The Danzig Soap case: Facts and legends around "Professor Spanner" and the Danzig Anatomic Institute 1944-1945

German Studies Review

Volumn 29, Issue 1, 2006, Pages 63-86

  Neander, Joachim ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

WAR;

EID: 33645342226     PISSN: 01497952     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (129)

1. Letter to the Los Angeles Times, May 16, 1981; quoted from http://www. nizkor.org/features/techniques-of-denial/appendix-5-02.html.
2. For an in-depth analysis of the "soap legend," its origin, and its reception history see Joachim Neander. "Seife aus Judenfett," FABULA - Journal of Folktale Studies, no. 3/4 (2005): 241-56.
3. A preliminary paper, presented at the annual meeting of the German Studies Association, October 8, 2004, is at the UCSB History Web site: http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/dachau/legends/ NeanderSoap049.html
4. http://64.143.9.197/jhr/v11/v11p2l7_Weber.html.
5. International Military Tribunal, Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, 14 November 1945-1 October 1946 (Nuremberg, Germany: [s. n.], 1947-1950);
6. volumes ("Blue Series," hereafter IMT); here: vol. 7, 597-600.
7. In his closing address, the Chief British Prosecutor fell back on this issue; IMT vol. 19, 506.
8. The Soviets also presented evidence for an alleged soap production from Auschwitz victims; IMT vol. 7, 173-74.
9. The "Blue Series" is accessible as a written copy at: http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/imt.htm.
10. E.g.John Drobnicki is convinced: "The Soap Allegations," parts 1 to 6: http://www.nizkor.org/features/techniques-of-denial/ soap01.htmlto..../soap06.html;
11. Alex Grobman/Michael Shermer do not preclude it: Denying History. Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened, and Why Do They Say It? (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 115-17.
12. Yehuda Bauer, letter to the Jerusalem Post, May 29, 1990;
13. quoted from http://www.nizkor.org/features/techniques-of-denial/ appendix-7-01.html.
14. http://www.gfh.org.il/gfhview/dbsearch.asp?start=1 and following Web pages.
15. http://www.jewishgen.org/ForgottenCamps/Camps/StutthofEng.html.
16. It is identical with http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/Holocaust/ stutthof.html. Last visited Feb. 22, 2005.
17. Zofia Nałkowska, Medaliony [Medallions] (Warszawa: KAMA, 1994). The quotes that follow are from this recent edition, 16-26.
18. Tadeusz Borowski, Wybór opowiadań [Selected Short Stories] (Warszawa: KAMA, 1994);
19. references to "human soap" on pages 56 and 97. A semi-official teaching-aid for Polish literature at high schools (liceum), published at the beginning of the school year 2004/05, presents "Professor Spanner" as a paradigm for "the degradation of intelligentsia in the service of a criminal ideology" (Plan pracy nauczyciela, http://62.29.253.165/Link?refld=6R5861O56364JKUW7LV55Q18, 31.) Dozens of sciagi (cribs) for students depict Spanner as the "Ugly German," a "monster," and an "arch-criminal." The sciagi can be found on the Web under "Profesor Spanner" in Polish. Translation of this and all following titles and quotations from Polish or German by the author.
20. At Stutthof, the soap exhibit disappeared from the museums' showcase early in 2002.
21. See e.g. Pawel Lutomski, "The Debate about a Center against Expulsions: An Unexpected Crisis in German-Polish Relations?" German Studies Review XXVII/3 (2004): 449-68.
22. Stefan Bratkowski "Znowu?..." [Once again?] and "Kim chca być Niemcy?" [Who do the Germans want to be?], Rzeczpospolita, August 23 and 28, 2003. Erika was born in occupied Poland in 1943. Her father was a soldier of the German occupational forces in West Prussia.
23. A small brick building in the courtyard of the Medical School where skeleton preparations were made.
24. Piotr Piotrowski/Dorota Mikłaszewicz, "Upiory nie zasna jużnigdy" [Monsters Never Fall Asleep], Gazeta Wyborcza Trójmiasto, Gdańsk, January 21, 2002.
25. The chronology in this and the following paragraphs is based on Stanisław Strabski, Mydło z ludzkiego tłuszczu. Alfa i omega niemieckich zbrodni w Polsce [Soap from Human Fat. The Alpha and Omega of German Crimes in Poland] (Poznań: Wydawnictwo Zachodniej Agencji Prasowej, 1946).
