HOLOCAUST Handbooks, Vol. 4: Jiirgen Graf, Carlo Mattogno
and its Function in National Socialist Jewish Policy
The concentration camp at Stutthof near Danzig in western Prussia is another camp which had never been sci- entifically investigated by Western historians. Officially sanctioned Polish authors long maintained that in 1944, Stutthof was converted to an "auxiliary extermination camp" with the mission of carrying out the lurid, so-called "Final Solution to the Jewish Problem." Now, Jiirgen Graf and Carlo Mattogno have subjected this concept of Stutthoff to rigorous critical investigation based on Polish literature and documents from various archives.
Their investigations lead to unambiguous conclusions about the camp which are radically different from the official theses. Again they have produced a standard and methodical investigative work which authentic historiography can not ignore. 122 pp. pb, 6"x9", b/w & color ill., bibl., index, $/€15.-/£10.-
HOLOCAUST Handbooks, Vol. 5: Jiirgen Graf, Carlo Mattogno
Majdanek
A Historical and Technical Study
Amazingly, little scientific investigation had been directed toward the concentration camp Lublin-Majdanek in central Poland, even though orthodox Holocaust sources claimed that between fifty thousand and over a mil- lion Jews were murdered there. The only information available from public libraries is thoroughly discredited Polish Communists propaganda.
This glaring research gap has finally been filled. After exhaustive research of primary sources, Mattogno and Graf created a monumental study which expertly dissects and repudiates the myth of homicidal gas chambers at Majdanek. They also investigated the legendary mass executions of Jews in tank trenches ("Operation Harvest Festival") critically and prove them groundless.
The authors' investigations lead to unambiguous conclusions about the camp which are radically different from the official theses. Again they have produced a standard and methodical investigative work which authentic historiography can not ignore. 320 pp pb, A5, 6"x9", b/w & color ill., bibl., index, $/€25.-/f 18.-
holocaust Handbooks, Vol. 6: Don Heddesheimer
The Fteji ^Au^mmt
J ewish Fund Raising Campaigns With Holocaust Claims During And After World War I
We all know that the suffering and death of Six Million Jews during the second world war was an event unparalleled in world history. But do we really?
The First Holocaust is an extremely irritating book, because it proves us all wrong. Supported with many publications from mainstream US media, in particular The New York Times, Don Heddesheimer provides the evidence to show that between 1916 and the late 1920s, mainly American Jewish organizations were claiming that up to six million Jews(\) would suffer terribly in poverty stricken Eastern Europe.
In this context, it was claimed that eastern European Jewry would face a Holocaust if they did not receive massive aid. With such claims, millions of dollars were raised in the United States, which at the end were prob- ably used to finance the Bolshevik revolution in Russia.
This book is a key to understand the much more successful Holocaust propaganda which was unleashed during World War II. September 2003, ca. 140 pp. pb., 6"x9", ill., bibl., index, $/€9.95-/£7.-
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HOLOCAUST Handbooks, Vol. 7: Arthur R. Butz
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The Case A gainst the Presumed Extermination of E uropean J ewry
With his book Hoax of the Twentieth Century, A. R. Butz, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, was the first (and so far the only) writer to treat the entire Holocaust complex from the Revisionist perspective, in a precise scientific manner. This book exhibits the overwhelming force of historical and logical arguments which Revisionism had accumulated by the middle of the 70s. It was the first book published in the US which won for Revisionism the academic dignity to which it is entitled. It continues to be a major revisionist reference work, frequently cited by prominent personalities.
Because of its prestige, no library can forbear offering The Hoax of the Twentieth Century, and no historian of modern times can ignore it. A "must read" for every Revisionist and every newcomer to the issue who wants to thoroughly learn about revisionist arguments. This issue is a revised version with a new preface.
September 2003, ca. 500 pp. pb, 6"x9", ill., bibl., index, $/€25.-; £18.-
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Open Air Incinerations in Auschwitz: Rumor or Reality?, pp. 3-17
The Dwindling Death Toll:
Less Auschwitz Victims, pp. 18-37
Werner Heisenberg:
An Attempt at Murder, p. 47
The Hole in the Door:
Space and Rocket Museum in Huntsville, Alabama: in the background a real, complete Saturn V rocket disassambled in its stages. In the fore- ground: a mockup of the Apollo moon lander on an area of re-created moon landscape.
How a Girl Fooled the Academic World, p. 52
World War Two:
Mockup of a German WWII V1 Rocket in Huntsville, Alabama
Whose war was it?, p. 56
Freedom fighter Andrei Vlassov: New Aspects of a Hero, p. 63
India's Unknown Hunger Holocaust: Britain's Politics of Famine, p. 71
<^ Apollo Moon Landings: History or Hoax?, p. 75
From the Court Files:
Start of the Auschwitz Trial, p. 115
The Revisionist •) ournal for Critical Historical Inquiry
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Dissecting
the
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HOLOCAUST Handbooks, Vol. 1: Germar Rudolf (Ed.)
Dissecting tDn© McDLtoesiULStt
The Growing Critique of 'Truth' and 'Memory'
"There is at present no other single volume that so provides a serious reader with a broad
understanding of the contemporary state of historical issues that influential people would
rather not have examined. " — Prof. Dr. Arthur R. Butz, Evanston, IL
"There is much in the various contributions that strikes one as thoroughly convincing. "
— Historian Dr. Joachim Hoffmann, Expert Report
Dissecting the Holocaust applies state-of-the-art scientific technique and classic methods of detection to investigate the alleged murder of millions of Jews by Ger- mans during World War U. In 22 contributions of each ca. 30 pages, the 17 authors dissect generally accepted paradigms of the 'Holocaust'. It reads as exciting as a crime novel: so many lies, forgeries, and deceptions by politicians, historians and scientists. This is the intellectual adventure of the 21st century. Be part of it!
2nd, revised paperback edition! 616 pp. pb, 6"x9", b/w ill., bibl., index: $/€30
£20,
HOLOCAUST Handbooks, Vol. 2: Germar Rudolf
The Rudolf Report
Expert Report on the 'Gas Chambers' of Auschwitz
The so-called Leuchter Report about the alleged gas chambers of Auchwitz has been subject to massive criticism. In 1993, Rudolf, a researcher from a German Max-Planck- Institute, published a forensic study about the alleged gas chambers of Auschwitz which irons out the deficiencies of the Leuchter Report. The Rudolf Report is the first English edition of this sensational work. It analyzes the evidence on the Auschwitz gas chambers and exposes the fallacies of various failed attempts to refute Rudolf's Report. The con- clusions are quite clear: The alleged gas chambers of Auschwitz could not have existed. In the appendix, Rudolf describes his unique persecution.
"These scientific analyses are perfect. " — H. Westra, Anne-Frank-Foundation, "[T]/ze report must be described as scientifically acceptable. " — Dr. H. Ramuz, Professor of Chemistry
455 pp., b/w & color ill., bibl., index; pb: $/€30.-/£20.-; hardcover: $/€45.-/£30.
Contents
The Dawning of a New Era 2
By Germar Rudolf
Open Air Incinerations in Auschwitz: Rumor or Reality?
Ground Water in the Area of the POW camp Birkenau, by Dipl.-Ing. Michael Gartner, Dipl.-Ing. Werner Rademacher 3
"Cremation Pits " and Ground Water Levels at Birkenau, by Carlo Mattogno 13
Auschwitz: The Dwindling Death Toll
How Many Deaths at Auschwitz?, by Dr. Robert Faurisson 18
Cautious Mainstream Revisionism, by Germar Rudolf 23
Auschwitz: Fritjof Meyer 's New Revisions, by Carlo Mattogno 30
Poison Gas Uber Alles 37
By Friedrich Paul Berg
Certainty about Werner Heisenberg 47
By Dr. Gerhard Sommer
The Hole in the Door 52
By Hans Pedersen
WW II: Whose War was it? 56
By Prof. Emil Schlee
New Aspects of Andrei Vlassov 63
By Wolfgang Strauss
Was the Me262 the First Airplane to Break the Sound Barrier? 69
By Andre Chelain
The Unknown Famine Holocaust 71
By Wolfgang Pfitzner
The Moon Landing: Fact or Fiction 75
By Germar Rudolf
Swing Dancing "Verboten" 81
By Eberhard Wardin
A Look Back at Revisionism 83
By Ernst Manon
Book Reviews
Hitler 's Jewish Soldiers, by J org Berger 97
The Russians in Berlin in 1945, by Ernst Gauss 98
Van Pelt 's Plea against Sound Reasoning, by Robert H. Countess, Ph.D 99
World War I Atrocity Propaganda and the Holocaust, by Paul Grubach 104
Why the USA Wages War in the Gulf Region, by Robert H. Countess, Ph.D 109
Jewish Co-Responsibility for Jewish Persecution in 1941, by Germar Rudolf Ill
Research News
How the United States Started the Vietnam War, by Wolfgang Pfitzner 114
From the Records of the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial, by Germar Rudolf. 115
In Brief 118
The Revisionist ■ 2003 • Volume 1 • No. 1
1
The Dawning of a New Era
By Germar Rudolf
In 1996, I had to leave my home country Germany, where publications like the one you are holding in your hand are of- ten subject to confiscation and where its authors and publish- ers are prosecuted, fined, and sometimes even thrown in jail for harboring dissenting historical views, particularly when 'Topic No. 1' is touched, the 'Holocaust.' I had run afoul of these German censorship laws and of the ensuing book burning which has been increasingly raging in Germany since the German reunification in 1990. Any reader interested in why Germany issued an international arrest war- rant against the publisher of this periodical can find a com- prehensive answer in a new book: The Rudolf Report. Expert Report on Chemical and Technical Aspects of the 'Gas Chambers ' of Auschwitz (see the ad on the back cover of this issue).
After the famous Leuchter Report, which made many claims about the alleged gas chambers of Auschwitz, was torn apart by hostile critics, my own expert report — packed with scien- tific evidence supporting many of Leuchter' s claims — was hailed as an important relief by the 'revisionist community.' As a result, persecution at all levels of German society was unleashed against me. I hit the proverbial establishment brick wall. The only way out of it, so I thought, was to go into exile where I could continue my struggle for scientific knowledge and exactitude, and where I intended to restore my honor. I wanted to prove that I was right.
Hence, in 1997, I started to publish a German language peri- odical with focus on historical topics that are heavily cen- sored in Germany, be it by social pressure only or even by legal means. It was a daring leap for me, since I knew that sooner or later I would have to face the fury of the German authorities, who would move all levers to get me extradited. I also thought that trying to sell a periodical that is deemed 'il- legal' by the German authorities might fail due to anxieties of both my potential customers and those in Germany I needed to promote my products. After all, they expose themselves to harassments or outright persecution by German authorities when buying/selling/distributing/advertising my controversial scientific material.
I was correct in expecting that the German authorities would seek my extradition. It has come so far that the Ger- man government now considers me one of the biggest threats to their constitution, although all I do is to merely publish historical facts and interpretations, of which the ar- ticles presented in this issue are representative samples. How insecure must a government be if it considers harmless articles like those printed in this issue as the most severe threat to its existence?
Over the last ten years, I gained some experience in dealing with persecuting authorities, so I can assure you that all at- tempts to throw me into a German dungeon for years on end have failed so far and will keep on failing. My fears about the business risks involved in publishing dis- senting scientific material, however, was misplaced. My
German periodical Vierteljahreshefte fur freie Geschichtsfor- schung (quarterly for free historical research) is now in its 7th year of publication. It has a fairly stable number of subscrib- ers and receives growing attention from all sides, even from the establishment which has realized that the exact and con- vincing arguments published in my journals, books, and bro- chures will not go away by ignoring, badmouthing, threaten- ing, or insulting me. They have to deal with the arguments. I have achieved this performance record under the most diffi- cult circumstances, i.e., producing high quality books and pe- riodicals even though most of the time I had to work from underground and sometimes even while 'on the run.' Al- though the financial support I received was marginal com- pared to all other individuals and organizations active in this same field, I was encouraged by an increasing number of scholars from all over the world not only to publish English language books (which I do under the imprint Theses and Dissertations Press), but also to start an English periodical featuring articles on controversial historical topics which are ignored by 'establishment' publishers.
The background of their reasoning is that for almost ten years now, the existing English language periodicals featuring revi- sionism basically ignored the research and publishing activi- ties going on abroad, and for various reasons, they also alien- ated many revisionist writers and researchers. As a result, the English speaking world, i.e., almost the entire world, had no way of finding out about the tremendous scientific progress made by revisionism during those years. Most revisionists have now concluded that after years of trying, without suc- cess, the old periodicals cannot be reformed, and so, a new journal needed to be established. Dr. Robert H. Countess, for instance, who is featured in this issue, recently felt that revi- sionism in the English world is "imploding", and Prof. Arthur R. Butz called the current activities in this field "comatose." It took friends and supporters four years to convince me to do something about it, that is, to do the second big leap of my history as a publisher. The result is in your hands. Right now, the publishing company Castle Hill Publishers is a very small operation. That might change over the next years if this endeavor is successful. But for now, I do depend on — and am tremendously grateful for — the assistance I receive from uncounted volunteers from all over the world. They translate, coordinate research, write and edit articles, review books and journals, and help to operate the world's largest revisionist website that hosts The Revisionist and thousands of other revisionist books and articles (www.vho.org). Hence, The Revisionist is in fact 'our' journal. It is made by and with the help of people like you and me, and it features worthwhile articles without applying as strict an editorial censorship as is the case with other periodicals. With a joint effort, we can and will get revisionism back afloat! I hope that you enjoy reading this first issue of The Revision- ist and that you will help us promote this new and exciting journal. □
2
The Revisionist • 2003 ■ Volume 1 • No. 1
Open Air Incinerations in Auschwitz: Rumor or Reality?
Two Studies on the Ground Water Level in Auschwitz and Its Consequences in History
Many former inmates as well as guards of the former National Socialist concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau claim that hundreds of thousands of corpses of murdered inmates were burned in ditches some 6 to 10 ft. deep. However, almost every book about Auschwitz points out that the entire grounds in and around the camp were swampy in those days. Since the 1970s, Holocaust revisionists have therefore claimed that the incineration of corpses in deep ditches would have been impossible due to the high groundwater table in this swampy area, which would have quickly filled any deep ditch. After this argument spread widely with the so-called Leuchter Report in 1988,1 it was argued that the groundwater level during the operation of the camp was significantly lowered with the help of a sophisticated system of drainage ditches, thus allowing the open-air incineration of corpses in deep ditches as attested to by various witnesses.2 In May 2002, the controversy around Auschwitz focused even more on these open-air incinerations, since a German mainstream journalist argued that most of the victims of the claimed mass murders of Auschwitz were supposedly disposed of using these open-air incineration ditches.3 Until recently, the effects of the groundwater, and the questions arising from this matter, have not been investigated. Due to the availability of much-improved source materials after the end of the Cold War, this matter can now be investigated. The following two studies have thoroughly examined the existing primary documentary sources dealing with the groundwater table in Auschwitz during World War II. As a result, the correctness of eyewitness accounts claiming incinerations in deep ditches must be called into question. The documents do not allow for any different interpreta- tion: in the Birkenau area, the groundwater table was about 0.30 to 1.20 m beneath the surface.
