Talk:Gas van

Inspired by NKVD?

I've seen reports that Nazi germany learned the 'gas van' system from the Soviet Union, whome used it to kill its murders, and such. Yet it is not talked about in this artical, is it fact or fiction? Of course, the soviet union wasen't useing the gas van for the same reasons as Germany, but.. Discuss, please. --76.179.164.79 (talk) 23:59, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Picture of Gas Van

This Van is clearly a Magirus. Nothing is known about gas vans from "Magirus". It should be removed because gas vans are known from the companies Saurer, [[Diamond T], Opel and Renault. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Thomas Maierhofer (talk • contribs) 07:34, 5 September 2009 (UTC) see Link: deathcamps.org/gas_chambers/gas_chambers_vans.html --Holgerjan (talk) 14:11, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

According to the data on the picture, it was not even in the concentration but was nearby, and used to move furniture. This image needs to be removed from the article as it has nothing to do with the subject. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.4.21.183 (talk) 04:05, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm not an expert, but I don't think "gas van" was a factory option for any of those companies. I imagine the Germans modified any suitable vehicles they had on hand as needed to murder their victims.--172.190.146.99 (talk) 04:05, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Would-be copyright issues

I am wondering whether nazis could construct gas vans if direct fuel injection, ECU, lambda-sond and catalytic converter equipped engines were available at their times? Or they would have to reprogram the ECU to deliberately increase percentage of CO in exhaust? Since ECU firmware is copyrighted, they would have to infringe copyrights to build gas vans.

File:Chelmno Gas Van.jpg Nominated for Deletion

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Unreferenced claims removed

Welcome to restore if supported by good RS. My very best wishes (talk) 23:57, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

martyr.ru appears both live and reliable on my computer. and 200YT is hardly a RS, being a reviled antisemitic pamphlet.--Galassi (talk) 00:03, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

I am sorry. http://www.martyr.ru/content/view/6/15/ is the currently provided link. It leads to nowhere. What reference to which source are you talking about? My very best wishes (talk) 00:09, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

http://archive.martyr.ru/content/view/6/15/--Galassi (talk) 00:10, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

OK, you fixed the link. Why do you think this qualify as WP:RS? This simply a Russian language web site. Who created this site? Who author of the text? This is not even a self-published material because we do not know who wrote this. OK, one of the articles was signed by "А. Ватлин, кандидиат исторических наук". We should probably guess that other pages are also written by him (this is not at all clear). Then, it will be a self-published material. That Vatlin? My very best wishes (talk) 00:32, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Lydia Golovkova, totally RS.--Galassi (talk) 00:59, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

So, this is Christian web site about martyrs, and an article written by author who contributes to Orthodox Encyclopedia [1]. OK, that answers my question. Not sure that it could satisfy people on RS noticeboard, but I do not mind.My very best wishes (talk) 01:32, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

The host is irrelevant, but Golovkova is a major historian, as well as a human-rights activist.--Galassi (talk) 01:41, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

All right, I can see that she published a couple of books and was mentioned ones in "Google books" [2]. This goes as RS. My very best wishes (talk) 01:51, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Now, I do not think that such quotation as: "По поводу этих «душегубок» мнение старшего поколения работников НКВД неоднозначно..." and so on. properly reflects the source. Of course it can be noted that "according to personal beliefs of former NKVD officers...". To me this sounds exactly like "according to personal beliefs of former Gestapo officers... they never gas the Jews". My very best wishes (talk) 15:12, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Soviet vans

I checked an additional book, by Yevgenia Albats, KGB: The State Within a State. 1994, and she tells as a fact (page 101) that gas vans were invented and used by NKVD in the Soviet Union in the end of 1930s, and only later widely used by Nazi. Here are other books in article which apparently tell the same:

• Robert Gellately. Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe. Knopf, 2007 ISBN 1-4000-4005-1 p. 460
• Catherine Merridale. Night of Stone: Death and Memory in Twentieth-Century Russia. Penguin Books, 2002 ISBN 0-14-200063-9 p. 200
• Timothy J. Colton. Moscow: Governing the Socialist Metropolis. Belknap Press, 1998. ISBN 0-674-58749-9 p. 286

I do not have these three books handy, but must AGF with regard to users who included this information. Now, there are also some removals of sourced materials, such as these: [3], [4]. I am not suggesting to restore these edits, but did anyone challenge sources used in these reverted edits? I do not see anything on this talk page.

Here is the point: there is only one Russian language source that calls (one time) the invention of Gas vans by NKVD "rumors", but it does not actually claim them to be rumors if to read whole text. Moreover, people who express concern about the existence of vans in this publication are actually former NKVD officers, whereas a number of books (at least what I checked) tells about this as a well established fact. Yevgenia Albats is a Harvard graduate who studied specifically the history of NKVD and KGB. I suggest to change text of this page accordingly. My very best wishes (talk) 23:07, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

So, I quickly fixed this. My very best wishes (talk) 00:00, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

A reliably sourced information coming from a Nobel Prize winner [5] does belong here. My very best wishes (talk) 14:28, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Which part of it is reliably sourced? He saw them? Saw any documents proving their use? All he heard was rumours which he put in his book. Le Grand Bleu (talk) 16:36, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