26. Urzad Bezpieczeństwa Publicznego [Bureau of Public Security], comparable to the Soviet NKVD. The abbreviation was later shortened to "UB."
27. Prosecutor Maciej Schulz of the Instut Pamieci Narodowej, which since 2002 investigated the case of Professor Spanner anew, gives a slightly divergent version: Zygmunt Mazur had already approached the Soviet komandantura of Danzig on his initiative in April 1945, and "offered to repeat the manufacture of soap from human fat, but was not taken seriously and sent home." That is hard to believe. Why should Mazur expose himself to being charged with a crime? According to Schulz, Opiński was also arrested by the UBP, which found the soap when searching his home. Maciej Schulz, "Działalność prof. Rudolfa Marii Spannera w świetle wyników śledztwa Oddziałowej Komisji Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu w Gdańsku" [Prof. Rudolf Maria Spanner's Activities in the Light of the Results of the Investigations of the Gdańsk Subcommittee on the Persecution of Crimes Against the Polish People]. Paper at the congress "Zbrodnie medycyny w XX wieku. Zaprzeczanie - Wyjaśnianie - Nauczanie [Medical Crimes in the 20th century. Denial - Information - Lessons]," Warsaw, May 21-22, 2004. Text from http://www.ipn.gov.pl/a_210504_konf_wawa_schulz.html.
28. Strabski, Mydło z ludzkiego tłuszczu, 15.
29. See "Pamietniki Zofii Nałkowskiej" [The Diary of Zofia Nałkowska], in: Supplement "Wysokie obcasy" to Gazeta Wyborcza, November 16, 2001.
30. Aleksandra Biernacka "Śladami gdańskich nekropolii (II)" [On the Traces of Danzig's Necropolises, Part 2], Jantarowe Szlaki 4/1997: 4.
31. According to the death certificate issued by the Gdańsk registry office on January 12, 2004 (in possession of the author), he died on July 14, 1945. According to Schulz, Działalność prof. Rudolfa Marii Spannera, he already died on July 10, 1945.
32. See note 15. When this research was done, there was still no access to the original Polish documents, but for the purpose of this paper the summaries turned out to be sufficient.
33. See note 4.
34. Krystyna Szwentnerowa, Zbrodnia na Via Mercatorum [The Crime in Via Mercatorum] (Gdynia: Wydawnictwo Morskie, 1968). The book deals with the murder of handicapped and severely ill inpatients of the Conradstein/ Kocborowo asylum under German occupation. Conradstein was one of the major sources for corpses delivered to Spanner's institute.
35. http://www.gfh.org.il.
36. IMT vol. 7, 597-600.
37. Zofia Nałkowska, Medallions. Translated from the Polish and with an introduction by Diana Kuprel (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2000).
38. Profesor Spanner already appeared in 1964 in English translation in: Adam Gillon/Ludwik Krzyżanowski, eds., Introduction to Modern Polish Literature. An Anthology of Fiction and Poetry (NewYork: Twayne Publishers, 1964).
39. Although the booklet is primarily a fiercely anti-German propaganda brochure, it gives far more detailed factual information than Nałkowska's short story.
40. Treated thus e. g. by Nizkor, The Soap Allegations, part 5, and nearly all over Poland.
41. Strabski, Mydło z ludzkiego tłuszczu, 21-23.
42. http://64.143.9.197/jhr/v01/v01p13l_Harwood.html.
43. http://www.corax.org/revisionism/misc/frenzsoap.html.
44. So, eg., Mark Weber: "It is worth emphasizing here that the 'evidence' presented at the Nuremberg Tribunal for the bogus soap story was no less substantial than the 'evidence' presented for the claims of mass extermination in 'gas chambers'." http://64.143.9.197/jhr/v11/ v11p2l7_Weber.html.
45. As an example may serve a commentary on the revforum Web site: "Putting these scans [of the Nuremberg Documents USSR-196, 197, 264, and 272] up for viewing [...] allows people to actually see the junk that was submitted as evidence." http://revforum.yourforum.org/ viewtopic.php?t=676.
