Third Party Press

KL Auschwitz crematorium blueprints

Peter U

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Staff member
In 2008 a box full of plans and documents of the KL Auschwitz construction office were discovered during the clearance of an apartment in Berlin, shortly after their discovery the documents were offered for sale by secondhand dealers; I was fortunate to be able to buy three documents from this lot: two construction plans of the ground floor level of the infamous gas chamber of Auschwitz-Birkenau, known as Crematorium II & III and a document signed by Hans Kammler about the construction of a disinfection facility.
The bulk of this document horde was bought by Bild Magazine, who donated them to the Yad Vashem museum in Jerusalem.
If you follow this link you can see a clip in which the Yad Vashem presents the blueprints they obtained:
https://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/auschwitz_architecture/index.asp


Since this week one of the construction plans in my collection is on display in a temporary exhibition in the Belgian Holocaust museum about Auschwitz.
There is very little actual period document evidence left of the extermination facilities in Auschwitz and as far as I know my two construction plans are the only two pieces in a private collection and I'am very proud that now one of them is now is on display next to pages of the famous "Auschwitz photo album", a series of pictures that were taken when a transport of Hungarian Jews arrived in Birkenau to be exterminated, and it can be seen by the public.
A link to the photo album:
https://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/album_auschwitz/index.asp
And a link to the temporary exhibition:
https://www.kazernedossin.eu/EN/Agenda/Tijdelijke-tentoonstellingen/Overzicht/Auschwitz-camp
 

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This crematorium was originally designed in October 1941 by the "Zentral Bauleitung der Waffen SS und Polizei Auschwitz O/S" which was led by SS Sturmbannführer Karl Bischoff.
Initially the Birkenau camp was planned to become a gigantic POW camp for Red Army soldiers (Kriegsgefangenenlager, KGL), they were expected to die in huge numbers and to dispose their remains in a sanitary way a big crematorium was planned.
This crematorium used a type of cremation oven that was especially designed by the company Topf and sons from Erfurt for the concentration camps, these ovens could work at a high capacity but of course this was done without any respect for the human remains.
The Birkenau camp never became a POW camp it ended up as a KL Auschwitz: a concentration camp, with a mass extermination facility with a capacity to murder Jews and gypsies from the countries under Nazi rule.
With this new role for the camp, also the crematoriums II & III were adapted, they would become the two biggest extermination facilities ever build.
For there new function the underground morgues were changed in to an undressing room and gas chamber, all this was camouflaged as a disinfecting - and shower facility; from the end of 1943 they became fully operational.


High resolution scans have been made of the two construction plans and the company that made them also digitally cleaned them up, the punch holes for example have been filled up.
On the smaller size blueprint you can see that SS Obersturmführer Walter Dejaco, the designer of this crematorium, has written, "Neubearbeiten" across the ventilation system, the ventilation system was very important for operating the ovens and later also the gas chamber.
 

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In my collection I have another piece that is connected with the Auschwitz crematorium/gas chambers: the "Lagerausweis" of Walter Urbanczyk.
Before he was transferred to the Auschwitz Zentral-Bauleitung he had worked in the KL Buchenwald construction office, this is where he came in to contact with Kurt Prüfer, the lead engineer of the crematorium division of the company Topf & Söhne.
He brought his expertise about concentration camp crematoria with him to Auschwitz and there he too went a step further and aided in the design and construction of the first gas chamber in KL Auschwitz I, the so called Stammlager, there a former Polish army munitions bunker was changed in to a crematorium, a bit later the morgue was used as a gas chamber.
Because this gas chamber was in fact on the grounds of the main camp, it was to difficult to camouflage the ever growing number of extermination actions, thus it was decided to move the gas chambers to the outskirts of the newly build KL Auschwitz II/Birkenau.


On the back of the ID card you can see the signature of Rudolf Höss, the notorious camp commander of Auschwitz.
I also have included a document I found online which links him to the Topf company.
 

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Excellent post. Most people don’t realize how much the holocaust evolved as the war progressed. So much of it was improvised and adjusted as the circumstances required.

What era are your blueprints from? Do they include the gassing era features, or are they early ones without them? Are there any green colored signatures?

Topf and sons is notable because they didn’t just make equipment, they tried to “improve the process” in the sense of efficiency. I’d like to visit the museum at their old building one day.
 
Excellent post. Most people don’t realize how much the holocaust evolved as the war progressed. So much of it was improvised and adjusted as the circumstances required.

What era are your blueprints from? Do they include the gassing era features, or are they early ones without them? Are there any green colored signatures?

Topf and sons is notable because they didn’t just make equipment, they tried to “improve the process” in the sense of efficiency. I’d like to visit the museum at their old building one day.

Thanks.

Their was indeed a lot of improvisation, Zyklon B for example was a popular product used for desinfection of clothing and buildings for example and that is why it found its way to the concentration camps; it is by sick experiments on humans that they discovered that it also could be used for gassing large numbers of people in a relatively easy way.

The big one, the one with exterior drawing on it, is the first version of November 1941; the smaller one is made on October 24 1941 and has been approved on November 12 1941.
Their are no green signatures on them and they are from the period that they were designing a crematorium without a gas chamber; the building that was eventually build is different then the one on these drawings but the basic concept was kept: five big cremation ovens and underground morgues with an elevator to bring up the corpses.

In 2007 I visit the exhibition about Topf when it was in Belgium, a really interesting exhibit!
 
That's pretty much the height of collecting to have your artifacts featured in such an exhibit. Fascinating and interesting stuff :happy0180: Most of those SS associated with these camps look like ghouls in their pictures. It's truly incredible that something like this could occur. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat its mistakes, thus your collection is helping remind people of this, hopefully.....
 
ZYKLON B had one drawback when it was initially determined to be the best method for mass murder, a cautionary eye irritant.

The chemical that was infused in the original product was very strong and was to alert people of the product being used for eradication of pests.

The SS requested the chemical to be deleted. This was accomplished in short order.

Hydrogen cyanide, a poisonous gas that interferes with cellular respiration, was first used as a pesticide in California in the 1880s. Research at Degesch of Germany led to the development of Zyklon (later known as Zyklon B), a pesticide which released hydrogen cyanide upon exposure to water and heat.

Firms in several countries continue to produce Zyklon B under alternative brand names, including Detia-Degesch, the successor to Degesch, who renamed the product Cyanosil in 1974.
 
Incredible pieces Peter! Just amazing they survived let alone owned by one of our own! And I agree with Craig, to have your items featured in an exhibit such as this is an honour.
 
Incredible pieces Peter! Just amazing they survived let alone owned by one of our own! And I agree with Craig, to have your items featured in an exhibit such as this is an honour.

Thanks, I too see it as an honour that one of the items of my collection is on public display in such a setting and I also see it as good publicity for our hobby, we get bad press enough as it is.
 
Jews are officially white, so they are obviously oppressors and evil, particularly if successful in a capitalist environment. Thus, it is OK to persecute them and be racist toward them.


Dem White Peoples allz be DEBILS !!!!!!!
 

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