The invention of gas vans by the NKVD is only rumoured. However, it's given MUCH more space than the opposite opinion. See WP:WEIGHT. And even from a Nobel prize winner ONE source is not enough to accuse someone of inventing such a horrendous device. This is an encyclopedia, not Daily Mail. Either find documentary sources or make the two points of view equally presented. Le Grand Bleu (talk) 16:33, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Quoted above are four books, each of them qualify as reliable secondary RS. All of them tell about the Soviet invention. They are written by well recognized scholars. In this context, an additional book by Solzhenitsyn comes as a supplementary source. This is reliably sourced: there is no doubts that Solzhenitsyn made the claim. We are not telling this is The Truth; we attributed the statement to Solzenitsyn. This must be fine by all means. What second point of view are you talking about? We currently have exactly zero sources claiming it was not invented in the USSR. My very best wishes (talk)

More sources telling the same (none of them is Solzhenitsyn):

1. By Nikita Petrov, a Memorial (society) historian: [6], [7]: "Берг прославился тем, что при его непосредственном участии в московском НКВД была создана машина-«душегубка», в которой приговоренные умерщвлялись выхлопным газом. Отчасти это берегло нервы московским палачам. Загрузили в Таганской или Бутырской тюрьмах живых — в Бутове выгрузили мертвых, и вся работа. И никаких славословий Сталину. Сам Берг пояснил следствию, что без такого усовершенствования «невозможно было исполнить столь большое количество расстрелов»."
2. [8]: следственное дело арестованного в 1937 году начальника административно-хозяйственного отдела УНКВД Московской области Исая Берга, в котором говорилось: "Берг тогда являлся начальником оперативной группы по приведению в исполнение решений тройки УНКВД МО. С его участием были созданы автомашины, так называемые душегубки. В этих автомашинах перевозили арестованных, приговоренных к расстрелу, и по пути следования к месту исполнения приговоров они отравлялись газом. Берг признавал, что он организовывал приведение в исполнение приговоров с применением автомашины (душегубки), объясняя это тем, что он выполнял указание руководства УНКВД МО и что без них невозможно было бы исполнить столь большое количество расстрелов, к которым арестованных приговаривали три тройки одновременно" My very best wishes (talk) 00:05, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Considering the evidence/references it is untenable to speak of the gas van as a Soviet invention and to claim that [i]t was later widely implemented in Nazi Germany. Such a wording suggests that there was a chain of development leading directly from the SU to Nazi Germany. This was not the case and the sources given do not support such a conclusion. Rather a gas van was used by the NKVD and gas vans were used in and by Nazi Germany. On a side note, it is inappropriate to speak of gas vans as an extermination method in Nazi Germany to kill enemies of the regime, mostly Jews. Nazis killed people they considered and designated to be racially inferior, life unworthy of life, political enemies and so forth.--Assayer (talk) 17:55, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

How come? All these sources tell gas van was invented by the NKVD "with participation" of Berg. First four sources are English language books (+Solzenitsyn), others are Russian language sources (there are direct quotations; you can use Google translator if you wish). My very best wishes (talk) 02:15, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Can you please cite any RS telling these vans were NOT invented by the NKVD? My very best wishes (talk) 02:17, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Link to publication in Novaya gazeta. My very best wishes (talk) 02:39, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Let's take a look:

• Other methods were used on an experimental basis. One policeman Isai D. Berg, gassed some of his prisoners to death in batches in the back of a specially adapted airtight van. Merridale, p. 254.
• Isai D. Berg, a cutthroat section chief in the Moscow NKVD, ginned up a gas chamber (dushegubka) on wheels, an airtight lorry camouflaged as a bread van that suffocated internees with engine fumes on the drive out to Butovo. Colton, p. 286
• The Soviets sometimes used a gas van (dushegubka), as in Moscow during the 1930s, but how extensive that was needs further investigation. Gellately, p. 286.

These sources state that a Soviet NKVD officer used some sort of gas van, but none of these sources make the claim that the Soviet secret police NKVD invented the gas van as it was "later widely implemented" (previous article version) by Nazi Germany. To infer that the gas van was a Soviet invention is an improper editorial synthesis. A reliable source is needed that specifically comments on the Soviet invention of the gas van. In fact, a closer look at the Russian sources demonstrates that the use of a gas van was used as evidence against Berg when he himself was arrested by the NKVD (and ultimately shot).

On the other hand, Henry Friedlander commented on the Lange Commando:

• For this purpose [killing patients in numerous Wartheland hospitals in 1940], a kind of mobile gas chamber had been invented. We do not know the inventor, but the KTI was probably involved. (The Origins of Nazi Genocide, 1995, p. 139)
• Mathias Beer opens his seminal paper on the gas vans: Unter Gaswagen ist ein besonderes Produkt des Dritten Reiches zu verstehen, nämlich ein Lastkraftwagen, auf dessen Fahrgestell ein luftdicht abgeschlossener Kastenaufbau montiert war, in dem durch das Einleiten von Auspuffgasen Menschen getötet wurden. ["The gas van is a peculiar product of the Third Reich..."] (Die Entwicklung der Gaswagen beim Mord an den Juden. In: VfZ 35 (1987), p. 403
• The Holocaust Encyclopedia (Yale UP, 2001), ed. by Walter Laqueur, names Arthur Nebe, who charged Walter Rauff with the technical implementation of gassing human beings by exhaust fumes from a truck engine. Rauff oversaw the modification of vans.
• Katrim Reichelt in her entry on Gaswagen in the Handbuch des Antisemitismus, ed. by Wolfgang Benz, vol. 4 (2011) names Albert Widmann and Arthur Nebe as the two, who together developed the method by which human beings were killed in vans by exhaust fumes. The vans themselves were modified by Rauff, Friedrich Pradel and Harry Wentritt. (p. 143f.)