Ground Water in the Area of the POW camp Birkenau
By Dipl.-Ing. Michael Gartner, Dipl.-Ing. Werner Rademacher
1. Preliminary Remarks about the Birkenau Camp
The camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, which is today generally re- ferred to as "concentration and extermination camp," was originally designated as a "prisoner of war camp" at the end of 1941 by the German authorities.4 The construction sector Bla was finished in March 1942 and was occupied mostly by
! KGL Auschwitz II (Birkenau)
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Bunker 1
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Illustration 1: POW camp Birkenau in May 1942: alleged location of Bunker 1.
Soviet prisoners of war until August 1942. The designation of the camp remained the same, though it subsequently had more the character of a concentration camp, meaning that it was mainly filled with criminal and political prisoners, in- cluding Jews, rather than prisoners of war. The camp also bore the name "KL Auschwitz II." "KL" was the official German abbreviation for concentration camp. A drawing of ours showing the camp's state of con- struction in April/May 1942 is shown in Illustration 1. This drawing as well as many others are included in a study of ours about the history of the Auschwitz camp currently in preparation.5 In the literature, maps of the Birkenau camp are very often false, since in almost all cases the final state of construction of late 1944 is shown, even if this map is used to refer to events that took place in earlier years. This leads to wrong as- sumptions and conclusions about events of the camp's history.
2. What Events Are Reported?
2.1. Bunker 1
According to witness testimony there was an old farmhouse to the north of the Birkenau camp which as of May 1942 was allegedly used as a gas chamber for the killing of human beings, cf. Illustration 3. In its vicinity, the accounts state, there were mass graves which later were allegedly also used to burn corpses.6 It must be noted that there are no indications of where
The Revisionist ■ 2003 ■ Volume 1 ■ No. 1
3
this Bunker 1 allegedly stood.7 The witness Benroubi testi- fied:8
"They [the Sonderkommando men] put them [the corpses] in front of graves about 20m long, 3m wide and 2.50m. There were about ten graves ready to receive the martyrs. Parallel to these open graves there were some that had been covered with earth and these extended over about 300 meters [...]" Witness Buki stated :9
"We took the trolleys to a grave about 40 meters long and I think about 6 meters wide [240 m2], which was about 100 meters away from the house. " Witness Garbarz said:10
"We saw big rectangles traced on the ground twenty or thirty meters wide by fifty or 60 meters long. In one of these rectangles the ground was stained red. " The witness indicates that he understood the rectangles to be grave plots. Later on he adds, regarding the depth of the pit, that it was approximately 1.5 m deep.10 There is no documentary evidence to corroborate these claims. Even J.-C. Pressac questions some of these witness statements, which furthermore are quite contradictory with respect to the number and size of the pits as well.11
2.2. Bunker 2
Regarding this house, located to the northwest of the camp, witnesses also tell of gassings and of incinerations in pits from June 30, 1942 until spring of 1943 (Illustration 3). This "Bunker" was allegedly brought back into operation in May/June 1944.12 In this area, foundations of former build- ings used for unknown purposes can indeed be made out to- day, and they are also recorded on a Polish map of this re- gion.13
Regarding the pits, the witness Dragon states, for 1942: 14
"On the other side of the cottage there were four pits 30 meters long, 7 meters wide and 3 meters deep. " The witness Dr. Nyiszli states for 1944 (which we shall come back to in 2. 2. 4): 15
"The pyre was a ditch 50 yards long, six yards wide and three yards deep [...]" A second Soviet sketch dated March 3, 1945, shows a burn- ing pit of 30 m2, see Illustration 2. 16 Again the discrepancies regarding size are considerable. There are also no corrobora- tive documents.
Crematorium I, which at this time was the only one available, was not of sufficient capacity to cremate all the victims, which were therefore buried in Birkenau. Other casualties had already been buried in the same area earlier. The num- bers given vary from 50,000 to 107,000. The "body toxins" resulting from the decomposition process threatened to poi- son the groundwater, which was used for the drinking water supply for the entire area. Hence, the corpses had to be ex- humed again. They were then cremated, first on funeral pyres, later in pits. Thus go the reports. No publication that we know of makes any mention of the number of pits.
2.4. Burning Pits at Crematorium V Witnesses tell of burning pits in the area north of Cremato- rium V between the building and the ditch in front of the fence, in May to June 1944 (Illustration 3). Since the crema- toria were out of service due to damage, a situation arose "[...] that open-air incineration ditches had to be rapidly dug [...]."20 Pressac also mentions "five small incineration ditches" near Crematorium V. These, he says, became neces- sary because Crematorium IV had been closed since May 1943 and Crematorium V could not be adequately repaired.21 As witnesses to these pits, Pressac quotes Dragon:22
"[...] Jews were burned in five ditches dug behind Cre- matorium V. ", as well as the witness Tauber:22
"It was realized that the ditches incinerated the corpses better, [than the furnaces] once the ditches entered ser- vice "
The witness F. Miiller, whom Pressac accuses of errors and lies,22 reports:23
"[...] work on digging five pits behind Crematorium V
was soon [...] begun. "
"The two pits that had been dug were 40 to 50 m long,
about 8 m wide and 2 m deep. " There then follows a detailed description of the "[...] drain- age channel for the human fat [...]" in the pits. On page 211, F. Miiller continues:
"In the backyard of the Crematorium, Moll ordered three
more burning pits excavated, so that he had five at his
disposal there now. " The measures of these alleged pits result from these state- ments: total area = 5 pits of each 40 m or 50 m x 8 m = 1 ,600
2.3. Burial and Later Cremation of Typhus Victims Various witnesses tell of the burial of victims of the first typhus epidemic, and of the burning of these bodies af- ter their exhumation between Sep- tember 21, 1942 and November 30, 1942 (Illustration 3).17 The files of the Russian State Archive of War in Moscow18 report in detail about the first epidemic, which had been intro- duced from outside by civilian labor personnel.19 It began on July 1, 1942.
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Illustration 2: POW camp Birkenau; Soviet sketch of the alleged location of Bunker 1 and 2
4
The Revisionist ■ 2003 ■ Volume 1 • No. 1
or 2,000 m2 and a total volume of excavated earth (2 m deep) of 3,200 or 4,000 m3. This earth had to be disposed somehow, leaving visible traces, but nothing of this is ever mentioned. Further, F. Miiller mentions a concrete surface of 60 x 15 m = 900m2, where bones that had not burned up were allegedly crushed. Of course, the Allied air photos taken in 1944 show no traces of this concrete surface, any more than they show the pits themselves, their excavation, or the access roads for the transport of bodies and fuel.24
The fire in the burning pits could generate heat of several 100°C, even 1000°C. The question is: how close can a person not wearing protective clothing approach to such a blaze? According to the eyewitness testimony, a team of laborers worked there without any protective gear. Any fireman could comment on this.
Pressac's 'Document 8'25 also contradicts the eyewitness tes- timony. This cost estimate for Crematorium II, reviewed on May 26, 1944, shows clearly that the oven pit for the crema- tion ovens for Crematorium V was built as a waterproof tub and that during the excavation of this pit the groundwater of the immediate vicinity was artificially frozen to prevent it from filling up the construction pit.26 The cross-section dia- gram of this building, No. 1678,27 shows that the upper edge of the base of the tub lay about one meter below ground level. Crematorium V did not have a cellar underneath. This proves that this oven pit stood in the groundwater! But if this oven pit had to be protected against the groundwa- ter, this proves that no burning pits as described in the fore- going could have been possible at this location.
Incineration Pits
^/Bunker 2 -a Undressing - a 4- aS
; Huts WaaA;
lllustration 3: State of construction of the POW camp Birkenau in September 1942, including alleged Bunkers 1 and 2 and mass graves/burning pits.
It must also be remembered that the grounds of the camp sloped downwards in a northerly direction, as the Polish ord- nance survey maps, scale 1:25,000, prove (Illustration 6). One section of a work authored by the late Dr. Jan Sehn, former Auschwitz inmate and director of the Auschwitz Mu- seum, needs to be mentioned here, since it has caused some irritation:28
"At the bottom of the pit, thick wooden logs were piled up, followed by increasingly small branches and twigs. Corpses were thrown on top of this base. After that, the SS men supervising this work poured petrol into all four corners of the pit, lit a rubber comb and threw it onto the spots moistened by petrol. " Every boy scout in the world knows that there is no way one can light a fire in a pit this way. Yet this statement was never criticized. There is apparently not a single former boy scout among the world's historians! Such examples could be quoted continuously for pages on end. But this is not the pur- pose of this paper. Such examples could only emphasize why we pose questions like: how could it happen that such witness statements passed unchallenged for so long? And why does there not exist any research into the reasons for the many er- rors made by these witnesses?
3. Which Doubts Evolved, and What Triggered Them?
One reason for our initial doubts is certainly the contradic- tions between certain eyewitness accounts. Another is the obvious incompatibilities with the laws of nature. But more important, the first book of J.-C. Pressac made us rethink our
hitherto held beliefs. Pres- sac was the first to publish documentary proof for — or better against — what had been claimed by eye wit- nesses only, until then. Un- fortunately, Pressac's im- portant book is hardly known, and it is unlikely that the historians have read it thoroughly, if at all. If they had, they would know his massive critique of mainstream historiogra- phy and the eyewitnesses. The historians did not in- vestigate, they "believed." Did they do so out of fear? It is also unavoidable to accuse the historians of not having included scholars of other fields in their re- search, like engineers and architects. They acted wrongly and arrogantly! Or did they fear becoming vic- tims of persecution and — in Europe — even of prose- cution? Especially German
Mass Graves
Pyres, Later Pits
^ \ A-"n
UndressingHuts Bunker 1
September 1942
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historians know that wrong opinions in these matters are prosecuted by public attorneys!
4. General Remarks on Documents and Physical Evidence
Whereas most eyewitness statements date to shortly after the war, documentary and physical evidence have become avail- able in abundance only since the 1990s. Many documents and sketches regarding the matter of the groundwater in Birkenau have become known only since the opening of the Moscow archives. And since there are obvious contradictions between the witness statements on the one hand and the documentary and physical evidence on the other hand, some historians have tried to adjust either the witness statements or the mean- ing of documents and physical evidence by "interpreting" them. However, any attempt to interpret documents and physical evidence in a way that would confirm the eyewit- ness testimony perforce must fail, for physical and scientific facts are not open to arbitrary interpretation. For persons who lived through those times, the insistence on erroneous testimony is a very human phenomenon. For this reason one should not level accusations at persons who suf- fered injustices, even if they did make false statements - per-
haps unintentionally; those who should be blamed are the ones who sensationalize these statements. The Berlin daily paper Die Welt of February 7, 1997, ran an interesting article on this topic, titled "Wenn die Erinnerung eines Zeugen triigt" (When a witness's memory errs).29 This article con- firmed the long-established forensic guideline that "physical evidence takes precedence over witness evidence."
5. Documents and Other Evidence on Ground Water
We have used the following knowledge and materials for our analyses:
5.1. Maps
These are old maps from the Austro-Hungarian monarchy (still available for purchase today), scale = 1:200,000, dating from 1889, 1905, and 1915. Nothing could show more read- ily why the area around Auschwitz is so waterlogged. A large number of ponds, fed by the groundwater, stretches like a string of pearls along the Vistula and Sola rivers. This abun- dance of water, together with the abundance of coal in this area, was decisive for the decision to erect a coal gasification and liquification plant of the German chemical corporation
ca. 1660 m
Illustration 4: POW camp Birkenau in June 1944, including the alleged Bunker 2 and incineration pits.
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I.G. Farbenindustrie A.G. in this area. During the trial against the responsible officers of this corporation after the war, the witness O. Ambros listed the requirements for this huge fac- tory:30 one million tons of coal, and 15,000 m3 of water per hour.
We also consulted a Polish map, scale 1:25,000, dating from 1986 (Illustration 6). Both camps are shown on the maps, as is the industrial plant of the German chemical corporation I.G. Farbenindustrie A.G. The advantage of the scale of these maps is that they show the drainage ditches and even the smallest bodies of water. From the direction of their flow, es- pecially north of the camp, they show how the ground drops off towards the Vistula. The course of ditches corresponds to the planning shown in the "Melioration, Teil III" of August 15, 1942.31
5.2. American Air Photos
These photos were taken between end of 1943 and end of 1944 during reconnaissance flights as part of the Allied bombing campaign against industrial targets in the German industrial area of Upper Silesia. Some of them have been known since 1979, and those of interest here have been thor- oughly interpreted by the Canadian air photo expert John C. Ball.10
5.3. Files of the Various Building Administrations
The documents used were primarily files from the "Zentralbauleitung der Waffen-SS und Polizei, Auschwitz" (Central Building Administration of the Waffen-SS and Police, Auschwitz), in- sofar as they have been published or could be obtained. Tens of thousands more exist which we have not yet been able to access, basically due to our lim- ited financial possibilities. For this rea- son, we must expect that we shall have to revise our findings in matters of de- tail in the future.
5.4. Knowledge of a Co-Worker from our Team
He has performed an on-site examina- tion of the terrain and has taken a series of slides; we are of course aware that the conditions prevailing today are comparable to those of 1942 only to a limited degree.
6. Documents Regarding the Area's Abundance of Water
We have in our possession a four-page report dated October 29, 1941, based on the study of a professor from the Uni- versity of Breslau. It points out the groundwater flows "accompanying the Vistula, Przemsza and Sola Rivers."32
Another professor of the same university photographed and mapped the area's flora. Additionally, a groundwater obser- vation station was erected. We have not yet analyzed these files.
Since one study determined that the groundwater was "not even fit to rinse one's mouth," reference is made to the dams as a source of drinking water. However, mineral water was distributed. The report proves that the authorities proceeded very carefully and professionally.33
The Austrian map of 1905, scale = 1:200,000, clearly shows the string of ponds parallel to the Vistula and the Sola, fed stemming from the west Beskides, a mountain range south of Auschwitz.
The excellent Polish maps clarify the circumstances and indi- cate that the ponds probably formed as a result of the exploi- tation of gravel deposits and that their water table corre- sponds to the groundwater level.
Pressac documents this pond landscape with a "plan of the sphere of interest of the concentration camp Auschwitz."34 It confirms that most of those ponds are the result of gravel mining. An activity report of April 19, 1941, mentions "Added drawings of new ponds in the plan of the sphere of interest."35 An independent surveyor's office was doing this
Illustration 5: Detail of a Polish map of, scale 1:25,000. Elevations used in this pa- per are underlined.
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work. The voluminous files of this department have not yet been analyzed and will certainly give new insights, not only about the topic discussed here.
7. Which Materials Document the Level of the Ground Water?
Every publication of significance about these camps points out that the terrain is swampy. Logically, the only terrain that can be swampy is one where the groundwater level is very high or, as in this case, almost flush with the ground. Pressac confirms this fact with the following words:36
"The nature of the land at Birkenau, where the ground- water is almost at surface level, [...]" An Allied air photo from 1944 shows,37 to the north of the Birkenau camp, a 2. 5 -kilometer-long strip of land running west to east, where a herringbone-pattern system of drainage ditches is visible, approximately 1.25 kilometers wide and expanded in sections to reach right to the Vistula.38 The photo shows that the drainage work in the western regions was done only shortly before the air photo was taken. In the camp itself as well, drainage was performed between the drainage ditches that had been dug around the individual camp sectors.39 The entire ditch system is clearly shown on the Polish map, scale 1:25,000 (Illustration 6).
