2601:1c0:ca00:5acc:150e:61bc:6b37:2d28 (talk) →Use in Nazi Germany: literal translation is strange here Tags: Mobile edit Mobile web edit |
-gas vans were used, but "the" gas van of Nazi Germany was not a Soviet invention (see talk page) |
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[[Image:Chelmno Gas Van.jpg|thumb|300px|Burned-out [[Magirus|Magirus-Deutz]] furniture mover van near [[Chełmno extermination camp]], type used by the Nazis for suffocation, with the exhaust fumes diverted into the sealed rear compartment where the victims were locked in. This particular van had not been modified, as explained by ''Office of the United States Chief Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality'' (1946),<ref name="ww2today.com">{{cite web | url=http://ww2today.com/16th-may-1942-ss-discuss-the-use-of-mobile-gassing-vans | title=SS use of mobile gassing vans | publisher=World War II Today | work=A damaged Magirus-Deutz van found in 1945 in Kolno, Poland | date=2011 | access-date=April 22, 2013 | quote=''Source:'' Office of the United States Chief Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality: ''Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression'' – Washington, U.S Govt. Print. Office, 1946, Vol III, p. 418}};</ref> nevertheless, it gives a good idea about the process]] |
[[Image:Chelmno Gas Van.jpg|thumb|300px|Burned-out [[Magirus|Magirus-Deutz]] furniture mover van near [[Chełmno extermination camp]], type used by the Nazis for suffocation, with the exhaust fumes diverted into the sealed rear compartment where the victims were locked in. This particular van had not been modified, as explained by ''Office of the United States Chief Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality'' (1946),<ref name="ww2today.com">{{cite web | url=http://ww2today.com/16th-may-1942-ss-discuss-the-use-of-mobile-gassing-vans | title=SS use of mobile gassing vans | publisher=World War II Today | work=A damaged Magirus-Deutz van found in 1945 in Kolno, Poland | date=2011 | access-date=April 22, 2013 | quote=''Source:'' Office of the United States Chief Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality: ''Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression'' – Washington, U.S Govt. Print. Office, 1946, Vol III, p. 418}};</ref> nevertheless, it gives a good idea about the process]] |
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A '''gas van''' or '''gas wagon''' ({{lang-ru|душегубка}} (''dushegubka''); {{lang-de|Gaswagen}}) was a vehicle reequipped as a mobile [[gas chamber]]. The vehicle had an air-tight compartment for victims, into which exhaust fumes were transmitted while the engine was running. The victims were gassed with [[carbon monoxide]], resulting in death by [[carbon monoxide poisoning]] and [[Asphyxia|suffocation]]. |
A '''gas van''' or '''gas wagon''' ({{lang-ru|душегубка}} (''dushegubka''); {{lang-de|Gaswagen}}) was a vehicle reequipped as a mobile [[gas chamber]]. The vehicle had an air-tight compartment for victims, into which exhaust fumes were transmitted while the engine was running. The victims were gassed with [[carbon monoxide]], resulting in death by [[carbon monoxide poisoning]] and [[Asphyxia|suffocation]]. A gas van was used by the Soviet secret police [[NKVD]] in the late 1930s during the [[Great Purge]].<ref name="Albats">[[Yevgenia Albats]], ''KGB: The State Within a State''. 1995, page 101</ref><ref name="rob_gell"> Catherine Merridale. ''Night of Stone: Death and Memory in Twentieth-Century Russia.'' [[Penguin Books]], 2002 {{ISBN|0-14-200063-9}} p. 200</ref><ref name="tim_colt">Timothy J. Colton. ''Moscow: Governing the Socialist Metropolis.'' [[Harvard University Press#Related publishers, imprints, and series|Belknap Press]], 1998. {{ISBN|0-674-58749-9}} [https://books.google.com/books?id=lXM2H6tWHskC&pg=PA286&dq=gas+chamber+butovo&ei=bTrHSpm3EJeIyQSl6p32Aw#v=onepage&q=gas%20chamber%20butovo&f=false p. 286]</ref><ref name="two-hundred">{{cite book |first= А.И.|last=Солженицын |title=[[Two Hundred Years Together]] (Двести лет вместе) |volume=2 |location=Москва |publisher=Русский путь |year=2002 |language=Russian|isbn=5-85887-151-8|page=297}}</ref><ref name="aif">{{cite book |title=[[Argumenty i Fakty]], Аргументы и факты |volume=N 17 |date=April 1993 |language=Russian }}</ref> During [[World War II]] Nazi Germany used gas vans on a larger scale as an [[genocide|extermination]] method to kill inmates of asylums, Romani people, Jews, and prisoners in occupied [[Occupation of Poland (1939–1945)|Poland]], [[German occupation of Byelorussia during World War II|Belarus]], and [[World War II in Yugoslavia|Yugoslavia]].