46. Soap.doc. Contact via the museum's Web site: http://www.ushmm.org.
47. Tadeusz Skutnik, "Oskarżenie profesora Spannera" [Accusing Professor Spanner], "Obrona profesora Spannera [Defending Professor Spanner] (2), "Obrona profesora Spannera (3); Dziennik Bałtycki, May 12, 19, and 26, 2000.
48. Piotrowski/Mikłaszewicz, Upiory nie zasna jużnigdy.
49. This and preceding quotes from: Roman Daszczyński/Krzysztof Wójcik "Mydło z ludzi to nie ludobójstwo" [Soap from Human Beings Isn't Genocide], Gazeta Wyborcza Kraj, September 2, 2005. The IPN's statement that Spanner was not involved in genocide unleashed a storm of indignation in Poland. In hundreds of Web posts and letters to newspaper editors, the IPN was accused of "national treason" and "toadying the Germans." It shows how deeply rooted the Danzig soap legend is in Polish collective memory.
50. Strabski already in 1946 remarked(without coming to the obvious conclusion): "Nasza Komisja fachowcównieprzysłała"[Our commission did not dispatch experts]; Mydlozludzkiegotłuszczu, 30.
51. Eric J. Hobsbawm/Terence Ranger, eds., The Invention of Tradition. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980).
52. The monthly ration for adult Poles in the General Government was "one piece of soap and 250g of washing-powder per capita." Tadeusz Wroński, Kronika okupanowego Krakowa [Chronicle of Occupied Cracow] (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1974), 186, 325.
53. The fatty acid composition of human fat is given in: T. Raclot and others "Selective fatty acid release from human fat cells," Biochemical Journal 324 (1997):911-15. The composition of common vegetable and animal fats can be found in every general encyclopedia.
54. The chemistry of fats and soap can be found in every textbook on organic chemistry for undergraduate students. There are also numerous Web sites from universities dealing with this subject, e.g. http:// www.organik.uni-erlangen.de/vostrowsky/natstoff/1nafettsr.pdf (in German). The alkali salts of fatty acids make soap a detergent. Customary soap contains also water, perfumes and colors, sometimes also microscopically small air bubbles to make it swim. Sand or clay minerals make the soap abrasive. In wartime, they were often added primarily for adulteration.
55. An experiment that everybody can carry out even at home is described, together with an overview over the history of soap-making, on the university Web site http://www.experimentalchemie.de/versuch-024.htm.
56. "Die hydrolytische Spaltung wurde [...] erstmalig 1833 von A. de Milly und A. Mortard unter Druck versucht [...]. Als Erfinder der Spaltungim industriellen Sinne gilt E. Twitchell (1862-1926), der drucklos mit Katalysatoren arbeitete. [...] Sein in den USA entwickeltes Verfahren wurde auch in Europa vielfältig eingesetzt. Ab ca. 1900 setzte sich in der [deutschen] Industrie die Druckspaltung mehr und mehr durch - sie lieferte bessere Glycerin-und Fettsäurequalitäten. Zunächst wurde sie batchweise durchgeführt, später dann, ab ca. 1935, auch in kontinuierlicher Herstellweise." Letter from Dr.Alfred Westfechtel, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Fettwissenschaft, Frankfurt am Main, to the author, April 15, 2004.
57. http://www.uni-essen.de/chemiedidaktik/S+WM/Gewinnung/ Seifenherstellung4.htm.
58. IMT vol. 7, 600.
59. Ibid.
60. The originals cannot be found; good-quality photographs on the Web site of The Nizkor Project, http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/camps/ftp.py?camps/ stutthof/soap-photos/ussr-393.jpg.
61. Corroborated by the testimony of Dr. med. Hans Havliček at Friedberg on July 10, 1948. Date given in Spanner's interrogation on May 13, 1947, p. 3. Archives of the Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Munich, Germany, record group Gf 01.13/1, without pagination. In the following quoted as IfZ Gf 01. 13/1. See also IMT vol. 7, 600.
62. Report in Strabski, Mydło z ludzkiego tłuszczu, 30.
63. See e.g. http://www.jewishgen.org/ForgottenCamps/Camps/StutthofEng.html, or picture number 12312 of the Beit Lohamei Haghetaot Photo Collection, http://www.gfh.org.il/gfhview/dbsearch.asp?start=1.
