By Carlos Porter
Document L-180 is an Einsatzgruppen Report. In NOT GUILTY AT NUREMBERG, I
wrote, "These documents are 'photocopies' of 'true copies' on plain paper
without headings or signature, prepared by unknown persons, and found buried in
a salt mine (IMT II 157) by the Russians (IMT IV 245, VIII 293-301). Katyn is
listed as listed as a German crime (NMT IV 112, Einsatzgruppen)."
Obviously, if Katyn is listed as a German crime, then this is simply further indication that the documents are a forgery.
Note that Document L-180 was certified as an "ORIGINAL DOCUMENT" by the Nuremberg authorities in a two-page authentication. The authentification, signed 3 years after the war by Fred A. Niebergall and Paul A. Joosten, appears to be standard procedure for Nuremberg (see also Document R-135).
Far from being an "original", Document L-180 (like the other Einsatzgruppen Reports) is a negative photostat without letterhead, stamps, signatures, or handwritten markings of any kind. Like the 116-page so-called Himmler "secret speech" and probably ¾ of the other Nuremberg prosecution documents we have obtained so far, it contains not one single sharp S, a standard letter in the German alphabet. In the pages reproduced here, "Einfluss" should be written "Einfluß", and "Massnahmen" should be written "Maßnahmen".
We understand that native speakers make mistakes; that army typists are often untrained, uneducated, and use inferior equipment; but it is difficult to imagine a native speaker of German never using the sharp S [i.e ß ] under any circumstances at all. It is equally difficult to imagine a typewriter equipped with the umlaut but not the sharp S. We recall that the John Demjanjuk identity card was also without sharp S.
To answer these questions, we asked the following questions of a German who lived through the war:
"Q: During the war, were there many Germans who wrote German on German
typewriters entirely without the sharp S?
Were there German typewriters
(i.e., German-language typewriters) without the sharp S?
I believe that the
sharp S is not used in Switzerland.
A: With regards to your question regarding the sharp S (ß): The sharp S is an official symbol or letter in the German language. Therefore, everyone who wrote German used the sharp S, before, during, and after the war, by hand or by machine. Every German typewriter had a key for the sharp S. Foreign manufacturers wishing to sell their machines in Germany equipped their machines with a key for the sharp S. I myself had an Underwood which had a key for the sharp S. I believe that you are correct in saying that the Swiss have not used the sharp S for a long time. But I cannot say whether Swiss typewriters had a key with the sharp S."
--
[COMMENT: I had a Swiss typewriter, and it had a sharp S, along with everything else: acute, grave and circumflex accents, cedille, umlaut, sharp S, etc. etc.]
--
Note the peculiarities of the certification, which is apparently uniform for all Nuremberg documents. We have deleted it on most other documents posted on this site, but it is very strange: it is not the original certification of the same documentation for the Nuremberg trial; the "original document" has disappeared.
Page 1]
CERTIFICATE
I hereby certify that the annexed document [handwritten] L-180 No. USA 246
is a photostat [i.e., it is not an original document] submitted in evidence by
the United States Prosecution under this number. The original document has been
withdrawn [i.e., it has disappeared] in accordance with Rule 10 of the
International Military Tribunal, and to the best of my knowledge and belief is
to be held at the National Archives, Washington D.C.
[handwritten] Paul Joosten
Nuremberg, 19 July, 1948
Page 2]
General Secretary International Military Tribunal
OFFICE OF CHIEF
COUNSEL FOR WAR CRIMES
EVIDENCE DIVISION
Date: [handwritten] 1 August 1948
I certify that [handwritten] Document Number L-180 was introduced into
evidence as Exhibit Number USA-246 in the Trial by the International Tribunal of
Hermann GOERING, et al, which commenced on 20 November 1945, and that the
attached photostat [i..e, the original has disappeared] is a true and correct
copy of the original [i.e., the original has disappeared].
[handwritten] Fred Niebergall
Chief, Document Control Branch
DCB-36-[illegible)
--
We have reproduced only 2 pages here, from the table of contents, which
appears at the end. The document in its entirety is 140 pages long. The
photocopy is from the Peace Palace at the Hague, which, in most cases, is
supposed to possess the "original documents" introduced into evidence
at Nuremberg.
In fact, the location of the so-called "original documents" is a complete mystery to everyone, including, for example, the National Archives in Washington, J.-C. Pressac, and Raul Hilberg. Raul Hilberg speaks of the "migration" of the documents (i.e., the archive shell game of shuffling photocopies and microfilm copies around for 50 years), while J.-C. Pressac says "Finding the original of a document, whose content is perfectly well known, requires long and laborious research with frequently uncertain results" (p. 238, TECHNIQUE AND OPERATION OF THE GAS CHAMBERS).
Pressac is a pharmacist. Would he swallow a prescription based on a "negative photostat" of a "copy" without letterhead, stamps, signatures, handwritten markings, etc., prepared by an unknown person?
What is new in all of this is the acceptance of historical procedures which would be unacceptable in any other field of inquiry.
Just as an example, in the 16th century, Mary Queen of Scots was alleged to have written eight letters in which she confessed to complicity in the murder of her husband, Lord Darnley. The letters were not signed. Mary denied that they were in her handwriting. The letters and silver chest in which they were contained have disappeared. The letters were in French. The person to whom they were addressed was not French. It was not alleged that French was a "code language" used among the conspirators. The letters were translated into Scots dialect by a wide variety of people, all of whom had a motivation to lie. There are two versions of the French: the French "original text", and a translation from French into Scots dialect, into Latin, and then back into French. There is also a translation into English. The translation into Scots dialect was made available to a Board of Inquiry in England in May of 1568, but the French "original texts" were not made available until October 1568, five months later, and even then only in the form of "copies". The "original documents" remained in the possession of the First Earl of Gowrie, a participant in the murder of Mary's secretary, David Rizzio. In 1582, Gowrie kidnapped King James VI of Scotland, kept him prisoner for several months, and took over the government; he was pardoned, continued to plot, and was executed for treason in 1584. The Gowrie family was also involved in a number of other anti-Catholic, anti-Stuart conspiracies.
Surely if the documents had been authentic, they would have been made available to the Board of Inquiry, and would have remained in the possession of Queen Elizabeth.
The letters are alleged to contain much material which "could not
possibly be invented", but about which nothing else is known; surely a
rather subjective criterion. In the absence of the original documents, the
authenticity of the letters remains a mystery; they are said to be very
convincing. No one would be dogmatic about Mary's guilt solely on the basis of
the "content" of the letters; no one would be imprisoned for asserting
her innocence. Yet the "content" of the letters -- borrowing a phrase
from J.-C. Pressac -- "is perfectly well known" (source: 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Casket Letters", and related articles).
The point is really that forensic tests should be performed on the original
documents used at Nuremberg, that these tests have never been performed, and
that no one can find the original documents. The archives should be opened, and
the 1000 (one thousand) tons of German documents captured after the war should
be studied as a whole; we understand that many tons of this material are
preserved in military archives in Maryland, among other locations, and that the
boxes in which they are contained have not been opened since the late 1940s.
[source of information for last statement:
video ERNST ZÜNDEL INTERVIEWS RUSS
GRANATA,
formerly available from Ernst Zündel,
www.zundelsite.org ]
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