7.1. Text References to the Ground Water Level in Birkenau
From a building description of October 30, 1941:40
"The groundwater table varies be- tween depths of 0.30 and 1.20 m. "
(emphasis added) In a letter dated October 17, 1942, re- garding Crematorium II:41
"[...] the building reaches more
than 2 m into the groundwater
[...]" (emphasis added) In a letter dated March 17, 1943, regard- ing the large delousing facility (BW 32, "Large Disinfestation Facility," i.e. the so-called "Central Sauna"), with refer- ence to structural engineering:42
"[...] highest ground water level
may be taken as 0.30 m below the
surface. "
In another letter dated June 4, 1943, re- garding the same building:43
"[...] heating pits are relatively
deep, and so insulation from the
groundwater, which is about 20 cm
below the surface, is necessary
[...]" (emphasis added)
7.2. Plan Indication On the plan of the disinfestation facility (BW 32), No. 2159 of March 8, 1943, the cross-section clearly shows a line
7.3. Buildings With Tub Foundations Another sign is the planning and construction of buildings with tub foundations. Buildings are built with this kind of foundation when their basements stand in the groundwater, i.e. if they need to be waterproof. The basement becomes a pontoon, as it were, whose own weight, together with the weight of the superstructure, prevents it from bobbing up. The buildings are constructed in double-shell fashion. A wa- terproof layer separates the two shells. During the construc- tion phase, the groundwater level is either lowered with sump pumps or held back by icing-up the construction site. All the basement parts and basement pits in Birkenau are constructed as tub foundations.
It is important to note that the buildings with tub founda- tions listed in the following are spread over the entire camp, from north to south as well as from east to west. This indi- cates that the groundwater situation was similar in all parts of the camp.
1 . Crematorium II B W 3 0
2. Crematorium III BW 30a
3 . Crematorium IV B W 30b
4. Crematorium V BW 30c
5. Disinfestation Facility BW 32
6. Water Treatment Plant BW35
Due to their small surface area and depth, the subsoil at Cre- matoria IV and V was iced up.45 The excavation pits of the
labeled "groundwater table.'
,44
Illustration 6: Air Photo of POW camp Birkenau form Sept. 13, 1944.
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/
f ^*0.X iragesch 2 A3 ^5 - +-0,00 -J ~"" '—
Illustration 7: Enlargement of the detail from the building plan for the "water treatment facility of the POW camp. " Auschwitz- Birkenau, TCIDK 502-2-148. The elevation of the construction site above sea level is clearly marked (arrow).
other buildings were kept clear of groundwater via sunken wells equipped with pumps.46
7.4. Witness Statements Regarding the Ground Water in Birkenau
In the books with which we are familiar, one witness reports about groundwater in the aforementioned pits. This is Filip Milller in his book Sonderbehandlung.23 Milller was a mem- ber of a Sonderkommando. On page 36 he writes about a pit into which groundwater had seeped, and about a test to see how high it was:
"Then we were told to throw the bodies into the pit. [...] We took hold of the dead by their hands and feet and threw them full pitch as far towards the center of the pit as possible. When they hit the water 's surface it splashed to all sides. Then they sank like millstones to the flat bot- tom, and the water closed over them. "
8. Data Regarding the Terrain around Birkenau
For the terrain all around the camps, elevation data was — surprisingly enough — already available based on sea level, albeit with zero level referring to the Adriatic Sea. This ele- vation, measured at the time of the Austrian monarchy, is 0.38 m below the Atlantic sea level standard used otherwise in Europe.
Such elevations can be found, e.g., in the detailed maps of the railway facilities, including the connecting railroad tracks. It would go beyond the scope of this study to include them here, but it should be mentioned that we have them in our possession and have analyzed them.47
Buildings of the POW camp Birkenau, with elevation
Building
Plan
Elevation*
Date
1 . Crematorium II
2. Crematorium III
3. Guard Building
4. Settling Basin BA III
5. Water Treatment Plant
Huta 109/13a Huta 109/ 14a ZBL 835 ZBL 2534 ZBL 2364
235.366
235.366
235.93
233.71
235.45
Sept. 21, 1943 Sept. 23, 1943 Nov. 5, 1941 June 15, 1943 May 15, 1943
* m above sea level; ** page numbers refer to J.-C. Pressac, op. cit. (note 2).
The table below lists the building plans known to us with the elevation of their terrain above sea level. These are points of reference for our further observations.
The Polish map referred to earlier contains several reference points with elevation given which enable us to calculate the gradient of the camp's area in percentages. In Illustration 6 an excerpt of this map is shown with the elevation figures used underlined. The heights above sea level and, the distances and orientations given were also calculated from this map. At the camp's southern border, the area declines from its southeast corner to the southwest corner from 236.3 m to 234.4 m, which corresponds to a gradient of 0.138% over a distance of 1,380 m.
Along the camp road between camp sections II and III, the area declines in a similar way from 234.5 m at the east to 232.3 m in the west, i.e., 0.141% over 1,560 m. The gradient changes slightly some 300 m north of the camp, inclining from 232.3 in the east to 232.8 m in the west, i.e., 0.046% over 1,080 m.
Along the eastern border of the camp, the area declines from 236.3 in the south to 232.3 m in the north, i.e., 0.182% over 2,200 m. Some 1,500 m more to the north, we find the river Vistula at a height of 227.3 m.
Along the western border of the camp, parallel to the line mentioned before, the area declines from 235.4 m in the south to 232.8 m in the north, i.e., 0.112% over 2,310 m. Some 1,375 m north of the camp, we again reach the Vistula, this time at 228.0 m over sea level.
In his first book, Pressac has reproduced a German map of the camp, in which every single bar- rack of camp section II is annotated in handwriting with its individual elevation over sea level.49 The pur- pose of this is not clear. However, these data enabled us to draw de- tailed elevation lines for the camp. They start at the southeast corner of the camp at 235.5 m and end at the
Source
p. 323 p. 325 RGVA,48 see 111. 7 p. 169
RGVA 502-2-148, see 111. 8
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northwest comer at 234.5 m. They confirm both direction and amount of the gradient as established with the Polish map: the area declines 0.139% over 740 m. The direction is roughly north-northwest.
Of course, we have made additional corroborating analyses which lead to the same results. It must therefore be concluded that the camp area was and still is almost level. This is also confirmed by the elevation lines in the Polish map as well as by photos of the area.
Further calculations could be done, for instance by using war- time files on drilling drinking water wells in this area, but we have not had the opportunity to do this. D. Czech reports in her book on research of a Prof. Dr. Ing. Zunker, Breslau, on water and pond conditions for the purpose of using the area for cattle breeding and fish farming.50 This research was apparently the basis for the aforementioned construction description from Oct. 30, 1941 (chapter 7.1.), and the well drilling works re- ferred to in the "Construction report for November 1941".51 But since we have sufficiently exact data for several essential points of the area in question, we can now draw conclusions about the groundwater situation in Birkenau.
9. Summary of Preliminary Examinations and Conclusions
The primary basis for our assessment is an "Explanatory report for the preliminary design of the new construction of the POW camp of the Waffen-SS, Auschwitz O/S", dated October 30, 1941. 40 The soil at the construction site is described as follows: "Soil consistency is poor. The humus soil is followed by loam and shale [a fossil-rich, grayish blue, plastic marine clay from the Tertiary period], in which gravel and sand particles of minor size are embedded. The groundwater level varies between 0.30 and 1.20 m. Parts of the terrain are boggy. " (emphasis added) For structural engineering calculations pertaining to the basement parts, therefore, it was necessary to proceed on the assumption of a groundwater table of 30 cm. This in and of itself shows that pits 1.5 to 3.0 m deep would perforce have collected groundwater. However, there is further evidence. All facts mentioned fit the above description perfectly. The data regarding the level and direction of flow of the ground- water as well as the content of the documents quoted agree with the other observations. We shall present further evi- dence with respect to two locations of burning pits as de- scribed by eyewitness testimony.
9.1. Pits North of Crematorium V, Bw 30c
1. It has been shown that the oven pit, whose upper edge was positioned approximately 1 .00 m below ground level, was constructed in tub style. It has also been shown that during the construction of the building the pit was kept free of groundwater by means of icing-up.
2. Documents prove that at the location of the Large Delous- ing Facility (BW 32) the groundwater table was 20 cm below ground level. This building is situated approxi- mately 270 m away from Crematorium V. Assuming a 3%o slope of the groundwater table, and disregarding the proven slope of the terrain, the groundwater could have
been at most 1.01 m below ground level. We have delib- erately postulated a worst case, since it is already suffi- cient proof in and of itself. However, by the same logic, the groundwater cannot have been that far beneath the surface; if it had been, then on the one hand the terrain would not have been boggy, and on the other hand, ame- liorative drainage would have been superfluous. Wit- nesses give the depth of the pits as 2 m.
3. Four air photos specified reveal none of the five pits at- tested to by witnesses.
4. These five pits allegedly covered a surface area of at least 1,600 m2. The material excavated from them would have required approximately the same area. The concrete slab took up 900 m2. Without even taking into account that there would also have to have been room among all these items for the labor commando to go about its work, the requisite area of approximately 4,100 m2 did not exist be- tween the building and the ditch by the fence. This area actually comprises only 2,000 m2.
5. According to eyewitness testimony, the pond next to Crematorium IV, which is still there today, was already there in those days, fed by the groundwater. This is fur- ther proof of the high groundwater table.52
6. We shall dispense with recounting other impossible, al- leged events that violate the laws of nature. Anyone with an education will have no trouble recognizing them.
9.2. Pits Near Bunker 2
1. Just as for 2.6.1, the distance of the pits west of BW32 is approximately 320 m. Again disregarding the slope of the land, the groundwater table would be 1.16 m below ground level here. The witnesses placed the depth of the pits at 3.0 m.
. ; i schniitc-d
Illustration 8: Detail enlargement of the building plan of the main police station of the POW camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. The elevation of the construction site above sea level is clearly marked (arrow). This plan was obtained from the Moscow Central Archives, and without an archival reference number, which we are endeavoring to obtain.
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2. In conclusion it must also be pointed out that work on stage III of the ameliorative drainage had not yet begun in 1942. This is proven by a document dated November 25, 1942, which stated:53
"[...] that in all probability it will not yet be possible to begin thorough drainage of this terrain at full-scale in 1943. [...]"
Hence, the measures could not have had their full effect. Proof for this is provided also by air photos from Sept. 13, 1944.37
There are a number of further documents that provide proof of the fact here at issue; we shall dispense with detailing them, since they do not add any new information.
10. Conclusion
Burning pits of the depth alleged by witnesses were not pos- sible in Birkenau.
11. Opposing Expert Statements
For all our statements, we have tried to locate opposing views of experts in our field in order to address them appropriately. However, we neither found any opposing views from experts, nor any technically correct work by non-experts that would be worth considering. We therefore ask experts from the other side to address the issues discussed here. J.-C. Pressac may pardon us for not accepting him either as a technician or as an engineer. The "technical explanations" in his books are devoid of any basis, as indicated not only by the examples shown above. However, we are still grateful for his books, since they caused our own involvement in these matters. Without his books with their document reproduc- tions in abundance, there would not be a common basis for a discussion.
12. Researching the Reasons
Pressac 's generally neglected first book, which can be found only in major libraries, is filled with justified criticism, as we mentioned before, and we can agree with a lot of what he has to say, as well as with those of his contentions that we can confirm. From the multitude of his critical remarks, only a few shall be quoted, in order to understand the problem we are dealing with here:
"The witnesses state the contrary, and for them it is the
truth." (p. 16, 3rd col.)
"Five hundred (in actual fact 800) meters further on (from Bunker 2) there was another cottage designated Bunker I. [...], able to contain altogether 200 naked per- sons, (manifest exaggeration by the witness, practically the rule among all the early accounts). " (p. 161. 1st col.) "The interior of the cottage wj[sic] divided into four parts by partition walls [...], one of which could contain 7 200 naked people, the second 700 the third 400 and fourth 200 to 250.
(Making a total of 2,500 to 2,550 people, which repre- sents a density of 28 people per square meter over an area of 90 m2. This is physically impossible and S. Dra- gon's estimate of 2,500/2,550 is clearly wrong. I do not think that this witness was intentionally misleading, but
he was following the tendency to exaggerate which seems to have been the general rule at the time of the liberation and which is what gave rise to the figure of 4 million vic- tims for K.L. Auschwitz, a figure now [1989] considered to be pure propaganda. It should be divided by four to get close to reality.) " (p. 171, 3rd col.)
"[. . .], was four black columns of smoke, belched forth 24 hours a day by the Krematorien. This picture, of course, cannot be taken entirely at face value, because two of the Krematorien were out of service and aerial photographs taken during this period show no trace of smoke. An ar- gument has grown up over the discrepancy between the memory of survivors and the indisputable evidence of the aerial photos. " (p. 253, 1st col.)
"This study already demonstrates the complete bankrupt of the traditional history (and hence also of the methods and criticisms of the revisionists), a history based for the most part on testimonies [not any longer! note added], as- sembled according to the mood of the moment, truncated to fit an arbitrary truth [...]" (p. 264, 3rd col.) Only those who have studied Pressac 's books und perused it repeatedly after having gathered new information can see that Pressac had tried with all due restraint to correct false state- ments and to relegate the eyewitness testimony to its former status , and rightly so. From a perspective which is almost re- visionist in nature, he recognized that an inversion of this principle had to lead to false conclusions. Perhaps he even foresaw the possible consequences if these details become known to a wider audience. But how bad must the situation really be if even warnings from friendly sources, such as J.- C. Pressac, go unheard?
Our circle of researches includes individuals who experi- enced World War II. Those who have been herded together under conditions similar or worse than those that prevailed in the German concentration camps, i.e. the POW camps of the Allies after the war, have some understanding for erring in- mates and their overreactions. We also have made it a princi- ple to conclude that very frequently there is some truth to most rumors. This might be apply to the so-called Bunkers. To report the truth behind these eyewitness reports will be a topic for future publications.
Finally, we may close this article with the remark that per- sons residing in Germany who published sentences like those we quoted from J.-C. Pressac above would be prosecuted and sentenced for "Stirring up the people" and "Incitement to ha- tred." His or her books would be confiscated and, as with so many others before, destroyed!54 What is a democracy worth without freedom of speech?
Explanation of Terms Used
Drainage systems
Drainage systems lower the groundwater level of the drained area. This is done either by open ditches or closed pipelines, depending on the groundwater level.
(A)MELIORATION
Amelioration is the improvement of groundwater conditions, mainly for farming purposes. The recommended average
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level of groundwater for various types of agricultural use is:
- for lawn 50 cm to 80 cm,
- for pastures 60 cm to 70 cm,
- for crops 100 cm to 125 cm,
- for yards 120 cm.
