Post by 𝐒𝐜𝐨𝐭𝐭 on Jun 8, 2022 14:31:41 GMT
Awhile back there was considerable discussion on RODOH about the Hoefle Telegram, which is supposed to be a smoking-gun for the destruction of Jews on transports to the "Aktion Reinhardt" camps. Here is a link to that Hoefle telegram thread: LINK
David Irving thinks the Höfle document is genuine and has often passed a copy around to show people at his occasional get-togethers. Irving also states that he is a World War II expert who is a Hitler historian and not a Holocaust historian, and that he has never written about the Holocaust.
I think Irving really thinks the Höfle Meldung is mostly a figleaf for not having to admit that the AR "pure extermination camp" thesis is DODGY as hell, so he is maybe not being entirely honest with us.
In any case, not many historians are as experienced as David Irving as far as handling primary source documents, and the Hoefle Telegram was found by somebody relatively recently after all in the British National Archives. The document itself actually does NOT say very much, but this does not make it a fraud ─ nor does this make it a smoking-gun in my opinion.
This begs the question as to what military dispatches and German radio-telegrams looked like. What context and verisimilitude can we give to this?
I made a long post about my military experience in the U.S. Army Signal Corps in the early 1980s. My MOS was 05C20, Radio-Teletype Operator/Repairman/Supervisor, and I put down as much as I could remember about message formatting, plus what I also know from being a Certified Electronics Technician and an Extra Class Amateur Radio Operator.
Okay, my original post is buried on page 7 or so in the Hoefle Telegram thread linked above, but here is a copy of my post: LINK
But what I want to post now are some images of actual WWII German radiograms. I found some reproduced in the book by the Panzer Ace Otto Carius, such as from his being awarded the Oak Leaves to the Knights Cross by Adolf Hitler.

There are various other images of WWII German radiograms in the document section of the book with the English translations, such as Carius being decorated and congratulated by his unit commanders and the Führer, and sometimes they are wishing him the best when wounded. As a highly-decorated Wehrmacht Panzer veteran ─ complete with black tank tunic and Deathshead Panzer insignia with pink-piping ─ Oberleutnant Carius had an opportunity for an extensive chat in person with Heinrich Himmler, where he spoke freely to him about his concerns, and also politely declined a transfer to the Waffen-SS.
The pictures below are taken from the 2020 imprint of the 1992 (1st English edition) of the Otto Carius book, Tigers in the Mud.
What I would like to point out is that the dispatches are constructed from Feldhell or Hellschreiber paper tapes that are pasted onto a telegram card and formatted, as you can see. This relates to my long description of radio-teletype procedures as I knew them and the German Feldhell system, which some Amateur radio operators still use today. So from the Carius book you can get an idea of what these WWII German telegram formats looked like.

The original Carius facsimile is below and the book's English translation of it is below that.




David Irving thinks the Höfle document is genuine and has often passed a copy around to show people at his occasional get-togethers. Irving also states that he is a World War II expert who is a Hitler historian and not a Holocaust historian, and that he has never written about the Holocaust.
I think Irving really thinks the Höfle Meldung is mostly a figleaf for not having to admit that the AR "pure extermination camp" thesis is DODGY as hell, so he is maybe not being entirely honest with us.
In any case, not many historians are as experienced as David Irving as far as handling primary source documents, and the Hoefle Telegram was found by somebody relatively recently after all in the British National Archives. The document itself actually does NOT say very much, but this does not make it a fraud ─ nor does this make it a smoking-gun in my opinion.
This begs the question as to what military dispatches and German radio-telegrams looked like. What context and verisimilitude can we give to this?
I made a long post about my military experience in the U.S. Army Signal Corps in the early 1980s. My MOS was 05C20, Radio-Teletype Operator/Repairman/Supervisor, and I put down as much as I could remember about message formatting, plus what I also know from being a Certified Electronics Technician and an Extra Class Amateur Radio Operator.
Okay, my original post is buried on page 7 or so in the Hoefle Telegram thread linked above, but here is a copy of my post: LINK
But what I want to post now are some images of actual WWII German radiograms. I found some reproduced in the book by the Panzer Ace Otto Carius, such as from his being awarded the Oak Leaves to the Knights Cross by Adolf Hitler.

There are various other images of WWII German radiograms in the document section of the book with the English translations, such as Carius being decorated and congratulated by his unit commanders and the Führer, and sometimes they are wishing him the best when wounded. As a highly-decorated Wehrmacht Panzer veteran ─ complete with black tank tunic and Deathshead Panzer insignia with pink-piping ─ Oberleutnant Carius had an opportunity for an extensive chat in person with Heinrich Himmler, where he spoke freely to him about his concerns, and also politely declined a transfer to the Waffen-SS.
The pictures below are taken from the 2020 imprint of the 1992 (1st English edition) of the Otto Carius book, Tigers in the Mud.
What I would like to point out is that the dispatches are constructed from Feldhell or Hellschreiber paper tapes that are pasted onto a telegram card and formatted, as you can see. This relates to my long description of radio-teletype procedures as I knew them and the German Feldhell system, which some Amateur radio operators still use today. So from the Carius book you can get an idea of what these WWII German telegram formats looked like.

The original Carius facsimile is below and the book's English translation of it is below that.



