The Holocaust happened

It seems to me that we're left with two questions: (1) Do you want to continue into five more rounds? If so, we should agree to it and I'll begin a new debate once you've posted your response here and re-invite the judges. (2) Given everything I laid out in my original post about how an historical account is compiled, why should I dismiss two witnesses who both said that Leichenkeller 1 in Krema II was an HGC because they disagree on details? In fact, I can produce several more witnesses to this particular HGC and another several dozen all together for the four HGCs at Birkenau and the additional HGC at Auschwitz I. This doesn't even begin to scratch the surface for witnesses at the Reinhard camps, Chelmno, or Majdanek or to mass shootings in the occupied USSR. I'm sure, in return, that you could find details about their testimonies that are implausible or that are in disagreement with other testimonies, but you won't find ANY testimonies that these rooms weren't HGCs. That poses a serious problem for your point of view, whether you like it or not. So the question is why your technique of analyzing the evidence is better than mine. You say, "historically false, internally inconsistent and perjured testimony does not constitute evidence of his thesis." Putting the issue of "perjury" aside, I say that it the testimony is inconsistent on minor points but highly consistent on the major point, i.e., that there were HGCs at Birkenau. Why are you right, while I'm wrong? And why can't you offer an argument with at least as much evidence for what else Leichenkeller 1 was? Any historian worth his/her salt would require both things of you, but you've done neither. So at least on the basis of historical methodology, you've failed badly here. Let me offer an example which might prove helpful. Yes, the eyewitnesses are frequently in disagreement over, e.g., how long cremations took. They are not in disagreement over whether there were cremations at all (and you haven't addressed why the cremation power was as high as it was). We don't dismiss there being cremations because the witnesses disagree about the length of time required. Nor do we dismiss HGCs because the witnesses disagree, e.g., about the length of time a gassing took. To do so would both ignore the physical evidence (which we have discussed but can continue to discuss) and would belie our desire to protect a thesis of the non-existence of HGCs, which is intellectually dishonest. Combined with such disregard for the proper treatment of evidence, what we have is not so much an historical case as the placing of one's fingers in one's ears while chanting, "No, no, no." That's all I got. === Minor points of correction: (1) While Auschwitz is indeed in Poland, between 1939 and 1944, it was in Reichsgau Oberschlesien, which was a territory in Poland that was annexed directly by Germany. To call it "Germany" therefore would be de facto correct if not de jure correct. (2) According to the eyewitnesses, Zyklon-B was lowered into the HGCs in columns which carried it to the floor of the HGCs, at which point the Zyklon-B would outgas and go UP. (3) Mueller was referring to a 25-man ash disposal team in the context of open pit burnings in 1944, when the Hungarian Aktion was taking place. (4) The imputation that the Nazis should have had a concrete plan for how to gas people to death in HGCs or else they wouldn't have done it is a statement that demonstrates utter ignorance of how the Nazi power structure basically operated and how ad hoc in general most of these operations tended to be. You cited Hans Mommsen in an earlier post. Actually reading his work and that of the functionalists in general might prove helpful. (5) If we continue the debate, I can lay out my math for my calculations, but I don't want to waste time on it here.