Witness
In this paper we used the term "witness." However, we do have to stress that we do not know whether the testimonies we quoted were given in front of a court of law or are simply statements of certain individuals. The Auschwitz Museum contains a great number of such statements, as is well known. The evaluation certainly depends to a certain degree on this. Against all common practice, the pharmacist J.-C. Pressac, from whose book2 we quoted these statements, does not give any sources for these statements so that we are unable to check them. All we do know is that these statements certainly did not originate from experts.
We therefore can only ask you to assess these statements for yourself and to find out whether or not they were given dur- ing a trial. The authors, September 1997
Publishers Note
Half a year after the original German version of this article was released in print, in late 1998, the publisher was notified by the Public Prosecutor of Munich, District I, that this jour- nal issue was confiscated and subject to destruction and that a criminal case for "stirring up the people" and "incitement to Hatred" had been opened against both the publisher and the two authors. Among the reasons cited by the prosecutor was this article.55
Notes
This is a slightly abbreviated translation of the original German version: "Grandwasser im Gelande des KGL Birkenau (Auschwitz)", Vierteljahres- heftefiirfreie Geschichtsforschung (hitherto VffG) 2(1) (1998), pp. 2-12; on- line : vho. org/VffG/ 1 99 8/ 1 /GaeRad 1 .html
1 Frederick A. Leuchter, An Engineering Report on the Alleged Execution Gas Chambers at Auschwitz, Birkenau and Majdanek, Poland, Samisdat Publishers Ltd., Toronto 1988.
2 The drainage plan of the Birkenau camp was first published by J.-C. Pressac, Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gaschambers, Beate-Klarsfeld-Foundation, New York 1989, p. 209.
3 Fritjof Meyer, "Die Zahl der Opfer von Auschwitz. Neue Erkenntnisse durch neue Archivfunde" (Number of Auschwitz Victims: New Insights from Recent Archival Discoveries), Osteuropa, 52(5) (2002), pp. 631- 641; cf. the two contributions in this issue by G. Rudolf and C. Mattogno dealing with Meyer's article.
4 See the blueprints for the initial camp layout of Oct. 10, 1941, reprinted in J.-C. Pressac, Die Krematorien von Auschwitz. Die Technik des Mas- senmordes, Piper, Munich 1994, p. 185.
5 It will appear as part of a comprehensive revisionist history of Auschwitz in both German and English, published by Castle Hill Publishers and Theses and Dissertations Press, respectively, probably not before end of 2004.
6 Jean-Claude Pressac, op. cit. (note 2), pp. 161-171.
7 Ibid., p. 165, Pressac warns against regarding the settling basin of the sewage treatment plant begun in Section B III as "incineration ditches", an error which, according to him, has already occurred in the subject lit- erature. Compare his skepticism with regard to a Russian camp sketch of March 3, 1945, /Wrf.,p.l79.
8 Ibid., p. 162.
9 Ibid, p. 163.
10 Ibid., p. 164. We shall dispense with a discussion of the area require- ments of these pits and the materials excavated from them, and of the fact that no traces of such are visible on the air photos; cf. J.C. Ball and A.
Neumaier, in: E. Gauss (ed.), Dissecting the Holocaust, Theses & Disser- tations Press, Capshaw, AL, 2000, p. 271-284 and 467-495, resp. Jean-Claude Pressac, op. cit. (note 2), p. 161, 164. Ibid., p. 171-182.
Sheet 531.44 TYCHY - BOJSZOWY, scale 1:25.000. Jean-Claude Pressac, op. cit. (note 2), p. 171. Ibid., pA17. Ibid., p. 180.
Cf. D. Czech, Kalendarium der Ereignisse im Konzentrationslager Au- schwitz-Birkenau 1 939-1 945, Rowohlt, Reinbek 1989, pp. 305 and 346. Rossiskii Gosudarstvennii Vojennii Archiv, henceforth RGVA. This is the former Center for the Keeping of Historical Documentary Collections (Tsentr Chranenija Istoriko-Dokumentalnich Kollektsii). RGVA 502-1-332.
Jean-Claude Pressac, op. cit. (note 2), p. 253. Ibid., p. 420f. Ibid., p. 380.
Filip Miiller, Sonderbehandlung. Drei Jahre in den Krematorien und Gaskammern von Auschwitz, Steinhausen GmbH, Munich 1979, p. 207. See J.C. Ball, op. cit. (note 10) for more. Jean-Claude Pressac, op. cit. (note 2), p. 387.
In this process, the ground water is literally frozen, usually using nitro- gen, until the foundation is finished. J.-C. Pressac, op. cit. (note 2), p. 393.
Dr. Jan Sehn, Konzentrationslager Auschwitz-Birkenau, Wydawnictwo Prawnicze, Warsaw 1957, p. 173.
Klaus Wilhelm, "Wenn die Erinnerung eines Zeugen triigt," Die Welt, Feb. 7, 1997, p. 9.
Quoted acc. to Udo Walendy, Auschwitz im IG-Farben-Prozefi, Verlag fur Volkstum und Zeitgeschichtsforschung, Vlotho 1981, p. 163. RGVA 502-1-319.
RGVA 502-1-149-109/1 12. Further files we have not yet received seem to indicate intensive research in this area.
Cf. also the reference in Czech, op. cit. (note 17), for March 7, 1941, p.
80, to the studies by one Prof. Dr. Zunker regarding the water conditions.
J.-C. Pressac, op. cit. (note 4), Doc. 19.
RGVA 502-1-214-60.
J.-C. Pressac, op. cit. (note 2), p. 269,
National Archives Air Photo Library, 13.9.1944, Ref. No. RG 373 Can B 8413, exp. 3VI.
Re. drainage technology, cf. any engineering handbook, e.g. Hiitte. Des Ingenieurs Taschenbuch, Vol. Ill, W. Ernst & Sohn, Berlin 1951, pp. 1082ff.
Building description dated Oct. 28, 1942, discovered in Historicky ustav
Armady Ceske republiky, Prague; unfortunately the materials archived
there have not yet been given registration numbers when we received
copies from it several years ago. Plans specified 1 14,000 m of so-called
suction pipes 5 cm in diameter, as well as collectors (8,000 m of 6.5 cm
dia. and 4,000 m of 8 cm dia.). Two ditches carried the drainage water
from the camp to the Vistula river; the southern one via the "Konigsgra-
ben.".The material excavated from the ditches, some 1 10,000 mJ, was
laid down directly in the camp area so as to partly alleviate the problem.
Re. method of implementation, cf. RGVA 502-1-233-22 and 502-1-26-
194, 502-1-319.
RGVA 502-1-233.
RGVA 502-1-313.
RGVA 502-1-336-46.
RGVA 502-1-336/107.
J.-C. Pressac, op. cit. (note 2), p. 73.
RGVA 501-2-54-1 1.
RGVA 502-1-150.
RGVA 502-1-186.
Unfortunately the Central Archives in Moscow forgot to mark this plan
with an archival reference number.
J.-C. Pressac, op. cit. (Note 2), p. 195
Czech, op. cit. (note 17), p. 80, with date March 7, 1941.
RGVA 502-1-214-9/11.
According to the witness statements, the ashes of at least some of the murdered people were sunk in this pond, a claim which has yet to be in- vestigated.
RGVA 502-1-19-141.
About censorship in Germany, see online at
www.vho.org/censor/D.html#GB
StA Munich I, Ref. 1 12 Js 1 1282/98.
12
The Revisionist ■ 2003 ■ Volume 1 • No. 1
"Cremation Pits" and Ground Water Levels at Birkenau
By Carlo Mattogno
The article "Grundwasser im Gelande des KGL Kriegsgefan- genenlager Birkenau" ("Groundwater Levels at Birkenau Prisoner of War Camp") by Michael Gartner and Werner Rademacher,1 published in German for the first time in 1998 and reproduced in this edition, attempts to show that the exis- tence of "cremation pits" in the courtyard of Crematorium V and the area around the so-called "Bunker 2," as described by several eyewitnesses, was a technical impossibility due to the high groundwater levels at Birkenau.
Newly discovered documents now permit a more in-depth treatment of this important contention. Analysis of these documents is preceded here by a few comments of a more general nature.
Numerous documents from the Zentralbauleitung (Central Building Administration) of Auschwitz-Birkenau written be- tween 1941 and 1944 refer to very high water tables at Birk- enau, but we must first determine exactly what is meant, in concrete terms, by the references involved. An "Explanatory Report on the Preliminary Design for the New Construction of the Waffen-SS Prisoner of War Camp, Auschwitz O/S," dated October 30, 1941, states as follows, under the headline "Building Land":2
"The soil characteristics are poor. Underneath the humus soil are loam and chalky clay, with imbedded gravel and subterranean sand banks of lesser dimensions. The groundwater level fluctuates between 0.30 and 1.20 m. The terrain is marshy at the present time. " A "Construction Order for the Expansion of the Waffen-SS Prisoner of War Camp in Auschwitz O/S. Construction of 25 Barracks Buildings for Personal Effects," dated March 4, 1944, states as follows, under the heading "Building Land":3 "The soil characteristics are poor. Underneath 25 cm- thick layer of humus, loam appears, with imbedded gravel and subterranean sand banks of lesser dimensions. The groundwater level fluctuates between 0.30 and 1.20 m. The terrain is marshy at the present time. " Taken literally, this appears to indicate that the groundwater level at Birkenau had not dropped even a single centimeter in almost two and a half years, despite the fact that "sewerage system and water treatment" work ("Bauwerk 18) began on October 21, 1941, and was 60% finished on December 13, 1943. 4 However, it was not the drainage system which needed to be finished, but rather the waste water treatment system. Drainage excavation ditches E, F, and H of Bauab-
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Fig. 2: Report from the Continentale Wasserwerks Gesell- schaft dated 22 February 1943 (RGVA, 502-1-157, p. 4)
The Revisionist ■ 2003 ■ Volume 1 ■ No. 1
13
Fig. 3: Excavation work for the foundation of the Central Sauna in May 1943.
schnitt (Building Sector) III were almost entirely finished by September 1943. 5 This appears to suggest that the latter work was undertaken after the much more urgently needed work had been carried out on Building Sectors I and II. Furthermore, a "catastrophic" fall in the groundwater table in the area around Auschwitz had already been noted in Febru- ary 1944. This is evident from a letter from the head of the Central Building Administration Jothann "to the Regierungs- prasidenten - Division IIIQ - Kattowitz" dated February 10, 1944, which begins as follows:6
"As a result of the catastrophic fall in the groundwater level in the area around Auschwitz, the wells sunk to sup- ply the concentration camp and related operations are no longer sufficient. " (See Fig. 1) Although the above refers to Auschwitz Main Camp (con- centration camp) — rather than the Birkenau Camp, located some distance away, in the immediate vicinity of the Sola and Vistula rivers7 — this letter suggests that groundwater levels at Birkenau itself, less than one month later, on March 4, 1944, might also have been perceptibly lower than in October 1941. The references to the groundwater table in the documents prepared between 1943 and 1944 might not be based on actual investigations. They may well be purely bureaucratic in nature, reflecting, in reality, the situation of October 1941. In practice, the data under the heading "Building Land" might simply have been transferred from one document to another.
A series of hitherto undiscovered documents now permits a far more precise picture of the situation in 1943 to be formed. These documents consist of eleven reports from the Conti- nental Wasserwerks Gesellschaft relating to drainage work carried out at Birkenau between February 6 and August 7, 1943. The first three of these documents are accounting re- ports on extra work performed between 6-17 February8 (see
The remaining eight documents are lists of pumping hours worked at Birkenau, using hand pumps, between 21 and 27 March,11 28 March - 3 April,12 4-10 April,13 11-18 April,14 18 April - 8 May,15 28 June - 10 July,16 12 - 24 July17 and 26 July - 7 August18 1943. This work was performed for building structure (BW) 19, which was, of course, not related to the sewerage and water purification work at that time — these tasks were the responsibility of BW 18 — but rather to the camp water supply installation. Excluding the pos- sibility of error — the occurrence of which appears rather improbable — this anomaly might be explained by admin- istrative habit. A total of 1,931.5 pump hours were worked; for the most part, this work was performed in Construc- tion Sector (BA) II, during which, in particular, 251 pump hours were listed for drainage of the excavation work for Crematorium II and 269 pump hours for the drainage of the excavation work of Crematorium III. These two crematoria possessed a semi-subterranean cellar, the floor of which was approximately 2 meters below ground. Underneath the floor a 50 cm cellar foundation of concrete (Sohle) was laid, to act as a balance against the pressure ex- erted by underground water.1
It follows that groundwater levels may have fallen during this period of time, but certainly not below 2 to 2.5 meters. How are we to explain the fact that a photograph of the exca-
vation work on the Central Sauna taken in May 194 320 shows
Fig. 2), 18 February - 20 March/ and 22-31 March 1943.1
Fig. 4: Allied air photo of Birkenau camp north of Cremato- hum V. The mass graves are circled.
14
The Revisionist ■ 2003 ■ Volume 1 • No. 1
j- >■ 2r
Fig. 5: Drainage ditch running north of Crematorium V25 Fig. 6: Draining ditch in another sector of Birkenau Camp. The exact location can only be identified with difficulty. 6
a pit more than 4.3 meters deep, completely dry on the bot- tom21 (see Fig. 322)? The answer to this question is provided by the abovementioned reports: the excavation work which preceded the construction of the Central Sauna was certainly undertaken with the help of drainage pumps, and, it may be assumed, motor-driven pumps, since the reports contain no reference to construction works using hand-operated pumps at the Central Sauna.
Other documents confirm that the groundwater level during this time period was considerably higher than the above men- tioned 4.3 meters. A report dated May 9, 1943, relating to the measures taken by Kammler, then head of the Central Build- ing Administration, during his Auschwitz visit of May 7 of that year, states as follows23:
"The [SS garrison doctor] objected to the pit system stat- ing that pollution of the groundwater was to be expected due to the high water level [...]" In a later report on the topic of "Latrines in Construction Sec- tor III" dated July 19, 1943, Bischoff reported:24
"It must also be assumed with 99% certainty that the wa- ter is not filtered through the poor subsoil, and since Con- struction Sector III is located between the Sola and the Vistula, it is fairly certain that the flow of groundwater from this Construction Sector (in totally marshy terrain) also runs through the concentration camp, endangering the camp water supply through contamination of the groundwater. The installation of field latrines must, there- fore, absolutely be rejected on hygienic grounds, in addi- tion to which the terrain is already completely marshy, as already stated. " It is not improbable that the rise in the water table in Con- struction Sector II, which made pumping necessary in 1943, was caused by the flow of groundwater from Construction Sector III.
At the end of 1942, when the so-called "Bunker 2," with its alleged homicidal gas chambers, is according to common sources supposed to have entered into operation, work on Building 18, i.e., the drainage system, was only 40% fin- ished. Accordingly, the high groundwater levels were even higher at that time. Outside the camp terrain, the situation re- flected the situation described in the report dated October 30, 1941, i.e., the groundwater level still fluctuated between 0.30 and 1.20 m. It is therefore clear that the alleged "cremation
pits" at "Bunker 1" could not have been more than one meter deep.