64. http://whale.wheelock.edu/archives/info02/0001.html, paragraph 6.
65. Statement by Spanner, Kiel, November 9, 1945, and testimony of Dr. med. Hans Havliček, July 10, 1948. IfZ Gf 01.13/1. The maceration of plastinated organs, however, requires a 35% solution of alkali hydroxides. It explains the great amount of sodium hydroxide found by the investigation commissions.
66. Statement by Spanner, Kiel, November 9,1945, and interrogation of Spanner on February 12, 1948. IfZ Gf 01.13/1.
67. IMT vol. 7, 598. This opinion is still shared by the IPN: "The German state was a perfectly organized state with no room for unauthorized behavior. If Spanner did make soap from human corpses, he must have met the approval of the highest Reich authorities." Edmund Krasowski, head of the Gdańsk Section of the IPN, on television channel TVP3, September 2, 2005.
68. Spanner, May 13, 1947, p. 4;
69. Havliček, July 10, 1948. IfZ Gf 01.13/1.
70. USSR-264.
71. USSR-272.
72. USSR-197.
73. Nałkowska, Profesor Spanner, passim. The fifth British witness, Jack Sherriff, did not mention the "soap" at all.
74. Wacław Bernard from Ostrów Wielkopolski, in April 1945 a militiaman in Gdańsk, was sensationally presented to the Polish public in spring 2005 as "the last surviving eyewitness." Marek Weiss "Šwiadekzbrodni" [The witness of the crime], Gazeta Poznańska, May 17, 2005.
75. USSR-272.
76. For a critical analysis of the behavior of eyewitnesses in court see e.g.: Elizabeth Loftus, Eyewitness Testimony (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979).
77. His father, a railroader, was arrested by the Germans immediately after the capture of Danzig in September 1939 and spent the entire war in a concentration camp.
78. According to his personal file, kept at the Archiwum Państwowe Gdańsk, on February 1, 1944, he changed from the AOK, the workers' health insurance, to the Barmer Ersatzkasse, a health insurance for Angestellte only.
79. Data taken from his personal file at the Archiwum Państwowe Gdańsk.
80. Strabski, Mydło z ludzkiego tłuszczu, 21-23.
81. USSR-197. Koytek's CV is kept in her personal file at the Archiwum Państwowe Gdańsk.
82. Szwentnerowa, Zbrodnia na Via Mercatorum, 164.
83. Skutnik, Obrona profesora Spannera (3).
84. USSR-197.
85. Ibid.
86. 80 kg of fatty tissue contain about 65 kg of fat, which, multiplied by 1.5 for the sodium content and the necessary amount of water, yield about 100 kg of soap ready for use. If "human fat" had meant "pure" fat, the output should have been about 120 kg of soap ready for use, which gives an "error" in a magnitude even of a factor of five.
87. The forensic commission that investigated the corpses on May 16 and 17, 1945, stressed in its report that the beheaded corpses were "dobrego odrzywania [sic!] i mocnej budowy ciała" [well-fed and of a strong physique]. Strabski, Mydło z ludzkiego tłuszcu, 32.
88. USSR-197.
89. Strabski spitefully writes about Mazur: "He chose Volksdeutschostwo. He is a person of zero morality like all those who betray their nation." Mydło z ludzkiego tłszczu, 20. "Volksdeutschostwo" in the original.
90. Law Concerning the Elimination of Enemy Elements from Polish Society, of May 6, 1945, paragraph 16. Quoted from: Zygmunt Izdebski. Niemiecka lista narodowa na Górnym Ślasku [The German People's List in Upper Silesia] (Katowice-Wrocław: Wydawnictwa Instytutu Ślaskiego, 1946), 210-15, here 212.
91. Statement given at Kiel on November 9,1945. IfZ Gf 01.13/1. It is, in principle, possible to use the "maceration grease" or a refined product from it for this purpose (letter from Prof. Jürgen Koebke, Chair of Anatomy, Cologne University, Germany, to the author; September 10, 2005), though this technique is not mentioned in the relevant literature and other methods are known. For this reason, the IPN dismissed Spanner's statement as "storytelling."