<ref>{{cite book|ref=harv|last=Bartrop|first=Paul R.|editor=Paul R. Bartrop; Michael Dickerman|title=The Holocaust: An Encyclopedia and Document Collection|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=u4I2DwAAQBAJ|volume=1|year=2017|publisher=ABC-CLIO|location=Santa Barbara|isbn=978-1-4408-4084-5|chapter=Gas Vans|p=234–235}}</ref> |
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==Use in the Soviet Union== |
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A gas van was used in the [[Soviet Union]] in 1936 by Isay Berg, the head of the administrative and economic department of the [[NKVD]] of [[Moscow Oblast]].<ref name="Albats"/><ref name="rob_gell"/><ref name="rob_gell" /><ref>[http://www.kommersant.ru/doc.aspx?DocsID=1265324 Е. Жирнов. «По пути следования к месту исполнения приговоров отравлялись газом». Коммерсантъ Власть, № 44, 2007. ]</ref><ref>[http://www.novayagazeta.ru/data/2010/gulag10/00.html Н. Петров. «Человек в кожаном фартуке». Новая газета, спецвыпуск «Правда ГУЛАГа» от 02.08.2010 № 10 (31).] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100806171843/http://www.novayagazeta.ru/data/2010/gulag10/00.html |date=2010-08-06 }}</ref><ref name="aif"/> It suffocated batches of prisoners with engine fumes in a camouflaged bread van while driving out to the [[Mass graves from Soviet mass executions|mass graves]] at [[Butovo firing range|Butovo]], where the prisoners were subsequently buried.<ref name="tim_colt"/> According to [[Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn]], "I. D. Berg was ordered to carry out the decisions of the [[NKVD troika]] of Moscow Oblast, and Berg was decently carrying out this assignment: he was driving people to the executions by shooting. But, when in Moscow Oblast there came to be three troikas having their sessions simultaneously, the executioners could not cope with the load. They hit upon a solution: to strip the victims naked, to tie them up, plug their mouths and throw them into a closed truck, disguised from the outside as a bread van. During transportation the fuel gases came into the truck, and when delivered to the farthest [execution] ditch the arrestees were already dead."<ref name="two-hundred"/> Berg denied that he had come up with a gas van.<ref name=rum>[http://archive.martyr.ru/content/view/6/15/ Special Object Butovo] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130323051337/http://archive.martyr.ru/content/view/6/15/ |date=2013-03-23 }}, article by Lydia Golovkova</ref><ref>А.Ватлин "Террор районного масштаба: "массовые операции" НКВД в Кунцевском районе Московской области в 1937 – 1938 гг.", 2004.</ref> |
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==Use |
==Use by Nazi Germany== |
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During trips to the Soviet Union in 1941, [[Heinrich Himmler]] learned the psychological impact of shooting women and children on the ''[[Einsatzgruppen]]''. Hence, he commissioned [[Arthur Nebe]] to explore ways of killing that were less stressful for the killers. Nebe's experiments eventually led to the utilization of the gas van.<ref name="Browning/essays">[https://books.google.com/books?id=L1O2ZvS29DYC&pg=PA117&dq=gas+van+nebe+invent#v=onepage&q=&f=false The path to genocide: essays on launching the final solution By Christopher R. Browning]</ref> This vehicle had already been used in 1940 for the gassing of East Prussian and Pomeranian mental patients in the [[Soldau concentration camp]].<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=J1iGlmLZ9I8C&pg=PA344&dq=Nebe+as+van#v=onepage&q=Nebe%20as%20van&f=false The destruction of the European Jews, Part 804, Volume 1 By Raul Hilberg]</ref> Another source states that the vans were first tested on Soviet prisoners in [[Sachsenhausen concentration camp|Sachsenhausen]].<ref>[[Saul Friedländer]]. ''[[The Years of Extermination|The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945]]'', HarperCollins, 2007, p. 234 {{ISBN|978-0-06-019043-9}}</ref> |