The factual background to these mistaken eyewitness reports consists of mass graves excavated during the first half of 1942, when the small crematorium in the Main Camp was no longer able to cremate the bodies of the epidemic victims. The high groundwater level also provides a tentative explana- tion for the extraordinary length and width of these mass graves, to compensate for their lack of depth. Two of the air photos taken in 1944, in fact, show traces of four pits outside Birkenau Camp (approximately 160 meters north of Crema- torium V, see Fig. 4). These pits are approximately 10 meters wide; two of them are approximately 100 meters long, while the other two are approximately 130 meters long27. By the early summer of 1944, the groundwater level, which had fallen at the beginning of the year, had risen again. This is evident in a telegram from Jothanns to Kammler dated June 2, 1944. Jothann stated that he had refused approval, on hygienic grounds, for the use of 14 barracks located in Con- struction Sector III of Birkenau Camp, adding:28
"The barracks are only partly covered, the terrain is marshy, and not leveled in any way. There is a danger of pollution of the groundwater and the creation of other hotbeds of epidemics. " For this reason, any two pits, two to three meters deep, dug in the north courtyard of Crematoriums V, would certainly have struck water at the bottom. The groundwater level was even higher in the area near the so-called "Bunker 2," located out- side the grounds of the camp, rendering the excavation of pits of this depth absolutely impossible.
In March of 1945, the groundwater level was relatively low once again, as may be seen from Figures 5 and 6; by that time, however, six or more months had passed since the time period in question here: these photographs therefore depict a groundwater level different from that which existed during the summer of 1944.
Abbreviations
APMO: Archiwum Panstwowego Muzeum Oswiecim-Bre- zinka (Archives of the Auschwitz State Museum).
GARF: Gosudarstvennii Arkhiv Rossiskoi Federatsii (State Archives of the Russian Federation, Moscow).
NA: National Archives, Washington
The Revisionist ■ 2003 ■ Volume 1 ■ No. 1
15
RGVA: Rossiskii Gosudarstvennii Vojennii Arkhiv (Russian State Military Archives, formerly the TCIDK, Tsentr Khranenija Istoriko-Dokumentalnoi Kollektsii, Cen- ter for the Archiving of Historical-Documentary Collections), Moscow.
Notes
First published in Vierteljahreshefte fiir freie Geschichtsforschung 6(4) (2002), pp. 421-428; translated by Carlo W. Porter.
1 Vierteljahreshefte fur freie Geschichtsforschung, 2(1) (1998) pp. 2-12.
2 Erlduterungsbericht zum Vorentwurf fur den Neubau des Kriegsgefange- nenlagers der Waffen-SS, Auschwitz O/S. RGVA, 502-1-233, p. 14.
3 Bauantrag zum Ausbau des Kriegsgefangenenlagers der Waffen-SS in Auschwitz O/S. Errichtung von 25 Stck. Effektenbaracken. RGVA, 502-1- 230, p. 95a.
4 RGVA, 502-1-320, p. 67.
5 RGVA, 502-1-27, p. 7.
6 RGVA, 502-1-155, p. 11.
7 Because of the swampy nature of the area around Birkenau, it would have been impossible to drill for drinking water.
8 Continentale Wasserwerks Ges., Tagelohn- (Neben-) Arbeiten am 6.2. - 17.2. 1943, dated February 22, 1943. RGVA, 502-1-157, p. 4.
9 Tagelohn- (Neben-) Arbeiten am 18.2.- 20.3. 1943, dated March 22, 1943. RGVA, 502-1-157, p. 5.
10 Tagelohn- (Neben-) Arbeiten am 22.3. - 31.3. 1943, dated April 5, 1943. RGVA, 502-1-157, p. 6.
Aufstellung iiber die in der Woche vom 21.3. -27.3. 43 im Kgl geleiste- ten Pumpenstunden mittels Handpumpen, dated April 1, 1943. RGVA, 502-1-157, p. 54.
12 List from April 5, 1943. RGVA, 502-1-157, p. 53.
13 List from April 15, 1943. RGVA, 502-1-157, p. 52.
14 List from April 17, 1943. RGVA, 502-1-157, p. 51.
15 List from May 10, 1943. RGVA, 502-1-157, p. 50.
16 List from July 12, 1943. RGVA, 502-1-157, p. 44.
17 List from July 26, 1943. RGVA, 502-1-157, p. 43.
18 List from August 9, 1943. RGVA, 502-1-157, p. 42.
19 Letter by the head of Zentralbauleitung (SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer Bischoff) to Huta firm of October 14, 1942. RGVA, 502-1-313, p. 1 12.
20 Construction of the Zentralsauna started April 30, 1943. RGVA, 502-1- 320, p. 7.
21 "Nach den endgiiltigen Angaben der Heizungsfirma muB die Heizkeller- sohle von -3,70 auf -4,30 m vertieft werden." (Acc. to the final data given by the heating firm, the floor of the heating basement must be lowered down from -3.70 to -4.30 m) Letter by Bischoff of March 24, 1943. RGVA, 502-2-336, p. 19. This remark refers to the two hot air disinfesta- tion ovens installed in the basement of the Zentralsauna by the Topf firm.
22 APMO, Negative No. 20995/465.
23 RGVA, 502-1-233, p. 36.
24 RGVA, 502-1-83, p. 111-112.
25 APMO, Microfilm N. 909.
26 GARF, 7021-128-244, p. 28.
27 NA, Mission: 60 PRS/462 60 SQ. Can: D 1508. Exposures 3055 and 3056.
28 RGVA, 502-1-83, p. 2.
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The Revisionist ■ 2003 ■ Volume 1 • No. 1
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Auschwitz: The Dwindling Death Toll
It was not until 1989, that is 44 years after the liberation of the POW and concentration camp complex known as Auschwitz, that an international dispute started about the actual number of victims who had died in this camp com- plex. For 44 years, the Polish authorities and with them most of the world's mass media had been claiming that some four million inmates had perished there, but in 1989 they suddenly changed their minds and reduced this fig- ure drastically. As a consequence, the memorial plates on display in the camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, which had propagated the four million figure in many languages, were removed in 1990,. Following this dispute, an investiga- tive commission was formed to come up with a more acceptable number of victims.1 When this commission pub- lished its results in summer of 1990, it was widely distributed by the international media.2 The most astounding admission came perhaps from a prominent Polish journalist, who stated that the old, exaggerated figure was an "anti-fascist lie."3 New memorial plates were installed in Auschwitz in 1995, claiming an alleged "final" victim count of 1.5 million.
However, this "final" verdict did not end the controversy about the actual death toll at Auschwitz. In 1993 and 1 994, the French pharmacist Jean-Claude Pressac, at the time promoted by the international media as the expert on technical questions surrounding Auschwitz, reduced this figure twice, first down to 800,000, then down to 700,000.4 The next reduction, down to some 550,000, by Fritjof Meyer, a leading journalist of Germany's biggest news magazine, the left-wing Der Spiegel, followed in May 2002. Meyer's article appeared in the German geopo- litical magazine Osteuropa, which is published by the German Society for Eastern Europe under the directorship of Prof. Rita Siissmuth, who was once the president of the German parliament.
Since this periodical has a very small circulation, the article went largely unnoticed. Only a few organs of the Ger- man mainstream media took notice of it, so for example Sven Felix Kellerhoff in the daily newspaper Die Welt,
The Revisionist ■ 2003 ■ Volume 1 ■ No. 1
17
who wrote on August 28, 2002: "[...] the Holocaust deniers and Auschwitz relativizers have a new chief witness." He criticized the "flimsy evidence" on which Meyer based his calculations and charged that Meyer had selectively ignored evidence that did not fit his argument. Ironically Kellerhoff laid the ultimate blame not on Meyer, but on Meyer's adversaries, the Holocaust revisionists: "It is characteristic of Holocaust deniers that they choose their evi- dence selectively, considering only those arguments which support their viewpoint." Such turnabout criticism of revisionists has a funny ring to it. Kellerhoff then describes Meyer as "an honorable man" whose article "in and of itself was well intended," but who now receives "approval from the wrong side", i.e., from "diehards and neo- Nazis." Other than that, Meyer's article was discussed only in small German right-wing publications. The following articles will address the problem of the Auschwitz death toll. As an introduction, the first paper by Prof. Faurisson gives an overview of all major figures that were publicly promoted since the end of World War II. The next two papers critically review Meyer's article, and they refute Kellerhoff s accusation: It is not the revision- ists who practice selective consideration of evidence and accept only what fits into their world view.
How Many Deaths at Auschwitz?
By Dr. Robert Faurisson
Editor's Remark
When it comes to arguing about the correct number of vic- tims of the concentration camp Auschwitz, many people of- ten rely on usually unreliable newspaper articles written by journalists who have scarcely any competence in the matter. For this reason, Prof. Dr. Faurisson compiled a list of Auschwitz casualty estimates on December 12, 1995, which does not depend on any newspaper articles, but on publica- tions and public statements of individuals who are generally considered to have some kind of authority in this field, be it as historians or as witnesses.5 Fhis list has been updated by adding the most recent figure, which was published in May 2002. However, this list, which relies on "expert" statements, does nothing to help reduce the confusion — which does not put these experts' competence in a good light.
The Editor
Introductory Remarks
Among the historians who maintain the thesis according to which Auschwitz would have been an extermination camp, the main studies bearing on the number of the deaths in that camp are those of the Frenchman Georges Wellers, published in 19836 and 1990,7 and those of the Pole Franciszek Piper, published in 1991,8 1992,9 and 1994,10 respectively. Of these five studies, the most interesting are, for G. Wellers, that of 19836 and, for F. Piper, that of 1992.9 The two authors proceed to the reminder — painful for them — of the "errors" committed in the past as to the number of the Auschwitz deaths. Regarding this, I recommend reading G. Wellers, op. cit. (note 6), 1983, pp. 138-139 and F. Piper, op. cit. (note 9), 1992, pp. 5-16. Nothing shows better than those pages to what extent, on nevertheless so grave a topic as this, the number of the deaths, the worst fancies were indulged in.
Number of Victims Source
9,000,000 |
persons according to the documentary film Nuit et Brouillard (Night and Fog, title used in the |
English-speaking world) (1955), whose historical advisers were the historian Henri Michel and |
|
the woman historian Olga Wormser-Migot1 1 |
|
8,000,000 |
persons according to the French War Crime Research Office and the French War Crime Infor- |
mation Service) (1945)12 |
|
7,000,000 |
persons according to Raphael Feigelson (1945)13 |
6,000,000 |
Jews according to Tibere Kremer, writer of a foreword for Miklos Nyiszli (195 1)1 |
5,000,000 to 5,500,000 |
persons according to Bernard Czardybon (1945), according to confessions attributed to some |
SS members and according to the newspaper Le Monde (1978), which added: "of whom 90% |
|
of Jews."15 |
|
4,500,000 |
persons according to Henryk Mandelbaum (1945)16 |
4,000,000 persons according to a Soviet document of which the Nuremberg tribunal took "judicial no-
tice." This figure was inscribed nineteen times, with a commentary in as many different lan- guages, on the Auschwitz-Birkenau monument. It was repeated by a sizable number of persons, including the Polish historian Franciszek Piper. It was to be declared false in 1990 and re- placed, on the monument, in 1995, by the figure of 1,500,000 with the concurrence of the same F. Piper for whom this figure is a maximum, while the minimum figure is of 1,100,000. Ac- cording to Miriam Novitch (1967), of the 4,000,000 dead, 2,700,000 were Jewish. According to Rabbi Moshe Weiss (1991), more than 4,000,000 persons died at Auschwitz, of whom 3,000,000 were Jews.17
18
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Number of Victims Source
3,500,000 persons according to the Dictionnaire de la langue frangaise, published by Hachette (1991).
According to Claude Lanzmann (1980), there were 3,500,000 gassed of whom 95% of Jews as
well as many other deaths.18
3,000,000 persons until December 1st, 1943, according to a confession extorted from Rudolf H613, ex-
commander of Auschwitz19
3,000,000 Jews gassed according to David Susskind (1986) and according to Heritage, the most impor-
tant Californian Jewish weekly (1993)20
2,500,000 persons according to Rudolf Vrba at the Eichmann trial (1961)21
2,000,000 (?) to 4,000,000 (?) according to the historian Yehuda Bauer (1982)22
2,000,000 to 3,000,000 Jews killed as well as thousands of non-Jews according to a confession attributed to an SS non-
com, Pery Broad23
2,000,000 to 2,500,000 persons killed according to a confession attributed to an SS physician, Dr. Friedrich Entress
(1945)24
2,000,000 persons according to the historian Leon Poliakov (1951); according to the historian Georges
Wellers (1973) and according to the woman historian Lucy Davidowicz (1975)25
1,600,000 persons according to the historian Yehuda Bauer (1989), of whom 1,352,980 Jews26 (the latter
figure is from Georges Wellers, 1983)
1,500,000 persons this figure, chosen by Lech Walesa, replaced, in 1995, on the Birkenau monument, that
of 4,000,000 which had been withdrawn in 199027
1,471,595 persons of whom 1,352,980 Jews, according to the historian Georges Wellers (1983)28
1,250,000 persons or so, of whom 1,000,000 Jews killed and more than 250,000 non-Jews dead, accord-
ing to the historian Raul Hilberg29
1,100,000 to 1,500,000 persons according to the historians Yisrael Gutman, Michael Berenbaum, and Franciszek Piper
(1994).30
1 ,000,000 persons according to Jean-Claude Pressac (1989) and according to the Dictionnaire des noms
propres, published by Hachette (1992)31
800,000 to 900,000 persons according to the historian Gerald Reitlinger (1953)32
775,000 to 800,000 persons according to Jean-Claude Pressac (1993), of whom 630,000 were gassed Jews33
630,000 to 710,000 persons according to Jean-Claude Pressac (1994), of whom from 470,000 to 550,000 were
gassed Jews34
510,000 persons according to Fritj of Meyer (2002), of whom 356,000 were gassed Jews35
To my knowledge, the latter appraisal (510,000) is the lowest by the revisionists, to revise downwards, in such proportions,
that those who believe in the physical extermination of the the number of the Auschwitz deaths. How can it be explained
Jews have ever provided. It is sometimes said that in that at the Nuremberg trial (1945-1946), such a deception had
1946/1947, the Polish judicial authorities admitted the figure swiftly been taken "judicial notice" of, thanks to Section 21
of 300,000 deaths.36 That is an error. Those authorities esti- of that Tribunal's Charter? How can it be explained that so
mated the total of the dead at 300,000 persons registered on many of this world's great, including Pope John Paul II, have
their arrival, but, to that figure, they added the figure of been invited to come and bow in front of such quackery, in
3,000,000 to 4,000,000 unregistered persons.37 official ceremonies,? How can it be explained that in 1990,
For more than forty years, the Soviet, Polish, and Federal France equipped itself with an anti-revisionist law section
Republic of Germany authorities showed themselves very forbidding any disputing of the "crimes against humanity" as
discreet on the existence of death registers (Sterbebiicher) described and evaluated by the Nuremberg tribunal? And
which had been kept during the war by the Auschwitz camp then, how can the figure of 5,000,000 to 6,000,000 Jews dead
authorities. Under the pressure of the revisionists, at the two during the whole war be protected from any revision, if it was
Ziindel trials (Toronto, 1985 and 1988) in particular, those necessary to revise so drastically the figure of the deaths of
authorities at long last made revelations on those registers. Auschwitz?
