shutter fixed to each side of the small vans, and on the large ones, two shutters, such as one often sees on farmhouses in the country. The vans had become so well known that not only the authorities but the civilian population referred to them as the "Death Vans" as soon as one appeared. In my opinion the vans cannot be kept secret for any length of time even if they are camouflaged.
The brakes of the Saurer van which I took from Taganrog to Simferopol were damaged on the way... When I reached Stalino and Gorlovka a few days later the drivers of the vans there complained of the same trouble....
I also gave instructions that all personnel should stay as far away as possible from the vans when the gassing is in progress to prevent damage to their health in the event of gas leaking out. I would like to take this opportunity to call attention to the following: several of the special units let their own men do the unloading after gassing.
I pointed out to the commanders of the Sonderkommando (Special Unit) concerned the enormous psychological and physical harm this may cause the men, possibly later even if not immediately. The men complained to me of headaches that recur after each such unloading.
Nevertheless there is reluctance to change the orders because it is feared that if prisoners are used for this work they might make use of a favorable moment to escape. I request appropriate instructions in order to save the men from suffering harm.
The gassing is generally not carried out correctly. In order to get the Aktion finished as quickly as possible the driver presses down on the accelerator as far as it will go. As a result the persons to be executed die of suffocation and do not doze off as was planned. It has proved that if my instructions are followed and the levers are properly adjusted death comes faster and the prisoners fall asleep peacefully. Distorted faces and excretions, such as were observed before, no longer occur.
Today I shall continue my journey to [Einsatz] Gruppe B, where I may be reached for further instructions.
Dr. Becker
SS Untersturmfuehrer

Nazi official Walter Rauff in a car with a Chilean policeman after his arrest in Punt Arenas on December 15, 1962. Rauff supervised the outfitting and dispatch of gas vans in which at least 200,000 people were murdered. However he was never extradited from Chile to face trial as the crimes with which he was charged were beyond the Chilean statute of limitations.
From Shootings to Gas Vans
...the Einsatzgruppen looked for additional and simpler methods for mass killings. The new facility developed and supplied to the Einsatzgruppen was gas vans. The idea of the gas van originated with SS brigadefuhrer Artur Nebe, commander of Einsatzgruppe B, which operated in territories close to the central front and which had carried out in Belorussia large scale shooting actions of Jews, communists, and other "asocial elements." Nebe, as former leader of the Reich's Criminal Police Department (Kripo), was familiar with the euthansia program and killing by gas.
In September 1941, Einsatzgruppe B was faced with the task of liquidating the patients of the lunatic asylums in the cities of Minsk and Mogilev. Nebe decided to find a simpler way for his men to kill the mentally diseased, other than by shooting them. He contacted Kripo headquarters and asked for their help in carrying out the killing of the insane with either explosives or poison gas. Dr. Widmann of the Criminal Police was sent to Nebe in Minsk, but before he left, Dr. Widmann discussed with the director of the Criminal Police Technological Institue, Dr. Hess, ways of using the carbon monoxide gas from automobile exhaust for killing operations in the East, based on the experience gained from the euthansia program. Dr, Widmann took to minsk 400 kgs of explosive material and the metal pipes required for the gassing installations.
Nebe and Dr. Widmann carried out an experimental killing using explosives. Twenty-five mentally ill people were locked into two bunkers in a forest outside Minsk. The first explosion killed only some of them, and it took much time and trouble until the second explosion killed the rest. Explosives therefore were unsatisfactory.
A few days later an experiment with poison gas was carried out by Nebe and Dr, Widmann in Mogilev. In the local lunatic asylum, a room with twenty to thirty of the insane was closed hermetically, and two pipes were driven into the wall. A car was parked outside, and one of the metal pipes that Dr. Widmann had brought connected the exhaust of the car to the pipe in the wall. The engine was turned on and carbon monoxide began seeping into the room. After eight minutes, the people in the room were still alive. A second car was connected to the other pipe in the wall. The two cars were operated simultaneously, and a few minutes later all those in the room were dead.
After these experimental executions, Nebe came up with the idea of constructing a car with a hermetically sealed cabin for killing purposes. The carbon monoxide from the car's exhaust would be channeled into the sealed cabin, in which the victims stood. Nebe discussed the technical aspects of the idea with Dr. Hess and together they brought the proposal before Heydrich who adopted it. (8)
The Technical Department of the Reich Security Main Office, headed by SS Obersturmbannfuhrer Walter Rauff, developed a special vehicle for killing purposes. This vehicle resembled an ambulance or refrigerator truck and contained a hermetically sealed rear cabin. The victims were placed in the cabin and carbon monoxide was introduced by means of a pipe. The gassing process took between fifteen and thirty minutes. During this time the van was driven from the loading site to prepared graves.
Two types of gas vans had been built: a larger one, 5.8 meters in length, and a smaller one, measuring 4.5 meters. Both were about 2.5 meters wide and 1.7 meters high. The bigger one could accommodate between 130 and 150 people, when densely packed inside, and the smaller one from 80 to 100. (9)
The gas vans were supplied to the Einsatzgruppen and to the Chelmno death camps in November-December 1941. The killing in Chelmno began on December 8, 1941. By the middle of 1942, about thirty gas vans had been produced by a private car manufacturer, the Gabschat Farengewerke GMBH, Will=Walter Strasse 32-38, Berlin. (10)
A few weeks before the first gas vans were supplied to the Einsatzgruppen, in late October 1941, Dr. Alfred Wetzel of the Ministry for the Eastern Occupied Territories wrote to the Reichskimmissar for Ostland, Hinrich Lohse, of a proposal made by Viktor Brack to set up permanent gassing facilities in Ostland for mass extermination based on experience and help of the euthansia program. With the cessation of the euthanasia program in Germany, its personnel were available and looking for new tasks. (11)
The permanent gassing facilities were intended to lighten the task of Nazi authorities in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union in carrying out their killing operations. But the proposal of Dr. Wetzel and of Brack was not implemented in Ostland. The unemployed 'euthansia' personnel were assigned to another and bigger task - the erection of camps with gassing facilities, where annihilation of the Jews in the Nazi-occupied territories of Poland would be carried out. The successful experiments in Auschwitz and the development of the gas vans had provided the solution of the technical problems involved.
(8) YVA, TR-10/959, pp. 45-47, the trial against Dr.Widmann; Nationalsozialistische Massentotungen, pp. 81-82.
(9) Edward Serwanski, Oboz Zaglady w Chelmnie nad Narem (herafter Chelmno), Poznan, 1964, p. 45; Nationalsozialistische Massentotungen, p. 84, gives the number of 50 - 60 people in the Saurer and 25 - 30 people in the Diamond car.
(10) Nationalsozialistische Massentotungen, pp. 84 - 86.
(11) Nuremberg Documents, PS-510.

Mvh
Niclas