None of these sources refer to a Soviet invention and it is not up to Wikipedia to suggest something like that.--Assayer (talk) 00:31, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

• None of your quotations tells directly where it was invented, but obviously it was invented somewhere. I did not read the books by Merridale, Colton and Gellately. Are you sure this is all they say on this subject? If so, what follows from your quotations is that the van was used in the USSR in 1930s and much later in Nazi Germany. However, other sources (the book by Albats, Solzhenitsyn and the article by Nikita Petrov tell it was invented in the USSR by the NKVD. If the actual inventor was Berg however is less certain. My very best wishes (talk) 01:02, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

I am not sure we can speak about a single invention event, because, obviously, no patents or publications about this "invention" existed. Until sources will be presented that prove Nazi knew about Berg's invention, we should speak about independent events.

Re Albatz etc, I am pretty sure they use the same primary or even secondary source, so it makes sense to combine them, or even to remove some ov them. BTW, Novaya gazeta link seem dead.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:11, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I am sure that Merridale et al. confine themselves to basically nothing more than a sentence. I might also express my bewilderment that claims are made what all these sources tell when that is for the larger part in fact unknown. Gas vans were secretly developed in Nazi Germany. It is not that kind of "invention" that you would boast. Therefore, I suggested to do away with the term "invention" altogether. Any objections if I ask someone who speaks Russian concerning the sources in Russian?--Assayer (talk) 10:13, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Sure, you can ask anyone, but the Google translator does it just fine (copy-past of translation from here): "But the greatest ingenuity was shown in Moscow. In 1990, I was shown the investigative case of the head of the administrative department of the NKVD of the Moscow region Isaiah Berg, who was arrested in 1937, which said:"Berg was then the head of the task force to enforce the decisions of the UNKVD MO troika, which involved the creation of motor vehicles, the so-called gas vans, transporting prisoners who were sentenced to death, and gas poisoned en route to the execution site. acknowledged that he had organized the execution of sentences using a car (gas vans), explaining this by the fact that he was following the instructions of the NKVD Ministry of Defense and that without them it would be impossible to perform so much The number of executions to which the arrested were sentenced by three threes at a time .. From the stories of Berg's interrogations and from the conversations that went among the staff of the NKVD Ministry of Defense, it was known that the procedure for bringing the verdicts, organized by Berg, was disgusting: the condemned prisoners were stripped naked, bound, muzzled and thrown into the car. "The property of those arrested under the leadership of Berg was plundered."

And there are multiple sources, starting from the book by the Nobel prize winner, which tell the same and more. Was it re-invented in Germany as you say? So far we have zero sources which explicitly claim it (they only say gas vans were used in Nazi Germany). But we do know about the Gestapo–NKVD conferences and NKVD agent Nikolai Skoblin who acted as a secret agent to transfer various information to Gestapo. My very best wishes (talk) 12:50, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

All of that is a very interesting story. My comments of that are as follows:

1. It seems that all "reliable sources" that tell about Soviet gas vans are actually telling the same story using Solzhenitsyn as a source. I found no further evidences that may serve as a ground for broad generalisation. Albatz is known for inaccurate usage of sources, thus, she used Guinness book as a source for the number of killed by NKVD. Conclusion: use Solzhenitsyn as a main source, other sources, especially, newspaper articles that do not disclose their information sources, should be mentioned tangentially.
2. Isaj Berg was arrested in 1938 and executed in 1939. A story of the gas van was a part of his testimony during interrogation. It may be true or not, however, there is no evidences that this information was transferred to Nazi. I also saw no reliable evidences that this van was used by someone except Berg, and, taking into account that Berg was executed, I doubt any of chekists dared to use this innovation. Other evidences look like "city legends" or "prisoner folklore". Therefore, the linkage between Berg's van and Nazi van was not more evident than the linkage between Zuse computer and ENIAC.
3. Initially, Nazi tried to use pure CO for killing, the idea to use engine exhaust came later. That means we can speak about a gradual evolution of German technical thought, not about picking someone's idea.
4. The idea to pick something from untermench-Russian seemed too odd to arrogant Nazi, who believed it their racial and technological superiority (at least until 1942).
5. I found an obscure book [9] where a detailed analysis of Nuremberg trial was presented, and a conclusion is: no gas vans existed in Germany, all evidences were forged. This book supports the claim Berg invented gas vans, although almost no evidences are not presented. I didn't find any reviews on this book, so it may be a standard Holocaust denier book. As far as I know Amazon banned this book as revisionist

In summary, what reliable source allow us to tell is as follows:

1. A single case of gas van usage in the USSR was Berg's story. Berg was convicted and sentenced, and no other documented cases of gas van usage can be found.
2. No documented evidences existed about informational exchange between Nazi and Soviets on that matter. Nazi invented gas vans in attempts to find cheaper sources for CO that they used for gas chambers before.
3. Some revisionist authors claim there were no usage of gas vans in Germany, and only USSR used it. It seems these writings belong to Holocaust denier category, and should be treated as such.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:08, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