They admit to having retrieved registers, but for the period Today, some Jews explain that the Poles, and they alone,
from July 27, 1941 to December 31, 1943. Since the camp could have invented the Auschwitz 4,000,000 lie. Actuated
was opened May 20, 1940 and as the Germans evacuated it by anti-Semitism and nationalistic pride simultaneously, the
January 18, 1945, that period represents a little more than Poles would have added to nearly 1,500,000 Jewish deaths
half the duration of the camp's existence under their author- about 2,500,000 Polish or other deaths!40
ity. The registers retrieved are, it appears, in the number of 46 This explanation is but a contrivance. The truth is that, by the
and would include 69,000 names (and not 74,000, as has war's end, not only Jewish communists, but also the judicial
been stated by certain journalists).38 authorities of Poland, were repeating that the majority of the
The supporters of the official version of the "Holocaust" have Auschwitz deaths were Jewish. At Cracow, in 1946-1947,
experienced some discomfort facing the necessity, imposed about the case of Rudolf HoB, the investigating magistrate as
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19
9,000,000 8,000,000 7,000,000f 6,000,000f 5,000,000r 4,000,000r 3,000,000 2,000,000 1,000,000 0
well as the prosecution had concluded that, besides a few hundred thousand "re- corded" deaths, there had been at Auschwitz either 4,000,000 or at least 2,500,000 deaths, "most of them Jewish".37 Besides, it should be no- ticed from the above list of various estimates that Jews themselves often gave numbers about their co- religionists' deaths at Au- schwitz which are higher than 1,500,000. They have therefore no right to blame their own exaggerations on non-Jews.
During the winter of 1963- 1964, a specific monument was built in memory of the "millions of Jews, martyrs and fighters" exterminated in that camp; the inscrip- tion was in Polish, in Yid- dish and in Hebrew.41 Let us add finally that, for the historians of the "Holo-
caust," most of the Auschwitz Jews would have been killed by means of an insecticide: Zyklon B.
For Arthur R. Butz and for other revisionists, the total num- ber of the Auschwitz deaths must have risen to some 150,000, of whom about 100,000 Jews.42 Most of the Jews were not killed but died, above all because of the typhus epi- demics. The revisionists point out that, if the Germans had had at their disposal greater quantities of the Zyklon B insec- ticide, precisely in order to fight those epidemics, fewer peo- ple would have died in Auschwitz not only among the Jews, the Poles, the Russians, and other detainees, but also among the German physicians, guards, and other officials.
Summary and Conclusion
According to the view of the official historians (i.e., those who are protected by laws of the French Republic and other European nations and by the power of the media), the Auschwitz death toll varies between 9,000,000 (the number given in Nuit et Brouillard (Night and Fog), a movie which has been compulsory teaching material for higher education in France since 1955) and 510,000 (this is the number esti- mated by a "leading editor" of Germany's largest news magazine, Der Spiegel, in the periodical Osteuropa in May 2002). According to these historians, those individuals have allegedly fallen victim to a policy of physical extermination. Revisionist authors, however, maintain that the number of victims is around 150,000, mainly caused by various epidem- ics, in particular typhus. Under the influence of revisionist authors, the court historians have started to make corrections
Variation of the Auschwitz Death Toll
Various numbers of victims of the Auschwitz concentration camp as claimed by official
authorities and historians:
Second column from the right: the lowest estimate so far, by Fritjof Meyer. Right-most column: maximum figure according to revisionist opinion (ca. 150,000). You have the free choice! At most one of these figures can be correct, but all the rest may potentially incite to hatred, and ut- tering them can lead to criminal prosecution in many European countries. But most important, it is considered highly offensive, if not outright illegal in those countries to make such compilations in the first place!39
of such a drastic nature that it is incomprehensible how France or any other European nation can dictate this number by law. The two official inscriptions on the memorial at Auschwitz-Birkenau, which followed each other — the first until 1990, the second since 1995 — are of great instructive value, though certainly without intention: They remind us that there should not be an officially decreed truth, neither in history nor elsewhere.
Nota Bene
This study constitutes but a sketch of the answers given or imposed to the question: "How many deaths at Auschwitz?" It would be easy to provide thousands of other references. The work's difficulty consists, however, in that, according to the case, the evaluations can bear on very ill-assorted catego- ries: in one case, the number of the "killed,", of the "gassed," of the "Jews" is evaluated, while, in another case, "deaths," "victims" are talked about and the "Jews" are not distin- guished from the "non-Jews". Sometimes, too, the evalua- tions are only about a limited period. As far as I am con- cerned, I have avoided any numerical extrapolation from a figure given for a short period of the Auschwitz camp's life.
Notes
© 18.12.1995; first published in Vierteljahreshefte furfreie Geschichtsfor- schung 3(3) (1999), pp. 268-272; updated in late 2002.
1 Cf. for this "Commission try to defuse Auschwitz controversy," The Ca- nadian Jewish News, Oct. 3, 1990, p. 5.
2 Daily press of July 18, 1990, e.g.: Krzysztof Leski, Ohad Gozani, "Po- land reduces Auschwitz death toll estimate to 1 million," London Daily
20
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Telegraph, July 18, 1990; UPI, "Poland lowers Auschwitz toll," Toronto Sun, July 18, 1990. In Germany, it was the leftwing radical daily news- paper die tageszeitung which published the lowest new victim figure on July 18, 1990: 960.000.
3 '"Ich empfinde Verlegenheit.' Der polnische Publizist Ernest Skalski iiber die neue Auschwitz-Diskussion in Warschau" ("I feel embarrassed": Polish author Ernest Skalski on the new Auschwitz discussion in War- saw), Der Spiegel no. 30 (1990), p. 1 1 1 .
4 See the article below, in particular notes 33 and 34.
5 Among the historians who maintain the thesis according to which Auschwitz would have been an extermination camp, the main studies bearing on the number of the deaths in that camp are those of the Frenchman Georges Wellers published in 1983 and 1990 and those of the Pole Franciszek Piper published in 1 99 1 , 1 992, and 1 994, respectively: Georges Wellers, "Essai de determination du nombre des morts au camp d' Auschwitz" (Attempt at determining the number of the deaths at the Auschwitz camp), Le Monde juif, October-December 1983, pp. 17-159; "A propos du nombre de morts au camp d'Auschwitz" (About the num- ber of deaths at the Auschwitz camp), Le Monde juif, October-December 1990, pp. 187-195; Franciszek Piper, "Estimating the Number of Deport- ees to and Victims of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Camp," Yad Vashem Stud- ies, XXI (1991), pp. 40-103. The latter study, corrected and enlarged, was published as a brochure in the English language printed in Poland: Auschwitz/How Many Perished/Jews, Poles, Gypsies..., printed in Poland by Poligrafia ITS, 30-306, Krakow, 1992, 68 p.
One can also consult: "The Number of Victims," in Yisrael Gutman, Mi- chael Berenbaum (ed.), Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp, pub- lished in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Mu- seum, Bloomington and Indianapolis, Indiana University Press, 1994, pp. 61-80. Of these five studies, the most interesting are, for G. Wellers, that of 1983 and, for F. Piper, that of 1992. The two authors proceed to the reminder — painful for them — of the "errors" committed in the past as to the number of the Auschwitz deaths. Regarding this, I recommend read- ing G. Wellers, op. cit., 1983, pp. 138-139 and F. Piper, op. cit., 1992, pp. 5-16. Nothing shows better than those pages to what extent, on neverthe- less so grave a topic as this, the number of the deaths, the worst fancies were indulged in.
6 Georges Wellers, "Essai de determination du nombre des morts au camps d'Auschwitz" (Attempt at determining the number of the deaths at the Auschwitz camp), Le Monde juif, October-December 1983, pp. 17-159.
7 Georges Wellers, "A propos du nombre de morts au camp d'Auschwitz" (About the number of deaths at the Auschwitz camp), Le Monde juif, Oc- tober-December 1990, pp. 187-195.
8 Franciszek Piper, "Estimating the Number of Deportees to and Victims of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Camp," Yad Vashem Studies, XXI (1991), pp. 40-103.
9 The latter study, corrected and enlarged, was published as a brochure in the English language printed in Poland: Franciszek Piper, Auschwitz/How Many Perished/Jews, Poles, Gypsies..., printed in Poland by Poligrafia ITS, 30-306, Krakow, 1992, 68 p.
10 Franciszek Piper, "The Number of Victims," in Yisrael Gutman, Michael Berenbaum (ed.), Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp, published in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Bloom- ington and Indianapolis, Indiana University Press, 1994, pp. 61-80.
11 Nuit et Brouillard, a 32 minute film in black and white untiringly spread in all of France's colleges and other secondary schools as well as on French television over the last forty years. Director: Alain Resnais. His- torical advisors: Henri Michel (Chairman of the World War II History Committee) and Olga Wormser-Migot. Text: Jean Cayrol. 1956 Jean Vigo Award. In that film, it is said that "nothing distinguished the gas [singular] chamber from an ordinary block." The concrete ceiling of the "gas chamber" is shown in it "ploughed up by the fingernails" and it is added about this: "even the concrete was getting torn up." It is asserted there that, with the bodies, "manufacturing soap is intended." "As to the skin" of the bodies, the image shows us that the Germans were tanning it. Those stories of scratched concrete, of human soap and of skin tanned by the Germans are on the order of the myth. With the camera lingering on the Birkenau landscape, the commentator says: "Nine million dead are haunting this landscape." This sentence is uttered towards the end of the film.
12 Jacques Billiet, Director of the War Crime Information Service, Docu- ments pour servir a I 'histoire de la guerre / Camps de concentration (Documents to be used for the war's history/Concentration camps), Of-
fice francais d'edition, 1945, p. 7 (J. Billiet himself) as well as p. 196 (Series of reports of the War Crime Search Office; these same reports evaluate at 26,000,000 the number of prisoners of war as well as of the political detainees having died in all the camps of Germany and of the occupied territories, p. 197). This work was written by Eugene Aroneanu.
13 Ibid, p. 196.
14 "6,000,000 innocents went through the chimneys of the ovens of Ausch- witz because one of their close or remote forerunners was of the Israelite religion," writes Tibere Kremer in his preface to a text attributed to Dr. Miklos Nyiszli, "SS Obersturmfuhrer Docteur Mengele / Journal d'un medecin deporte au crematorium d'Auschwitz" (SS Obersturmfuhrer Doctor Mengele / Diary of a physician deported to the crematorium of Auschwitz), Les Temps modernes, March 1951, p. 1655.
15 Bernard Czardybon at the Cracow R. H6I3 trial, according to F. Piper, op. cit., (note 9), pp. 7f. For the confessions attributed to some SS, ibid., p. 8. "Auschwitz, where perished more than five million men, women and children, of whom 90% of Jews" in "Manifestation du souvenir a Paris devant le memorial du martyr juif inconnu" (Remembrance demonstra- tion at Paris in front of the unknown Jewish martyr's memorial), Le Monde, April 20, 1978.
16 Henryk Mandelbaum at the Cracow R. H6I3 trial, according to F. Piper, op. cit., (note 9), p. 7.
17 From 1945 to 1990, it is this figure of 4,000,000 that was enforced as if by law. It emanated from a Soviet document dated May 6, 1945. The document was taken "judicial notice" of by the Nuremberg Tribunal, thanks to Section 21 of that Tribunal's Charter. It appears at pages 241- 261 of volume 39 of the official proceedings and documents of the Proces des grands criminels de guerre devant le tribunal militaire inter- national, Nuremberg 14 novembre 1945-ler octobre 1946, published, for the French version, at Nuremberg, Germany, from 1947 to 1949; that is to say TMI XXXIX, pp. 241-261; official English edition: official pro- ceedings and documents of the Trial of the Major War Criminals before The International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, 14 November 1945 - 1 October 1946: IMTXXXIX, pp. 241-261. The Russian original was translated into German and it was that translation in German which was reproduced in the French edition. The summation, in French, placed at the top of the document, states among other things: "More than 4,000,000 million human beings brought from the countries occupied by Germany were killed in the [Auschwitz extermination] camp, most gassed as early as on arrival." (p. 241). In fact, the document itself states, in German: "No fewer than 4,000,000" (p. 261). On p. 241 of IMT, XXXIX official English edition: "Over 4 million people from the countries occupied by Germany were killed in Auschwitz, in most cases by gas immediately af- ter their arrival." For the considerable number of persons who reiterated on their own that figure of 4,000,000 or of about 4,000,000, one can, to start with, refer to the names of the former detainees Shlomo Dragon, Henry Tauber, Erwin Olszowka, of the investigating magistrate Jan Sehn, of the prosecution attorney Pechalski, of the Professor-Engineer Roman Dawidowski, of the judges of the of Supreme National Tribunal of Po- land, of prosecution attorneys of American military tribunals, of all kinds of authors or historians and of people in charge of the Auschwitz State Museum such as Kazimierz Smolen, Danuta Czech, and Franciszek Piper (according to F. Piper, op. cit., (note 9), pp. 7-8, 12-14). Miriam Novitch: "Of the 4,000,000 victims of Auschwitz, 2,700,000 were Jews and 1,300,000 were non-Jews", in: La Verite sur Treblinka (The Truth on Treblinka), Israel, Beth Lohamet, 1967, p. 39. Rabbi Dr. Moshe Weiss, Former Vice President Mizrachi-Hapoel Hamizrachi: "More than 4,000,000 people perished [in Auschwitz]; almost 3,000,000 of them were Jews," in: "Yom HaShoah-Holocaust Remembrance", The Jewish Press, April 5, 1991.
18 Willy nilly, the lawyers of the defendants of the Nuremberg trial often took the same side as the prosecution. Thus was it, for instance, that Dr. Gustav Steinbauer, lawyer of Arthur Seyss-Inquart, declared July 19, 1946 before the tribunal: "Auschwitz engulfed, alone, 3,500,000 human beings, men, women and children" (TMI, XIX, p. 55; Auschwitz alone has swallowed up 3 1/2 million people - men, women and children. IMT, XIX, p. 48). "Auschwitz: [...] a great extermination camp where perished about 3,500,000 Jews and Poles between 1940 and 1945," Dictionnaire de la langue francaise, Hachette, 1991, 1430 pp. The following year, the Hachette publishing house reduced that figure to 1,000,000 (see note 31). "It is not possible to give to the thousand the exact number of those who perished in the Birkenau gas chambers (the most serious valuations hover around 3,500,000), but by extermination must be meant essentially the
The Revisionist ■ 2003 ■ Volume 1 ■ No. 1
21
Jewish people's. Ninety-five percent of Birkenau's gassed were Jews [...]. Many [other detainees] still lost their life [...]" (Preface of Claude Lanzmann to Filip Miiller, Trois arts dans une chambre a gaz d 'Auschwitz (Three years in an Auschwitz gas chamber), Pygma- lion/Gerard Watelet, 1980, p. 12.
