TYPES OF OVENS

The vast majority of crematoria ovens used in concentration camps, euthanasia institutes and asylums were built by TOPF & SOHNE or HEINRICH KORI.

Topf had the following ovens available or designed specifically for the camps:

a) Portable oil fired  double muffle oven (Buchenwald)

b) Portable oil fired single muffle oven. (no evidence actually used in the camps)

c) Adapted for coke fuelling portable double muffle oven (Gusen, Dachau)

d) Coke fired double muffle permanent brick built oven (Mauthausen, Auschwitz I)

e) Coke fired triple muffle permanent brick built oven (Buchenwald, Gross Rosen)

f) Coke fired eight muffle permanent brick built oven (Birkenau crematoriums IV and V)

Kori had the following ovens available or designed specifically for the camps or asylums:

a) Portable oil fired single muffle oven (Belsen, Sachsenhausen)

b) Adapted for coke fuelling portable walled in single muffle oven (Natzweiler, Ravensbruck)

c) Coke fired single muffle permanent brick built oven (Sacahsenhuasen, Hartheim, etc)

From visiting the remaining camp and asylum crematoria and from research undertaken to date it seems Topf did not install any single muffle permanent ovens in the camps or asylums. These were all Koris (except for sub KL Richard which used a locally designed oven). Thus the single muffle market was Koris. In addition no multi muffle ovens seem to have been installed by Kori. This was Topfs market.

Finally all the crematorium installed in the euthansia program and in asylums seem to have been single muffle and therefore Kori. Again this market was Koris.

The differences between a single and multi muffle oven:

a) In a multi muffle oven there is more than one entrance for delivery of bodies into the cremation section (muffle) of the oven

b) In a multi muffle oven the different muffles are connected togethor and powered from a single source and thus air, ashes, fumes are mixed togtheor.

c) Theoretically in a single muffle oven one body can be burned at a time and the ashes and fumes not mixed with those from other bodies

d) In a multi muffle oven many bodies can be burned at the same time thus the ashes, fumes etc are mixed togethor

c), and d) are important as the German law on cremation exisiting during the Third Reich required amongst many things that a single body be burned at a time and that ashes, fumes etc from different bodies be not mixed togethor.