During trips to the Soviet Union in 1941, [[Heinrich Himmler]] learned the psychological impact of shooting women and children on the ''[[Einsatzgruppen]]''. Hence, he commissioned [[Arthur Nebe]] to explore ways of killing that were less stressful for the killers. Nebe's experiments eventually led to the utilization of the gas van.<ref name="Browning/essays">[https://books.google.com/books?id=L1O2ZvS29DYC&pg=PA117&dq=gas+van+nebe+invent#v=onepage&q=&f=false The path to genocide: essays on launching the final solution By Christopher R. Browning]</ref> This vehicle had already been used in 1940 for the gassing of East Prussian and Pomeranian mental patients in the [[Soldau concentration camp]].<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=J1iGlmLZ9I8C&pg=PA344&dq=Nebe+as+van#v=onepage&q=Nebe%20as%20van&f=false The destruction of the European Jews, Part 804, Volume 1 By Raul Hilberg]</ref> Another source states that the vans were first tested on Soviet prisoners in [[Sachsenhausen concentration camp|Sachsenhausen]].<ref>[[Saul Friedländer]]. ''[[The Years of Extermination|The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945]]'', HarperCollins, 2007, p. 234 {{ISBN|978-0-06-019043-9}}</ref> |
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Revision as of 18:24, 7 June 2018
A gas van or gas wagon (Russian: душегубка (dushegubka); German: Gaswagen) was a vehicle reequipped as a mobile gas chamber. The vehicle had an air-tight compartment for victims, into which exhaust fumes were transmitted while the engine was running. The victims were gassed with carbon monoxide, resulting in death by carbon monoxide poisoning and suffocation. A gas van was used by the Soviet secret police NKVD in the late 1930s during the Great Purge.[2][3][4][5][6] During World War II Nazi Germany used gas vans on a larger scale as an extermination method to kill inmates of asylums, Romani people, Jews, and prisoners in occupied Poland, Belarus, and Yugoslavia.[7]
Use in the Soviet Union
A gas van was used in the Soviet Union in 1936 by Isay Berg, the head of the administrative and economic department of the NKVD of Moscow Oblast.[2][3][3][8][9][6] It suffocated batches of prisoners with engine fumes in a camouflaged bread van while driving out to the mass graves at Butovo, where the prisoners were subsequently buried.[4] According to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, "I. D. Berg was ordered to carry out the decisions of the NKVD troika of Moscow Oblast, and Berg was decently carrying out this assignment: he was driving people to the executions by shooting. But, when in Moscow Oblast there came to be three troikas having their sessions simultaneously, the executioners could not cope with the load. They hit upon a solution: to strip the victims naked, to tie them up, plug their mouths and throw them into a closed truck, disguised from the outside as a bread van. During transportation the fuel gases came into the truck, and when delivered to the farthest [execution] ditch the arrestees were already dead."[5] Berg denied that he had come up with a gas van.[10][11]
Use by Nazi Germany
During trips to the Soviet Union in 1941, Heinrich Himmler learned the psychological impact of shooting women and children on the Einsatzgruppen. Hence, he commissioned Arthur Nebe to explore ways of killing that were less stressful for the killers. Nebe's experiments eventually led to the utilization of the gas van.[12] This vehicle had already been used in 1940 for the gassing of East Prussian and Pomeranian mental patients in the Soldau concentration camp.[13] Another source states that the vans were first tested on Soviet prisoners in Sachsenhausen.[14]
One application of the Nazis' gas van became known in 1943 after the trial of members of crimes against humanity committed in the territory of the Krasnodar Krai of the USSR, where about 7,000 civilians were killed by gas poisoning[citation needed]. It was a vehicle with an airtight compartment for victims, into which exhaust gas was piped while the engine was running. As a result, the victims were gassed with carbon monoxide, resulting in death by the combined effects of carbon monoxide poisoning and suffocation. The suffocations usually occurred as the gas van was carrying the victims to a freshly dug pit or ravine for mass burial.