On April 5, 1946, Rudolf HoB, the first of the three successive com- manders of Auschwitz, signed in his Nuremberg jail, for the American Lieutenant-Colonel Smith W. Brookhart, Jr., an affidavit in English where he stated : "I commanded Auschwitz until 1 December, 1943, and estimate that at least 2,500,000 victims were executed and exterminated there by gassing and burning, and at least another half million succumbed to starvation and disease, making a total dead of about 3,000,000" (doc. PS-3868). Ten days later, the American associate trial counsel, Colonel John Harlan Amen, read to him before the tribunal excerpts from docu- ment PS-3868, including the above excerpt, and asked him: "Is all that true, Witness?" R. HoB answered: "Ja, es stimmt" (Yes, it is accurate) (TMI, XI, p. 426, IMT, XI, p. 415: Yes, it is). R. HoB had been tortured. It was necessary to wait until 1983 to obtain, from one of his torturers' (Jews belonging to the British Military Security) very mouth, the circum- stances and the detail of the tortures: Rupert Butler, Legions of Death, London, Arrow Books, 1983, acknowledgements page and pp. 234-238. On this point and on the manipulations and trickeries which the texts at- tributed to R. HoB received from the American prosecution as well as on related revelations, see R. Faurisson , "Comment les Britanniques ont ob- tenu les aveux de Rudolf HoB, commandant d' Auschwitz", Annates d'histoire revisionniste, spring 1987, pp. 137-152 or "How the British Obtained the Confessions of Rudolf HoB," The Journal of Historical Re- view, Winter 1986-1987, pp. 389-403. Until these last few years, R. H6B was held by the majority of the historians of the 'Holocaust' for the no. 1 witness of the Auschwitz crimes (homicidal gassings and number of the victims). In 1993, one of those historians, the American professor Chris- topher Browning, requested by a Jewish British journalist to give his opinion on R. Faurisson's article, finally answered: "HoB was always a very weak and confused witness." The same professor was not hesitant to conclude: "The revisionists use him all the time for this reason, in order to try and discredit the memory of Auschwitz as a whole" (Christopher Hitchens, "Whose History Is It?", Vanity Fair, December 1993, p. 117). R. HoB gave many other estimations than that of 3,000,000 deaths until December 1st, 1943.
"When you quote the figure of 1,500,000 Jews, there again you falsify figures. It was 3,000,000 Jews that were exterminated at Auschwitz- Birkenau," David Susskind, president of the Brussels Jewish secular community center, letter published in Le Nouvel Ohservateur, May 30, 1986, p. 29. In an editorial on the matter of the Auschwitz Carmelites, Heritage, the Californian largest Jewish weekly, asserts: "[...] huge quan- tities of poisonous Zyklon B pellets [...] ended the lives of some Three Million Jews at Auschwitz" (June 7, 1993). The assertion proves the in- difference of that Jewish weekly's writers to the fact that, for the previous three years ,the world press, as a whole, had been reporting that such a figure was an enormous exaggeration.
"Consequently, on the basis of my calculations the final death roll in Concentration Camp Auschwitz was 2,500,000": this is what Rudolf Vrba stated under oath on July 16, 1961, at Israel's embassy in London for the Eichmann trial at Jerusalem. R. Vrba had the cheek to add that this figure catches up that given by R. HoB at the Nuremberg trial, while the latter had reckoned the number of the deaths at 3,000,000 until De- cember 1st, 1943, without providing an evaluation for the following four- teen months. R. Vrba added: "Thus my estimations of the death roll in Auschwitz, and the estimations of the death roll made by Rudolf HoB, though made independently of each other and using different methods, were nevertheless in good agreement": Rudolf Vrba and Alan Bestic, / cannot Forgive, New York, Bantam, 1964, pp. 269-272. It is likely that, for the historian Yehuda Bauer, the total of the dead of Auschwitz is of 2,000,000 to 4,000,000, given that he wrote, in 1982, about the sole gassed ones: "Between April 1942 and November 1944, in addition to the Soviet POWs, the gas extinguished the lives of probably up to 2,000 gypsies [in 1944], a few hundred more Soviet POWs, and be- tween 1,500,000 and 3,500,000 Jews" A History of the Holocaust, New York, Franklin Watts, 1982, p. 215. In 1989, that is to say seven years later, Y. Bauer evaluated the total of the dead (gassed or not gassed) at 1 ,600,000 of whom 1 ,352,980 Jews (see note 26). The SS sergeant Pery Broad, member of the Political Section (called "Gestapo") of the camp, is supposed to have written: "2,000,000 to
3,000,000 were put to death [at Auschwitz]! Besides thousands of Poles, Russians, Czechs, Yugoslavs, etc." ("Erinnerungen von Broad", KL Au- schwitz in den Augen der SS, Verlag des Staatlichen Auschwitz- Museums, 1973, p. 141.
"An SS physician, Friedrich Entress, who served as the camp doctor in 1942-1943, stated that, in his view, 2,000,000 to 2,500,000 people were killed in Auschwitz", F. Piper, op. cit., (note 9), p. 8. "Out of prudence, we are therefore going to settle for the figure of 2,000,000 [deaths at Auschwitz]," Leon Poliakov, Breviaire de la haine, Calmann-Levy, 1974 [1951], p. 496 (in English: Harvest of Hate). "[...] the exact number of the Jews assassinated in the gas chambers on alight- ing from the trains shall never be known. The prudent estimate is of the order of 2,000,000..." (Georges Wellers, L 'Etoile jaune a I 'heure de Vichy / De Drancy a Auschwitz, Fayard, 1973, p. 290; since this estima- tion bears only on the number (1) of the Jews, (2) gassed, (3) on their ar- rival, it is probable that for the author the total number of the persons dead at any moment and for any reason is well beyond the figure of 2,000,000; ten years later, this total number was evaluated by the same author at fewer than 1,500,000 persons (see note 28). For Lucy Dawid- owicz, the figure of 2,000,000 seams to be that of the Jews gassed: The War against the Jews / 1933-1945, New York, Holt, 1975, pp. 149-149. "There were never four million victims in Auschwitz [...]. The total num- ber of people who died there [...] was in the neighborhood of 1,600,000 [...]. The figure for Jews murdered by gassing is 1,323,000, with 29,980 dying in the camp," Yehuda Bauer, "Auschwitz and the Poles / Fighting the distortions," The Jerusalem Post, September 22, 1989, p. 6. The au- thor says that he is here taking into account the estimations of G. Wellers in 1983 but he transformed the total of 1,471, 595 (G. Wellers' figure) into ... 1,600,000! For his own estimation in 1982, see note 22. Until April 3, 1990, the commemorative plates of Auschwitz-Birkenau were bearing: "Here, from 1940 to 1945, 4 million men, women and children were tortured and assassinated by the Hitlerite genocides." The new text, developed after years of tergiversations, is the following: "May this place where the Nazis assassinated 1,500,000 men, women and chil- dren, a majority of them Jews from diverse European countries, be for- ever for mankind a cry of despair and of warning," Luc Rosenzweig, "Auschwitz, la Pologne et le genocide" (Auschwitz, Poland and the genocide), Le Monde, January 27, 1995, p. 1.
G. Wellers, op. cit., (note 6). To be compared with the same author's evaluation in 1973 (see note 25).
"Auschwitz [...] Number [of Jews] Killed: 1,000,000 [...]. The number of non-Jews who died in Auschwitz may be estimated on the basis of regis- trations and transfers at more than 250,000. Most were Poles," Raul Hil- berg, The Destruction of the European Jews, New York, Holmes and Meier, 1985, p. 895. For R. Hilberg, it seems that the Jews are always "killed" while the non-Jews are simply "dead."
"At least 1,500,000 people were murdered at Auschwitz-Birkenau" (p. 1 1). "At least 1,100,000 persons were killed or died in the camp. But if this number is regarded as a minimum estimate, what figure can we ac- cept as a hypothetical ceiling? [...] about 1,350,000 [Jews], with the total number of Auschwitz victims reaching about 1,500,000" (pp. 7 If). The sentence from page 1 1 appears on a map inserted in a chapter signed by Yisrael Gutman, "Auschwitz — An Overview." The sentences from pages 7 If appear in a chapter signed by Franciszek Piper, "The Number of Victims" Yisrael Gutman, Michael Berenbaum (ed.), Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp, op. cit., (note 10). Previously, for F. Piper, the number of the Auschwitz deaths was of 4,000,000 (see note 17). "The figure of 4,000,000 victims is now regarded as 'emotional' and should really [be] more in the order of 1 ,000,000," Jean-Claude Pressac, Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers, New York, Beate Klarsfeld Foundation, 1989, p. 264. "Auschwitz [...] where per- ished about 1 ,000,000 Jews and Poles between 1 940 and 1 945 ," Le Dic- tionnaire des noms propres, Hachette, 1992. For J.-C. Pressac's evalua- tion in 1993, see note 31 and, for his evaluation in 1994, see note 34. For the evaluation of a dictionary published by Hachette in 1991, see note 18. "The stark and inescapable fact that 800,000 to 900,0000 human beings perished in Auschwitz, its gas chambers and its camps," Gerald Reitlin- ger, The Final Solution, London, Sphere Books, 1971 [1953], p. 500. "Total of the deaths: 775,000 (but this figure can be attended with gaps. This is why the global figure of 800,000 victims should be retained cur- rently," Jean-Claude Pressac, Les Crematoires d 'Auschwitz /La Machin- erie du meurtre de masse, editions du CNRS, 1993, p. 148. For J.- C. Pressac's evaluation in 1989, see note 3 1 and, for his evaluation in 1994,
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see note 34.
"Total of the deaths: 631,000-71 1,000; [...] the number of the victims is evaluated at 630,000 to 710,000"; translation in German of the work re- ferred to just above: Die Krematorien von Auschwitz /Die Technik des Massenmordes , Munich, Piper, 1994, p. 202. For J.-C. Pressac's evalua- tion in 1989, see note 31 and, for his evaluation in 1994, see note 34. "Not too far away from this [Pressac's latest figures] is the result of this study with presumed 510,000 deaths, 356,000 of which were probably murdered in the gas," Fritjof Meyer, "Die Zahl der Opfer von Auschwitz. Neue Erkenntnisse durch neue Archivfunde" (Number of Auschwitz Vic- tims: New Insights from Recent Archival Discoveries), Osteuropa, 52(5) (2002), pp. 63 1 -44 1 , here p. 640.
This figure is mentioned in the German news reel Welt im Film, no. 137, Jan. 8, 1948. It incorrectly quotes the verdict of the Polish trial against several SS men who worked at the Auschwitz camp during the war. Where the verdict mentions 300,000 registered victims plus three to four million unregistered victims, the film footage mentions 300,000 victims in general.
See F. Piper, op. cit. (note 9), pp. 12f.
Staatliches Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau (ed.), Sterbebucher von Au- schwitz / Death Books from Auschwitz /Ksiegi zgonow z Auschwitz, 3 Vols., Saur, Munich 1995. Data taken from the table of this article.
In 1983, G. Wellers was ascribing this lie or this error of spectacular di- mensions neither to the Poles, nor to the Russians, nor to the Commu- nists. He was writing: "Depuis quelques annees, ayant compris les diffi- culty de ce probleme, et ayant retrouve la lucidite du jugement, on evite d'avancer des chiffes, mais on sait que 4,000,000 de morts a Auschwitz est un chiffre exagere, du au traumatisme, au choc naturel, inevitable qui dominait le psychisme des survivants pendant les premieres annees apres la fin de la guerre, apres la fin de leur cauchemar," G. Wellers, op. cit.,
(note 6). pp. 138f). G. Wellers was therefore questioning the "survivors," while forgetting to remind us of his own 1973 "prudent estimation" (see note 25). In 1989, Yehuda Bauer accused the "official Polish propagan- dists"; he said that "some Poles disseminate the wrong figures [...] in or- der to create a national myth"; he denounced "the Poles' concept of themselves as the crucified nation, the real sufferers of Europe": "Auschwitz and the Poles / Fighting the Distortions," The Jerusalem Post, September 22, 1989, p. 6. "The figure propagated by the Commu- nist regime was that 2,000,000 Jews and 2,000,000 non-Jews, mainly Poles, were killed;" Ben Helfgott, Chairman of Yad Vashem Charitable Trust, London, The Independent, 3 August 1 990. "The communists tried to 'de-Judaize' Auschwitz [...] said Lerman who is also a member of the International Council of the State Museum of Auschwitz"; "The Polish communists' false Auschwitz story," The Philadelphia Inquirer, March 29, 1992, pp. Al, 10. Luc Rosenzweig implicates "the National- Communist Vulgate"; "Auschwitz, la Pologne et le genocide," Le Monde, January 27, 1995, p. 1.
"In memory of the millions of Jews martyrs and fighters exterminated at the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp by the Hitlerian race murderers, 1940- 1945." That inscription appeared on a monument built, according to J.-C. Pressac, during the winter of 1963-1964 and subsequently(?) removed (J.-C. Pressac, op. cit. (note 31), pp. 262-263. "I feel reasonably secure in placing the total in the range 100,000- 150,000, probably closer to the former [...]. The number of Jewish deaths of natural causes at Auschwitz seems less than 100,000," Arthur R. Butz's review of Why Did the Heavens Not Darken? The "Final Solu- tion " in History, by Arno J. Mayer, The Journal of Historical Review, Fall 1989, pp. 369-370); see also "Some Thoughts on Pressac's Opus / A Response to a Major Critique of Holocaust Revisionism," ibid, May/June 1993, p. 26.
Cautious Mainstream Revisionism
By Germar Rudolf
1. Political and Psychological Observations
"Number of Auschwitz Victims: New Insights from Recent Archival Discoveries "
This is the title of an article by Fritjof Meyer which appeared in the German periodical Osteuropa in May of 2002. 1 Ac- cording to the article, Meyer, born in 1932, is a "Diploma DHP, Diploma Political Scientist, and Diploma Economist." The question arises, of course, why the "leading editor of Der Spiegel" Germany's biggest news magazine, did not have his article published in Der Spiegel, or at least a short summary. In this section, I will consider Meyer's article from political and psychological points of view. After that, I will analyze several of his statements, which will support the conclusions I have reached in this section. In his introduction, Meyer writes:
"In 1945, the Soviet investigatory commission counted four million victims in the NS labor and extermination camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau. This, however, was war- time propaganda. Under coercion, Camp Commandant Ho/3 named a figure of three million, which he later de- nied. Until now, one could only estimate the number of victims of this unique mass murder. The first historian of the Holocaust, Gerald Reitlinger, suspected one million, but the most recent research estimated several hundred
thousand fewer. Two new pieces of evidence on cremation capacity now back up existing documents concerning de- portations into the camp. Hence, the dimension of this collapse of civilization has attained a conceivable dimen- sion and provides a convincing Menetekel [Daniel's "Handwriting on the Wall"] for the following genera- tions. " (p. 631)
In the last sentence, Meyer writes as a political scientist who declares that Auschwitz must be an admonition to all Ger- mans, if not all humans, because of the collapse of civiliza- tion— a term not defined by Meyer — that allegedly took place there. Was it a collapse of civilization that Auschwitz had choirs, orchestras, kindergartens, a dental clinic, huge kitch- ens, microwave debusing stations,2 a hospital, a swimming pool3 and soccer fields? Let me quote from page 7 of the Je- rusalem Post for January 25th, 1995 (I trust the Jerusalem Post will not be accused of anti Semitism):
"Jewish children 's choir at Auschwitz-Birkenau: T was a member of that choir. [...] / [...] remember my first engagement with culture, with history, and with mu- sic— in the camp. [...]