1. There are reliable sources, i.e. historians (Colton, Merridale Gellately) which accept the use of a gas van by Berg as a fact, but do not speak of an "invention".
2. Solzhenitsyn may have won a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970. But his work Two Hundred Years Together has drawn strong criticism for its factual unreliability. Therefore I would not use him as a main source.
3. Yes, the first Nazi German gas vans were different in that CO tanks were used like in the euthanasia killing centers. Rauff and his team began to use exhaust gas, because CO became expensive and hard to get during the war. No source provides evidence that the gas vans of Nazi Germany were devised after the model of a Soviet gas van. Without reliable sources speculations about secret conferences are not helpful.
4. Yevgenia Albats indeed writes: ...Chekists used trucks camouflaged as bread vans for mobile death chambers. Yes, the very same machinery made notorious by the Nazis - yes, these trucks were originally a Soviet invention, in use years before the ovens of Auschwitz were built. (KGB, 1995, p. 101) Her text, however, is confusing. She writes about the Soviet special camps in occupied Germany and introduces the paragraph with the sentence: Although these camps were closed in 1950, a new wave of repression was unleashed of the Soviet Union, no less terrible than that of 1937. Is she suggesting that the Soviet gas vans were used after 1945? For her Auschwitz seems to be a metaphor rather than an implementation of Soviet killing methods. The first time a gas chamber was used to execute a man was in Nevada in 1924. That does not make Americans the "inventors" of the Nazi gas chambers.
5. Albats' associative style is critical, however, because it falls in line with the reasoning that the Soviet and the Nazi system were essentially of the same kind. Such comparisons are to be undertaken with care. As Gellattely emphasizes the differences: [T]he Communists did not create killing centers. The Soviets sometimes used a gas van (dushegubka), as in Moscow during the 1930s, but how extensive that was needs further investigation. They used crematoriums to dispose of thousands of bodies, but had no gas chambers. (I will not discuss works by Germar Rudolf and I would strongly discourage linking to Rudolf's publishing house. The blog Holocaust Controversies deals with the deniers' treatment of the gas vans[10])
6. I would not speak of the gas van as an "invention" like the telephone, aviation, the atomic bomb or antibiotics at all. The gas van as it was used by Nazi Germany was part of a continous perfection of killing methods starting with the gas chambers of the euthanasia and the use of CO gas, the use of exhaust fumes like in Treblinka and the use of Zyklon B in Auschwitz and Majdanek. They were mobile gas chambers, but they were primarily gas chambers.--Assayer (talk) 20:16, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Re Solzhenitsyn, my point was that it was clear where he took the information about gas vans. With regard to other sources, do yo understand if they are independent sources, or they just re-tell the same Solzhenitsyn's story? I see no evidences so far that prove these sources use any additional information besides the one published by Solzhenitsyn.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:30, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

None of these sources, including Albats refer to Solzhenitsyn, and they are written by different authors. So, I assume they are independent RS. My very best wishes (talk) 20:35, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

If they do not refer to Solzhenitsyn, they probably refer to other sources (unless they used a magic crystal ball as a source of information). What is the source they use for this claim? Do they refer to some concrete archival document or another secondary source?--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:41, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

• Reply to Paul.

Your point #2. Yes, none of the currently cited sources tells there was an informational exchange between Nazi and Soviets on that matter. And we do not claim it on this page.

Your point #3. Yes, I totally agree, there is a lot of evidence (in terms of RS cited on this page) that the vans were used in Nazi Germany. If anyone thinks otherwise, this is WP:FRINGE.

Your point #1. No, none of the cited sources, including books by Merridale, Colton and Gellately, tells that was "a single case". They tell the vans were used by the NKVD near Butovo, and that is exactly what we tell. Based on context, the vans were used regularly. The sources do not tell how many people have been processed through the vans, and we do not tell this on the page. Etc. Every word in this section seems to be well sourced right now.

As about your objections to Albats, well, her book certainly qualify as an academic RS, and this is not only her, but Solzhenytsyn, Nikita Petrov, the publication in Kommersant and others. My very best wishes (talk) 20:21, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

• Reply to Assayer. I am not sure what exactly you suggest to change on the page. Albats tells (in plain English), it was "invented" by NKVD, and we tell it was "invented". Russian language sources above also tell it was "invented" or "created" by NKVD, depending on translation. Speaking of Nazi trucks, yes, I totally agree with you that all such details are important and should be included on the page. My very best wishes (talk) 20:26, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Under "single case" I mean usage of gas vans (or a gas van, it is unclear how many vans were used) by Berg's team for Butovo executions. Are there any evidences that other groups used gas van before or in parallel with Berg, and after his arrest. As far as I understand from Berg's explanations during his interrogation, he had to use gas vans because his team was physically incapable of executing so many people. It seems it was his own initiative, which was neither encouraged nor adopted by NKVD. Do any source say otherwise?--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:53, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Look, we are not doing any "original research" here, but simply tell what RS tell. Since this became a matter of discussion, I cited the book by Albats directly. Someone cited Solzhenitsyn directly before me. That's fine. If you can find any other good RS on this subject, please also cite or summarize them. This is the essence of WP:NPOV. And, no the citation of Solzhenitsyn and the source from Kommersant tell that Berg acted on the orders from the top of NKVD. My very best wishes (talk) 21:00, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