92. Records of the interrogations and of the release order in IfZ Gf 01.13/1.
93. Ibid.
94. Schulz, Działałność prof. Rudolfa Marii Spannera.
95. Moreover, both proposals make little sense. Fat does not contain protein molecules, so DNA analysis will hardly work. Gas chromatography will only yield results within a broad error margin due to the high variability of the composition of human body fat.
96. Schulz, Działałność prof. Rudolfa Marii Spannera.
97. Nałkowska, Profesor Spanner, 17.
98. Strabski, Mydło z ludzkiego tłuszczu, 12-13.
99. Strabski, Mydło z ludzkiego tłuszczu, 14-15.
100. Ibid., 32.
101. IfZ Gf 01.13/1.
102. Strabski, Mydło z ludzkiego tłuszczu, 30-31.
103. The 11 medical schools of the states of Texas, Maryland, and Colorado together obtain 3,000 corpses a year (http://www.koerperwelten.de/de/ pages/Gutachten-Das%20Koerperplastinat.asp paragraph 7), which yields an average of 250 to 300 corpses a year for every school. The (relatively small) Medical University of Innsbruck, Austria, has "storage place for 216 entire corpses and ample reserve space for partial preparations" in the morgue of its Anatomic Institute, http:// www2.uibk.ac.at/ahe/institut/keller-de.html.
104. USSR-197, also confirmed by Spanner in his postwar interrogations.
105. Interrogation on February 12, 1948. IfZ Gf 01.13/1.
106. The Germans called all Soviet citizens "Russians," except Ukrainians and inhabitants of the Baltic Republics.
107. Interrogation of Spanner on May 13, 1947, p. 3. IfZ Gf 01.13/1.
108. Interrogated on May 13, 1947, Spanner spoke of "one or two [...] Russian corpses from a concentration camp near Danzig," the name of which he allegedly could not recall. IfZ Gf 01.13/1. Mazur remembered "four corpses of Russian people, men," from Stutthof. USSR-197.
109. May 13,1947, p. 3.IfZGf 01.13/1.Atleastno "soap" could have been made from those corpses.
110. See Szwentnerowa, Zbrodnia na Via Mercatorum, passim.
111. Also Volker Rieß, Die Anfänge der Vernichtung "lebensunwerten Lebens" in den Reichsgauen Danzig-Westprenßen und Wartheland 1939/40 (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1995), 23-53.
112. According to an agreement between Himmler and Reich Minister of Justice Thierack, from September 19, 1942. Nuremberg Document PS-654, paragraph 14.
113. Interrogation of Spanner, May 13, 1947. IfZ Gf 01.13/1. According to Nałkowska(Profesor Spanner, 21), Zygmunt Mazur mentioned "four German soldiers" guillotined at the Danzig prison.
114. Letter to The Jewish Standard, January 9, 1991; quoted from http://www. nizkor.org/features/techniques-of-denial/appendix-7-02.html.
115. Corroborated by the testimonies of W. A. Neely (USSR-272) and A. Neil (PRO file WO 311/275).
116. Interrogation on May 13, 1947. IfZ Gf 01.13/1.
117. Depending on the nationality of those who express this view.
118. Nałkowska, Profesor Spanner, 20.
119. Personal file at Archiwum Państwowe Gdańsk. Facsimile reproduction in Szwentnerowa, Zbrodnia na Via Mercatorum, between pp. 160 and 161.
120. Also Spanner's interrogation on May 13, 1947. IfZ Gf 01.13/1.
121. Caption of his profile portrait; Szwentnerowa, Zbrodnia na Via Mercatorum, before p. 145.
122. Schulz, Działalność prof. Rudolfa Marii Spannera.
123. Interrogation on May 14, 1947. IfZ Gf 01.13/1.
124. As remembered by Wincenty Natkański, according to Piotrowski/ Mikłaszewicz, Upiory nie zasna jużnigdy.
125. Brytyjski ślad mydła [British Soap Traces]. Gazeta Wyborcza Trójmiasto, February 4, 2002.
126. See also http://www.republika.pl/antinazi/luty4.htm.
127. Letter from the Zentrale Stelle to the Institut Pamieci Narodowej, July 11, 2002.
128. Letter from prosecutor Dr. Riedel, Zentrale Stelle, to the author, December 3, 2003.
129. Piotrowski/Mikłaszewicz, Upiory nie zasna jużnigdy.