Soap made from human corpses

During the Second World War some Nazi scientists experimented with soap made from human corpses, and even engaged in small-scale production. However soap from human fat was never produced industrially.

History

The claim that Germans used the fat from human corpses to make products was already made by the British during World War I. "The Times" reported in April 1917 that the Germans were boiling down the bodies of their dead soldiers to make soap and other products. [Phillip Knightley, The First Casualty (New York: 1975), pp. 105-106.] In 1925, the British Foreign Secretary Sir Austen Chamberlain admitted that the "corpse factory" story had been a lie. [Arthur Ponsonby, "Falsehood in Wartime" (New York: 1929), pp. 102, 111-112]

Later, when human bodies were indeed being plundered for products (hair for felt and insulation, for example), there are indications that some German scientists experimented with making soap from human fat. Professor Rudolf Spanner produced somewhere between 10 and 100 kg of soap from corpses from an unidentified source, speculated to be the mental hospital in Konradstein (now Kocborowo), a prison in Königsberg, or the Stutthof concentration camp. According to Spanner's post war testimonies the soap was used only for injections into joint ligaments. [ [http://www.auschwitz-muzeum.oswiecim.pl/new/index.php?tryb=news_big&language=EN&id=1140 "Human Fat Was Used to Produce Soap in Gdansk during the War"] Accessed January 31, 2007.]

Despite the aforementioned case, there is no evidence for wide-spread use of soap made of human fat, Jewish or otherwise, in Nazi Germany. SS-chief Heinrich Himmler was disturbed enough by the rumors, and the implication of poor security at the camps, that he emphasized that all corpses should be cremated or buried as quickly as possible. [ [http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/dachau/legends/soap.htm "UCSB History Page: Did Nazis use human body fat to make soap?"] Accessed December 29, 2006.]

After the war, the myth was propagated by Alain Resnais' noted 1955 holocaust documentary movie Nuit et brouillard.

Mainstream scholars of the Holocaust consider the "soap myth" to be part of the WWII folklore, rather than reflecting the way soap was chiefly produced in Germany during the war. [ [http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/soap.html "The soap myth"] (Jewish Virtual Library) Accessed December 29, 2006.] Among others this view was held by the reputable Jewish historians Walter Laqueur, [Walter Laqueur, "The Terrible Secret" (Boston: 1980), pp. 82, 219.] Gitta Sereny, [Gitta Sereny, "Into That Darkness" (London: A. Deutsch, 1974), p. 141 (note).] and Deborah Lipstadt. ["Nazi Soap Rumor During World War II," Los Angeles Times, May 16, 1981, p. II/2.] The same view was held by Professor Yehuda Bauer of Israel's Hebrew University and by Shmuel Krakowski, archives director of Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust center. [Bill Hutman, "Nazis never made human-fat soap," "The Jerusalem Post - International Edition", week ending May 5, 1990.] ["Holocaust Expert Rejects Charge That Nazis Made Soap from Jews," "Northern California Jewish Bulletin", April 27, 1990. (JTA dispatch from Tel Aviv.) Facsimile in: "Christian News", May 21, 1990, p. 19.] ["A Holocaust Belief Cleared Up," "Chicago Tribune", April 25, 1990. Facsimile in: Ganpac Brief, June 1990, p. 8.]

Today Holocaust deniers employ this controversy to cast aspersions on the veracity of the Nazi genocide [ [http://www.nizkor.org/features/techniques-of-denial/soap-01.html Deceit & Misrepresentation. The Techniques of Holocaust Denial: The Soap Allegations. Part 1] , [http://www.nizkor.org/features/techniques-of-denial/soap-02.html Part 2] , [http://www.nizkor.org/features/techniques-of-denial/soap-03.html Part 3] , [http://www.nizkor.org/features/techniques-of-denial/soap-04.html Part 4] , [http://www.nizkor.org/features/techniques-of-denial/soap-05.html Part 5] , [http://www.nizkor.org/features/techniques-of-denial/soap-06.html Part 6] (Nizkor Project)] .

References

External links

* [http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/dachau/legends/soap U.S.National Archives, Still Picture Branch, College Park, MD, document 238-NT-270. Introduced at IMT on Feb. 19, 1946 as exhibit USSR-393]
* [http://www.historiography-project.org/misc/frenzsoap.html Nazi Human Soap Manufacturing]