You deeply misunderstand our policy, which says: Wikipedia does not publish original thought. All material in Wikipedia must be attributable to a reliable, published source. Articles may not contain any new analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to reach or imply a conclusion not clearly stated by the sources themselves. Since I am not going to make any new claim, I am not doing original research. In contrast, you are going to make a claim that Albatz and Solzhenitsyn are telling about different events, which means you are supposed to prove this. I am asking again: can you prove that Albatz is using sources other than Solzhenitsyn?--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:06, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Albats gives as her source Komsomolskaya pravda, October 28, 1990. If one source, Albats, tells it was "invented", but at least two other sources given (Colton and Merridale) do not follow that reasoning, I do not at all see it as mandatory that we tell it was "invented. For that it has to be shown, that Albats' book from 1992 (Russian ed.) is the standard textbook for this topic. Given the mistakes that I spotted on only two pages, I sincerely doubt that. And in my understanding a "creation" is not the same as an "invention". The changes I suggested were:[11]--Assayer (talk) 22:08, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Komsomolskaya Pravda is a tabloid, and I agree that fact checking is not the strongest part of Albats as a source. I myself found at least two blatant mistakes there: usage of Guinness book as a source for the figure of victims of Stalinism, and the claim that the Soviets killed 200,000 in Latvia (it is not in the book, but this statement belongs to Albatz).--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:20, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

@Paul. "Albatz and Solzhenitsin are telling about the same, i.e. the invention and use of gas vans by the NKVD. But they are two different and independent RS because Solzhenitsin does not make a reference to Albats, and Albatz does not make a reference to Solzhenitsin (as I already said above). My very best wishes (talk) 22:17, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Please, no silly arguments: Solzhenitsyn could not cite Albats, because they belong to different generations.

If Albats uses Komsomolskaya Pravda (which does not add credibitity to her book), that means she indirectly uses Solzhenitsyn, because KP most likely used it. In addition, reliability of KP is a big question. If Albats makes no reference to Solzhenitsyn and think a reference to KP is ok, that means she does not approach the problem seriously. Again, if Albats uses KP, I would like to see where did KP take this info: we must be sure we are not telling the same urban legend created based on a singke statement (Solzhenitsyn) and transmitted by different tabloids in different ways.--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:27, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

@Assayer. The RS we are using/citing is the book by Yevgenia Albats (and she herself as an author of the book), not an article in newspaper (which could be a primary source, whatever). We make a direct reference to her and quote her directly. This is all consistent with the policy. As about your changes (the diff), most of them are already included, others are incorrect (we can't say "The vans were used by Berg", he did not use them alone, we should say they were used "by NKVD"). Sorry, but I should do something else. Happy editing. My very best wishes (talk) 22:17, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Assayer, here is a quote from a review on Albats:

"As she herself proclaims at the outset, this is not a systematic scholarly work, nor is it aimed at specialists. It is for the general reader and she is deliberately seeking to convey an understanding of her 'obsession' in a 'pointed and emotional style'. A second problem occurs in her cavalier attitude towards evidence. For example, she asserts that in i99I the KGB had a staff of 5oo,ooo, making one agent for every 297 [sic] citizens. This is compared then with some unspecified time in the Soviet era when the figure was one for every 428 citizens. Not content with that improbable level of precision, she declares that it actually constitutes a growth of the organization (p. 23). Unless there is a printing error, this makes no sense. Two hundred thousand plus of that personnel total in any event is made up of border troops. No credence is given to official accounts that the organization has now been much reduced. Officially the figure is now around 70,ooo but in no way is this in line with the Albats hypothesis. She also asserts that time has proved her analysis correct. Others might be less sure. Russia has its human rights abuses still, but where one asks are the camps full of political prisoners. Has there really been no significant change? Indeed, the book was published in Russia in 1992.

Again, as a final aspect of hyperbole, the general reader deserves better than to be told that the Socialist Revolutionary Party was right wing (p. I4), and this is not the only infelicity. That said, the book is a lively presentation of some of the iniquities of this organization and of the threat it could come to pose in the hands of a more autocratic Russian regime, perhaps in the not so distant future." (Reviewed Work(s): KGB: State within a State by Yevgenia Albats and Catherine A. Fitzpatrick Review by: Julian Birch Source: The Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 74, No. 4 (Oct., 1996), pp. 766-768. Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School of Slavonic and East European Studies. Stable URL: [12]--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:43, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

• And who is the author of this review, Julian Birch? Is he well known as an expert on the KGB history? If it were a review by Amy Knight, then yes, it would worth something. You can "discredit" any academic source by citing such reviews. Want to find couple of critical reviews and denials on something like "Comrade J"? Yes, sure. But it does not prove that the source does not qualify as an RS per our policy. Reviewer tells: No credence is given to official accounts that the organization has now been much reduced. What? The reviewer trusts the FSB statements and does not even know that the number of FSB personnel is a state secret [13]. Of course Albats does not give any credence to official statements by the FSB because they serve to disinform the public. My very best wishes (talk) 23:00, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

You previous nick name implies that you are familiar with biophysics, and you know how science works. Julian Birch is a person who is sufficiently knowledgeable that the editor of the scholarly journal, The Slavonic and East European Review, published by Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, decided to ask them to write a review. Full stop. If you do not understand these things, then you are supposed to be more modest in your claims. If you understand this (and I am almost sure you do), you are expected to show more good faith. Obviously, that is not a personal attack, just a logical conclusion, because tertium non datur.--Paul Siebert (talk) 02:12, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

Did not you notice that your comment has absolutely nothing to do with improvement of this page? You are violating talk page guidelines again. My very best wishes (talk) 03:54, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

