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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   24591 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 8, 2024

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I'd be inclined to say that the aforementioned quotes do show that Dachau was presented as an extermination camp with gas chambers by very relevant forces at the trial, so your assertion here would be wrong. I'd also argue that it was considered for at least a decade or two after the war to be a death camp. Which is why, for instance, Martin Broszat wrote specifically about it being problematic, and other publications, like the 7th Army OSS report, made great hay about gas chambers used for killing. So whilst there was no specific charge, there was certainly very clear belief that people in Dachau were killed by the use of 'gas chambers'.

Likewise, there were no "hundreds of jews who testified to American detectives about the killings," assuming that by 'killings' you mean 'gassings.'

That's true, I'm confusing it with another event.

I'd also argue that it was considered for at least a decade or two after the war to be a death camp.

Considered by who? Not the inmates or the guards, who never claimed Dachau to have been a "death camp" if by "death camp" we mean a camp where people were systematically murdered in gas chambers.

And once more, no Dachau guard was ever executed on the basis of later repudiated gas chamber allegations.

Considered by who?

The American prosecution, along with the aforementioned people and organizations that did, as demonstrated earlier.

Not the inmates or the guards, who never claimed Dachau to have been a "death camp" if by "death camp" we mean a camp where people were systematically murdered in gas chambers.

I never insinuated that they did, nor did I comment on it, as they were not exactly representative of the views of those who prosecuted them.

And once more, no Dachau guard was ever executed on the basis of later repudiated gas chamber allegations.

I agree they were not executed on specific counts, but I don't believe the way you phrase things now is accurate. Considering the fervor shown by the prosecution, the element of intentional mass killings by gas was obviously there, even if it was not brought up as a specific charge. Had the assumption of the prosecution been that there were no mass killings through gas or any large scale demonstrably intentional killings, as was the case in Dachau, I'd expect some form of differentiation between Dachau and alleged death camps. That was not the case, as demonstrated by the verbiage of the British prosecutor.

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