Gas vans were used, particularly at Chełmno extermination camp, until gas chambers were developed as a more efficient method for killing large numbers of people. There were two types of gas vans in operation, used by the Einsatzgruppen in the East. The Opel-Blitz, weighing 3.5 tons, and the larger Saurerwagen, weighing 7 tonnes.[15] In Belgrade, the gas van was known as "Dušegupka" and in the occupied parts of the USSR similarly as "душегубка" (dushegubka, literally (feminine) soul killer/exterminator).
The use of gas vans had two disadvantages:
- It was slow — some victims took twenty minutes to die.
- It was not quiet — the drivers could hear the victims' screams, which they found distracting and disturbing.
By June 1942 the main producer of gas vans, Gaubschat Fahrzeugwerke GmbH, had delivered 20 gas vans in two models (for 30–50 and 70–100 individuals) to Einsatzgruppen, out of 30 ordered.[citation needed] Not one gas van was extant at the end of the war. The existence of gas vans first came to light in 1943 during the trial of Nazi collaborators involved in the gassing of 6,700 civilians in Krasnodar. The total number of gas van gassings is unknown.
The gas vans are extensively discussed in some of the interviews in Claude Lanzmann's film Shoah.
See also
References
- ^ "SS use of mobile gassing vans". A damaged Magirus-Deutz van found in 1945 in Kolno, Poland. World War II Today. 2011. Retrieved April 22, 2013.
Source: Office of the United States Chief Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality: Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression – Washington, U.S Govt. Print. Office, 1946, Vol III, p. 418
; - ^ a b Yevgenia Albats, KGB: The State Within a State. 1995, page 101
- ^ a b c Catherine Merridale. Night of Stone: Death and Memory in Twentieth-Century Russia. Penguin Books, 2002 ISBN 0-14-200063-9 p. 200
- ^ a b Timothy J. Colton. Moscow: Governing the Socialist Metropolis. Belknap Press, 1998. ISBN 0-674-58749-9 p. 286
- ^ a b Солженицын, А.И. (2002). Two Hundred Years Together (Двести лет вместе) (in Russian). Vol. 2. Москва: Русский путь. p. 297. ISBN 5-85887-151-8.
- ^ a b Argumenty i Fakty, Аргументы и факты (in Russian). Vol. N 17. April 1993.
{{cite book}}
:|volume=
has extra text (help) - ^ Bartrop, Paul R. (2017). "Gas Vans". In Paul R. Bartrop; Michael Dickerman (ed.). The Holocaust: An Encyclopedia and Document Collection. Vol. 1. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. p. 234–235. ISBN 978-1-4408-4084-5.
{{cite book}}
: Invalid|ref=harv
(help)CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link) - ^ Е. Жирнов. «По пути следования к месту исполнения приговоров отравлялись газом». Коммерсантъ Власть, № 44, 2007.
- ^ Н. Петров. «Человек в кожаном фартуке». Новая газета, спецвыпуск «Правда ГУЛАГа» от 02.08.2010 № 10 (31). Archived 2010-08-06 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Special Object Butovo Archived 2013-03-23 at the Wayback Machine, article by Lydia Golovkova
- ^ А.Ватлин "Террор районного масштаба: "массовые операции" НКВД в Кунцевском районе Московской области в 1937 – 1938 гг.", 2004.
- ^ The path to genocide: essays on launching the final solution By Christopher R. Browning
- ^ The destruction of the European Jews, Part 804, Volume 1 By Raul Hilberg
- ^ Saul Friedländer. The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945, HarperCollins, 2007, p. 234 ISBN 978-0-06-019043-9
- ^ Ernst. Klee, Willi Dressen, Volker Riess (1991). "The gas-vans (3. 'A new and better method of killing had to be found')". The Good Old Days: The Holocaust As Seen by Its Perpetrators and Bystanders. Konecky Konecky. p. 69. ISBN 1568521332. Retrieved 2013-05-08.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)