I think, my comment has a direct relation to improvement of the article. You are trying to impose on us a questionable source, and I am trying to resist to that. Your argumentation is not compatible with your professional skills. I have to resort to this kind of arguments because other logical arguments are not working. You cannot pretend you are an educated and skillful person and simultaneously resort to arguments that are used only by poorly educated users. You either agree that a review published by a scholarly journal should be considered a top quality source or concede you are totally ignorant of peer-review procedure. In that case, I do not understand how you are capable of editing molecular biology articles. --Paul Siebert (talk) 04:09, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

Look, you are trying to insult me. I only said the critical review does not mean anything because (a) the author is not a well known expert on the subject, (b) his argument about the number of FSB personnel is ridiculous for anyone familiar for the subject, and (c) he criticized Albats for having an opinion. This is nonsense. Most authors of books and scientific review articles have an opinion. This is good. That's why there is a whole series of journals Current Opinion (Elsevier). My very best wishes (talk) 11:35, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

Even if I wanted to insult you, I would be incapable of insulting you more than you yourself are doing. The Current opinion series includes journals that publish review articles (not opinia). I refuse to believe you are unaware of "Current opinion in Structural Biology", for example. Had you ever written any review? Don't tell me you hadn't. You wrote at least one review: in your PhD thesis, and you know what it is.

Re: "he criticized Albats for having an opinion." This is a direct misinterpetation of the source. Albats opinion is not criticised, the book is good in general, but the degree of fact checking and accuracy is questionable, according to the reviewer. In other words, Albats is a good book for a general reader, but is a poor source for numbers and some specific facts. That means, you can mention Albats opinion, but always describe her sources, for example, "in her book, Albats cited Komsomolstaya pravda tabloid, which says...", of "Albats cites a Guinness book that claims..." In addition, the attempt to present your favourable source as a fact and other sources as opinia is a standard pattern of a tendentious editor. Do you understand what I mean?--Paul Siebert (talk) 14:02, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

Responded on your talk page. Of course the "Current opinion" publish reviews, but it is called "opinion" because editors expect from experts to express their opinion on the subject of their reviews. Albats does the same in her book (most authors do), which is good. That reviewer of her book, however, criticises her for having an opinion that KGB was bad (one should read whole review itself from the beginning). Yes, sure, it was bad, do you think otherwise? My very best wishes (talk) 14:35, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

That is an inaccurate summary of the review by Julian Birch. He notes that Albats' is "the work of an angry person" and admonishes that her "obvious anger" and style does a disservice to her material. There is no hint, however, that Birch takes offence in someone having a critical opinion of the KGB. I find it highly questionable that you proceed to posit an ethical question as if a critical assessment of Albats' work, evidence and argument implies any (positive) judgement about the KGB.--Assayer (talk) 15:06, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

That was not a summary of the review by Birch. Here is link to review. Of course the reviewer does not tell that KGB was good, and I did not say it. Reviewer tells that work by Albats "is not a cool, balanced analysis of the agency", etc. Yes, that's true, but it does not undermine the book by Albats, as the author of this review tells. My very best wishes (talk) 15:40, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

The reviewer does not criticise the book in general, the review says the author is not accurate in details. That makes Albats a poor source for this particular article, not a bad source in general: this book is generally praised for giving a vivid picture of the actual state of things in the KGB empire. I think, it is a good source for general KGB related articles, but not for this one. --Paul Siebert (talk) 16:14, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Actually, the Birch's review is generally positive. However, this is not relevant to the subject of our dispute, because in this positive review, a reviewer notes Albats is very inaccurate in details. Since you are to taking a general idea of the book (which seems correct), but cherry-picking details (despite the fact they have been uncritically taken from a dubious tabloid), a question rises about your sincere desire to improve Wikipedia.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:28, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

I beg your pardon, @My very best wishes, but remember what Catherine Merridale wrote? One policeman Isai D. Berg, gassed some of his prisoners to death in batches in the back of a specially adapted airtight van. It is not up to you to disqualify that as "incorrect". Solzhenitsyn, which you value so highly, writes, that they (i.e. the executioners] hit upon a solution. Neither of these sources state that gas vans were used "by NKVD". Solzhenitsyn even does not name Berg as "inventor", i.e. the one who came up with the idea. Colton names Berg, but does not attribute the use to the NKVD as such and Gellately speaks of the Soviets without further specification. All four, i.e. Merridale, Colton, Solzhenitsyn and Gellately, speak of one Soviet gas van. Thus there are several reliable sources that present the same story with much differences in detail. It is not consistent with policy, namely WP:UNDUE and WP:BALANCE, to pick just the source that you like most and determine, e.g., that there were several Soviet gas vans.[14] If Albats is WP:BESTSOURCES and of equal prominence than the other sources is another matter. And the whole issue cannot be resolved by adding more and more quotes, because balance has to be kept in relation to the text on the Nazi gas vans which were employed on a much larger scale and were thus much more important than the Soviet one. My suggestion still is to focus upon what is actually known, i.e. the details upon which the sources agree.--Assayer (talk) 23:56, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Do you mean he alone killed all these people while driving a van? That would be strange. You are very welcome to summarize information by Merridale, Colton and Gellately (I did not read these books) and include your summary on the page. Unfortunately, they tell very little on the subject beyond mentioning the involvement of Berg. However, all sources that I read (about five of them, cited on this page above, including Solzhenitsyn) tell it was something accomplished by the organization, yes, with his "participation" or "under his command". None of the sources tell it was only one car. However, this source, for example explicitly tells there were many such cars (""Берг тогда являлся начальником оперативной группы по приведению в исполнение решений тройки УНКВД МО. С его участием были созданы автомашины, так называемые душегубки. В этих автомашинах перевозили арестованных, приговоренных к расстрелу, и по пути следования к месту исполнения приговоров они отравлялись газом." Google translate:

