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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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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.

An image used in this article, File:Chelmno Gas Van.jpg, has been nominated for deletion at Wikimedia Commons in the following category: Deletion requests August 2011 What should I do? Don't panic; a discussion will now take place over on Commons about whether to remove the file. This gives you an opportunity to contest the deletion, although please review Commons guidelines before doing so. If the image is non-free then you may need to upload it to Wikipedia (Commons does not allow fair use) If the image isn't freely licensed and there is no fair use rationale then it cannot be uploaded or used. This notification is provided by a Bot --CommonsNotificationBot (talk) 10:48, 14 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

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)[reply]

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

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

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)[reply]

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.

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

• 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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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