Berg was then the head of the task force to enforce the decisions of the UNKVD MO troika. With his participation, cars were created, so-called gas vans. These cars transported prisoners who were sentenced to be shot, and on the way to the place of execution of sentences they were poisoned with gas. Berg acknowledged that he organized the execution of sentences using a car (gas vans), explaining this by the fact that he was following the instructions of the NKVD Ministry of Defense ... "

My very best wishes (talk) 00:27, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

This kind of argumentation is kind of an insult: we are serious and reasonable people, and we deserve less frivolous arguments. Of course, Berg was not the only person who did all of that. He was a head of the team that was engaged in killings. The question was if there was a single van or several, and if other teams were involved in gassing people using vans before, in parallel and after Berg's team. The answer is: there are no data to claim that ever happened.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:31, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

Here is a google translation of the source provided by MVBW (Kommersant): "But the greatest ingenuity was shown in Moscow. In 1990, I was shown the investigative case of the head of the administrative department of the NKVD of the Moscow region Isaiah Berg, who was arrested in 1937, which said:

"Berg was then the head of the task force to enforce the decisions of the UNKVD MO troika, which involved the creation of motor vehicles, the so-called gas vans, transporting prisoners who were sentenced to death, and gas poisoned en route to the execution site. acknowledged that he had organized the execution of sentences using a car (gas vans), explaining this by the fact that he was following the instructions of the NKVD Ministry of Defense and that without them it would be impossible to perform so much The number of executions to which the arrested were sentenced by three threes at a time .. From the stories of Berg's interrogations and from the conversations that went among the staff of the NKVD Ministry of Defense, it was known that the procedure for bringing the verdicts, organized by Berg, was disgusting: the condemned prisoners were stripped naked, bound, muzzled and thrown into the car. "The property of those arrested under the leadership of Berg was plundered."

It is clear that Berg explained his actions during interrogation, which means he was arrested, and the gas van usage was a part of the actions he was accused of. He clearly says he had to resort to this improvement, because he was incapable of killing so many people by ordinary means. Had he been instructed or authorised to use gas vans, he would definitely mention that during interrogation. I cannot understand why MVBW, who seems to be proficient in Russian, misinterpreted this source.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:07, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

• Comment: I've been pinged about this discussion on my Talk page, and I admit I have a hard time following. What is the disagreement about? Is there an edit that's being discussed? --K.e.coffman (talk) 20:21, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

As far as I understand, the main disagreement has been resolved. We identified several sources that are not accurate or make unneeded generalisations. We found that some sources claimed that the gas van was invented in the USSR and were routinely used by the secret police. In fact, the sources say about a single officer whose team used a van or few vans. The primary source these secondary sources rely upon is an interrogation protocol, where that officer explained why he decided to use the gas van (which seems to be his own initiative). We also agreed that no data are available on any informational exchange between NKVD and Nazi. I think, the dispute came to a logical end.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:09, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation; this makes sense. --K.e.coffman (talk) 23:20, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. After my initial edit the discussion started after these revisions: [15] [16] Since I distrust google translate my question was whether 1.) the sources in Russian given in the article back the claim that the Soviets (Berg in particular) "invented" the gas van, 2.) whether gas vans (plural) were used by "the NKVD" or whether there was just one used by some NKVD officers, in particular Berg and his underlings, for a limited time. Furthermore, I was curious, if these Russian sources like kommersant.ru or novayagazeta.ru are first rate RS or not. Discussion may have progressed, so that this is not an issue anymore, but I would not swear to that.--Assayer (talk) 23:43, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

As far as I understand, the article in Novaya Gazeta says Berg was participating in creation (construction, building) of the gas van. That article says about a single van, and it does not disclose the primary source all claims are based upon. The Kommersant article quotes the Berg's investigatory case (Berg himself was arrested soon and executed in 1938; that was a standard situation: all main Great Purge perpetrators, including Ezhov himself, were arrested and executed). The Kommersant article says Berg explained he decided to use a gas van (a single van) ("с применением автомашины" literally means "using a van") because it would not be possible to kill so many people by ordinary means. Interestingly, this document combines usage of the gas van with additional disgusting details of executions committed by Berg. It is quite likely that was one of the pretexts Berg was executed for, so I personally doubt if anybody tried to use this method of execution after Berg was convicted. In addition, there were no mass executions of that scale after the Great Purge, so there were no need in gas vans.

Two other mentions of the gas van in the Kommersant 's primary source speak about "gas vans" (" С его участием были созданы автомашины ["cars were built"], так называемые душегубки. ", and " без них невозможно было бы исполнить столь большое количество расстрелов,", ["without them it would be impossible...]), so it may be possible not a single, but several gas vans were built.

As far as I know, Kommersant was a very good source during those times. (Kommersant was a good and independent newspaper in 1990s, but I cannot tell anything about after it changed an owner. The author seems to cite a document that he saw in 1990 and it is quite possible it is classified now (the "archival revolution" has ended by the end of 1990s). Probably, it is the most reliable source available now (strictly speaking, least unreliable).

With regard to Novaya Gazeta, it is one of very few independent newspapers in Russia (as far as I know, I am not an expert). It may be trustworthy, although some degree of exaggeration or unneeded generalisation may take place.--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:16, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

• The book by Yevgenia Albats is a perfectly good secondary English language source on the subject - you do not need translation. Yes, these Russian language sources tell essentially the same: there were many vans like that, but they do not tell how many, and how many people were actually "processed" through these vans (the overall number of people executed at Butovo firing range was more than 20 thousand). My very best wishes (talk) 03:24, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Solzhenitsyn as a source

I checked this source, and I see the following: "И – призываю к этому евреев. Раскаяться не за Троцкого-Каменева-Зиновьева, они и так на поверхности, от них и отмахнуться можно: "то были не евреи!" А – оглянуться честно на всю глубину раннесоветского угнетательского аппарата – на тех "незаметных", как Исай Давидович Берг (Berg.--PS), создавший знаменитую "душегубку" (gas van. --PS) [1390], самим же евреям на горе, и даже на ещё более незаметных, кто бумажки подкалывал в советском аппарате и никогда не вышел в публичность."

The reference 1390 is the reference to "Е. Жирнов. "Процедура казни носила омерзительный характер" // Комсомольская правда, 1990, 28 октября, с. 2.", i.e. to the Komsomolskaya pravda article. The author (Е. Жирнов) is the same as the author of the Kommersant article, and the source seems to be the same.

My conclusion: all sources the NKVD part of the article is based on (including Albats) are derivatives of one single article written by Е. Жирнов in 1990 and published in Комсомольская правда. All other authors including Е. Жирнов himself tell the same story but compose different details. The only source is the document Е. Жирнов saw in 1990 and used for his article. That means this WP article just shows an evolution of some urban legend.

By the way, taking into account that Solzhenitsyn's statement is a pure anti-Semitism, I'll remove it if no serious reason to keep this anti-Semitic source will be provided within next 24 hours.--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:18, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

1. Are you telling that books by Merridale, Colton and Gellately (cited above) are also based on the "urban legend"?
2. What WP:RS tell this is an "urban legend"?
3. Here is citation of Solzanitsyn currently on the page (it was included by another participant, let's AGF). How on the Earth this text can be viewed "antisemitic"? Here is it: "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." My very best wishes (talk) 11:47, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Criticism

They are criticized in Santiago Alvarez' and Pierre Marais' book, 'The Gas Vans: A Critical Study'. The Gas Vans: A Critical Study, Washington, DC: The Barnes Review; 1st edition (1 Sept. 2011). ISBN-10: 1591481007. ISBN-13: 978-1591481003 Other sources: http://inconvenienthistory.com/archive/2012/volume_4/number_3/the_gas_vans.php and http://inconvenienthistory.com/archive/2013/volume_5/number_1/the_three_photographs_of_an_alleged_gas_van.php

Lute88, you undid my edit here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gas_van&diff=656492727&oldid=656492153

Why? It is sourced. You have to have criticism.

Reversion

Poeticbent, please be more elucidative about your reversion's reason. Carlotm (talk) 22:16, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

• Please don't take it personally. The changes were unwarranted. WP:CITEFOOT recommends to format repeat citations like this: <ref name="name"> so there was no viable reason to go over everything and change it. And also, redacting someone else's perfectly good edit can be perceived as patronizing sometimes. I hope you'll understand. Poeticbent talk
• I agree with Poeticbent and the fact is the description changes to the photo in the article, Carlotm, were not needed. Kierzek (talk) 23:16, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Poeticbent, your call on WP:CITEFOOT is totally out of place here since I changed only those ref names, and even not all of them, which were not repeated citations. As per the changes on someone else's perfectly good edit , as you wrote, I have some difficulties on understanding what you are referring to. I suppose not where I tried to avoid a clear repetition. In fact you partially retained that part. (Incidentally that is quite surprising. How can you revert a revision keeping in the same time some of it and changing some other parts?)

It cannot be that you liked the previous incorrect position of {{Wikisource}} and {{commons category}}, which you restored, by the way. So it must be about the caption underneath the picture which I wanted simply to reduce in length, so much so that I reduced also the font dimension. Anyway from a stylistic point of view, to start a sentence with a negation is not the maximum of the beauty.

Don't get me wrong; I don't pretend to be perfect, anybody may change my revision by editing. Nevertheless when a revision has some value in it, like mine, (and you should fairly admit it, having retained part of it) the reverting process should be banned; in fact it is banned. Carlotm (talk) 19:30, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

No evidence of gas vans used outside of the Soviet Union?

What's this, then? https://www.ns-archiv.de/einsatzgruppen/gaswagen/rauff/rauff-santiago.php –Skywatcher68 (talk) 16:33, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Add'l sources

There's a section on the "Gas van" in The Holocaust: An Encyclopedia and Document Collection, 4 volumes. Not sure which volume.

There's also a brief mention in Westermann of the vans being used by the Order Police in Kharkiv, presumably in late 1941.

• Westermann, Edward B. (2005). Hitler's Police Battalions: Enforcing Racial War in the East. Kansas City: University Press of Kansas. ISBN 978-0-7006-1724-1. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

--K.e.coffman (talk) 23:28, 11 June 2018 (UTC)