'In March 1944, I was severely ill with diphtheria and was sent to the camp hospital barracks. My mother had asked to be transferred to stay with me in the hospital.
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[...] Nurses, doctors, and patients survived. [...] One of the youth leaders of our group... asked to estab- lish an education centre for children. He was given per- mission, and in a short time the education centre became the spiritual and social centre for the family camp. It was the soul of the camp.
Musical and theatrical performances, including a chil- dren 's opera, were held at the centre. There were discus- sions of various ideologies — Zionism, Socialism, Czech nationalism. [...] There was a conductor named Imre. [... who] organized the children 's choir. Rehearsals were held in a huge lavatory barracks. " Of course, Mr. Meyer refers to something else, i.e. the indus- trial mass murder of innocent human beings. That they are in a grotesque, if not insurmountable contradiction to the well- established and proven facts mentioned above, is not ac- knowledged by Meyer. For him, facts which do not fit into his image have "a purely propagandistic character."4 All that is needed to find out where the real geographic loca- tion of a collapse of civilization was is to consider the history of the camps of "automatic arrest," or of the vast open mead- ows on the Rhine where the Western Allies imprisoned hun- dreds of thousands of Germans without shelter; or else of Hi- roshima, Nagasaki, Dresden, Nemmersdorf, or of countless other locations of Allied holocausts. And this collapse of civilization was not committed by Germans, but was inflicted upon Germans (and their allies).
I also do not understand why the alleged murder and crema- tion of half a million people is more conceivable and con- vincing than the alleged murder and cremation of several mil- lions. The average person can not comprehend the mass mur- der of even ten people.
Subsequently, Meyer praises Jan Van Pelt, the Jewish Dutch professor of architectural history, for his "breakthrough." Needless to say, he neglects to mention that Van Pelt is not an architect, and that he lacks expert knowledge of the sub- jects he dealt with. This is what Meyer writes in regard of Van Pelt's appearance as "expert witness" during David Ir- ving's defamation suit against Deborah Lipstadt:5
"Irving, a proven successful researcher who increasingly
adopted the same confused
views as those National So- cialists he converses with,
lost the trial, and deservedly h#*; i
so, because he insisted upon
the nonsensical position that
there were no homicidal gas
chambers in Auschwitz-
Birkenau. " (p 631) I agree with Meyer that the views Irving presented to the London High Court were to a remarkable degree confused. I do not, however, understand how Irving' s lack of competence in this field can be shunted onto his revisionist colleagues — apart from the fact that Meyer has
abandoned all pretense of objectivity when he labels Irving 's revisionist colleagues, including myself, National Socialists, which, in the common understanding of the term, is almost equal to calling somebody a devil incarnate. Additionally, he offers no reasons why our opinions are "nonsensical." Such presumptuousness and collective slander can be found otherwise only in Meyer's footnotes, the context of which clearly indicates Meyer's bias:
" [...] Apologists for National Socialism ('revisionists') doubt that this building (gas bunker) existed at all: Jtir- gen Graf: Auschwitz, Wurenlos 1994, p. 236" (p. 632) 19 Carlo Mattogno/Franco Deana: The crematory ovens of Auschwitz, in the otherwise unbearable pamphlet by Ernst Gauss (ed.): Grundlagen zur Zeitgeschichte, [English: Dissecting the Holocaust] Tubingen, 1994, p. 310. Since historiography, for understandable but in- admissible reasons, has not accepted Auschwitz as an object for research, propaganda naturally invaded the unoccupied field. Propaganda of Soviet origin still con- trols public opinion, as in the number of four million at Auschwitz or over 400,000 murdered Hungarian de- portees, or mass gassings in the crematorium cellars. On the other hand, 'revisionists ' have very industri- ously gathered details: but they missed the points pre- sented in this study. Their assorted 'lost and found' bits caused the respectable philosopher of history Ernst Note as well as David Irving to become confused. Oth- erwise, historians have ignored them as a cause for thought or even as a challenge. The judge Ernst Stdglich ('Der Auschwitz-Mythos '), who is a barely disguised anti-Semite, was the first one to cast authen- tic doubt on several passages of the confessions of Hofi which were written in prison. Not only history, but also the seeking of truth must occasionally avail itself of dis- tasteful tools. Two well researched but tardy and still not completely satisfying refutations of the 'revisionists ' have recently appeared: John C. Zimmerman: Holo- caust Denial, Lanham, 2000; and Richard J. Evans: Der Geschichtsfalscher, [Forger of History] Frankfurt a.M., 2001. " (p. 635)
FOUR MILLION fEOflE SUFFERED AND Oltb MERE AT THE HANS>S OF THE NAZI MUKDEREKS SET WEEN THE YEAR! J940 AND !945
1
trt&m imp srnD *jm ere?] &*®m
Inscription on the Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial until April 3, 1990, propagating the "anti- fascist" number of four million victims in 19 languages.
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Again, skeptics and dissenters are depicted as devils by Meyer. He can no longer avoid confronting revisionist works, however, for he relies on revisionist sources to support his observations on the operation times of the Auschwitz/Bir- kenauer crematories, as we see in footnote 19. Caught in a di- lemma, the protector of political morality must have asked himself: How can I avoid lending credibility to revisionists? The answer was simple: declare all the other articles in Dis- secting the Holocaust to be "unbearable," "pamphlet"-like, and "unworthy." The only exception is the article by Mat- togno and Deana. Meyer feels no need to prove or to docu- ment anything he says; his pronouncements are all ex cathe- dra.
How can one explain such behavior? There are two possibili- ties. Perhaps he takes himself seriously. In that case he is po- litically blind, an extremist who denies other scientists their due respect and dignity. After all, Meyer belongs to those journalists who, in their majority, applaud when we "unbear- able," satanic, "unworthy" creatures are thrown into prisons. Or, on the other hand, he might simply be aware of "whose song he must sing," and cover his posterior by acting accord- ingly. With his partial revisionism (=partial denial), he too runs the risk of becoming a victim of the Court of Public De- cency if he is not careful. If Meyer had needed different ar- guments for a different subject, such as the difficulty of committing mass murder with diesel exhaust for example, he probably would have quoted the article by Fritz Berg in the same anthology. In that case he would have had to label all the others as unbearable, pamphlet-like, unworthy, etc. Mayer is correct when he remarks that historiography which is recognized as such by him has not accepted Auschwitz as a subject of research. I wish, however, he would have specified why he thinks this is "understandable!" I expect that we dis- agree already regarding the criteria for determining whether or not historiography has accepted a certain topic as a subject for research. For this reason I would like to introduce some- thing really basic here: a definition of "research." Research is that activity of the human spirit which critically compares appearance and reality, without uncritically accepting the former as being identical with the latter. Real research occurs only when results are uncertain at the outset, every result is a possibility, and all results are open to public criticism. Mr. Meyer is well aware that such an open-minded investigative research of the Holocaust is not possible in many countries of Europe, for certain results are punishable by law. He also knows that in nearly every country where the subject can le- gally be researched, it is still socially and economically ruin- ous to present unorthodox views. We can also safely assume that Meyer's article caused him quite some trouble, and we can also assume that he knows what would happen if he had leaned too far out of the window.
In other words, for political reasons it is simply not possible for historiography to present "Holocaust" as a subject for re- search and investigation. It is significant that Meyer himself belongs to those who support this political "Verbot" of re- search: He ostracizes and slanders all those who differ with him on essential points, going so far as to deny their dignity as human beings. Either he is unfamiliar with the basic rules
for scientific research, or, more probably, he is simply indif- ferent to science and the scientific method. Regarding the existence or non-existence of a building, often referred to as a "gassing bunker," it would have been appro- priate for Meyer to mention in his footnote 5 that Grafs statement in his 1994 book is no longer supported by him to- day and that other revisionists never agreed with him on this.6 Meyer's "Apologists for National Socialism ('revisionists')" doubt" is therefore not only polemic, but also wrong in its generalization. The real argument is not over the existence of the(se) building(s) but about their purpose. But now, after so much scolding, it is time to praise Mr. Meyer a bit. He is the first not only to quote a revisionist source, but, at least partially, to agree with it (he quotes Mat- togno again in his footnote 32, p. 637.) He acknowledges that revisionists have "very industriously gathered details," even though equating our work with that of Soviet propagandists like Ilya Ehrenburg. Has Meyer noticed that Ehrenburg con- tributed not a single detail to historical research, and that re- visionists do not advocate mass murder or a resort to institu- tionalized torture like the NKVD or SMERSH in their "in- vestigations?" Really Mr. Meyer, can't you see that there is a qualitative difference between revisionist research and Soviet propaganda?
Meyer's acknowledgement that revisionists have knowledge about many details implies another acknowledgement: he is familiar with the general body of revisionist literature. We can assume that Meyer has been accumulating revisionist publications for years, or at least monitoring them. This prompts me to examine more closely some of Meyer's fac- tual statements.
2. Meyer's Methodical Deficiencies
At the very outset, Meyer makes the following statement: "A key document containing information about the capac- ity of the crematories at Auschwitz/Birkenau has recently been found. Additionally, a statement of camp comman- dant Hofi about the time periods of their operation has surfaced. " (p. 631)
The idea of a key document gets our attention right away,
giving us hope of some new insight or discovery of a general
nature. A little further on, Meyer continues:
"[...] according to this document, a letter has been found in File 241 of the archives of the crematory company Topf & Sohne from Karl Priifer, who was the chief engineer in charge of construction in Auschwitz. The letter is dated September 8, 1942, which is nine weeks after Bischoff's message [June 28, 1943, sic!] and after completion of the crematories, i.e., after the first operational results. Ac- cording to Priifer, each of the two Crematories I and II cremated 800 bodies daily, each of the smaller Cremato- ries III and IV cremated 400 daily, altogether 2400. " (p. 634)
In order to support his contention that "the cremation time was one and one half hours13 for each oven chamber," Meyer also quotes the following source:
"n Auschwitz escapee Alfred Wetzler in WRB Report dated Nov. 25, 1944, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library,
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New York, page 12. Another version is printed in: San- dor Szenes/Frank Baron: Von Ungarn nach Auschwitz, Miinster, 1994, p. 126; Tauber in: Pressac, Technique (Fn.3), page 483. See also the statements of engineers Priifer, Schultze and Sander concerning Topf and Sons, made on March 5 and 7, 1946 by Captain Shatunovsky and Major Morudshenko of the Smersh Department, 8th Army, concerning the question of hourly capacity, Cen- tral Archive of the KGB of the USSR, Documents 1 7/9, 19)"
Meyer continues with HoB's testimony concerning the time a
cremation oven could be used uninterruptedly:
"Van Pelt provides still more surprising information with publication of a statement of Hofi made during cross ex- amination in Cracow Court in 1947: After eight or ten hours, the crematories could no longer be used... It was impossible to keep them in constant operation. ' " (pp. 635f.)
I am not going to deal here with the question of whether Meyer's statements are correct or not, since Carlo Mattogno deals with them in the following article in this issue of The Revisionist. However, I would like to make some remarks concerning Meyer's methodology.
To begin with, let me respond to the problem of the "key document." Meyer uses it to bolster his contention that an- other "key document," which is often quoted by researchers on the cremation capacity at Auschwitz, contains false and exaggerated figures.7 He quotes J. C. Pressac, who calls the newest document an "internal propaganda lie of the SS" on account of its exaggerated figures of crematory capacity.8 The question is, however, how Meyer can know for sure that Priifer' s letter is not just another propaganda lie told by the chief engineer of Topf & Son?
I am also surprised about Meyer's attempt to establish the ac- tual capacities of the various crematories, which is unfortu-
Pope John Paul II at the old memorial, praying for at least three million victims too many during his June 7, 1979, visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
nately too typical for those who Robert Faurisson called "pa- per historians." Why does Meyer rely on statements made by Auschwitz prisoners and testimony obtained through interro- gation by Soviet torturers? Why doesn't he consult profes- sional cremation experts, or at least visit the nearby cremato- rium at Hamburg? Since Meyer extensively quoted the work by Mattogno and Deana in other regards, why not quote it with regard to the capacities in question? This reminds me of something that happened in 1993, while I was completing my doctorate at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research. On January 20, 1 was participating in a seminar headed by my PhD supervisor, Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Hans Georg von Schnering, a colorful professor who was well known for his exacting standards. At that day, a certain Dr. Harald Hillebrecht was giving a lecture on laboratory measurements he had carried out. He mentioned a value of a certain compound's physical property which seemed so im- probable to my supervisor that he interrupted to ask where he could have gotten such a figure. When the lecturer answered that it was "word of mouth," from one of his colleagues, Prof, von Schnering fairly exploded with disdain:9
'"Word of mouth!' You can't use that! When it comes to 'word of mouth, ' everybody has his own little shithouse formulations. "
Meyer's procedure can be easily compared with this. Indeed, it is even worse, since Meyer does not resort to the voluntar- ily made remarks of an expert to establish technical data, but he uses statements of people who were either no experts on cremation technology at all (the witnesses H6B, Wetzler, Tauber, Schultze), and/or who testified under duress (H6B, Sander, Priifer, Schultze). This is not a method that deserves to be called "scientific." It is also no defense for Meyer to ar- gue that Carlo Mattogno has quoted these NKVD-compiled testimonies of the Topf engineers as well.4 Of course, it is permissible to quote statements made by experts, even if they
were made under questionable circumstances, but only in order to underline other results that were gained with reliable scien- tific methods, which is what Mattogno does. It is, however, unacceptable to use such iso- lated statements as reliable evi- dence for anything. But this is not the extent of Meyer's methodological defi- ciencies. At the beginning of his article he writes:
"That the existing evidence, i.e., documents pertaining to the refitting of these build- ings, which were not origi- nally designed to be gassing cellars (for example, inser- tion shafts and devices for measuring gas), as well as the well-known witness ac- counts, rather indicates that
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attempts were made in March and April of 1943 to use the mortuary cellars for mass murder in the early summer of 1943, cannot be discussed here.
"Apparently, the tests were not successful, both because the ventilation was counterproductive3 and because the expected masses of victims did not arrive during the ensu- ing eleven months. The actually committed genocide probably took mainly place in the two converted farm- houses outside of the camp. " (p. 632) Apparently Meyer believes that the documents and witnesses suggest that there were only attempts to convert the basement morgues of the crematoria into "gas chambers." He contends that the real location of horror was elsewhere. As usual, he supplies no evidence for his contention. In an email response to an early version of this article, Meyer very generally refers to "those 'criminal traces' of Pressac," but he must have missed that these "criminal traces" do not at all prove what he and Pressac claim they do.10 In fact, in the above quotation Meyer contradicts such key Auschwitz witnesses as Henryk Tauber, Miklos Nyiszli, and Filip Miiller. He can not use ig- norance as an excuse, since he quotes from Jiirgen Grafs book on leading Auschwitz witnesses. Meyer is openly con- tradicting the "body of evidence" (insofar as one can take the witnesses seriously - but that is a different matter.) Only after I asked him by email did Meyer claim that his claims would be supported "by observations of the important witness Henryk Tauber," but he does not mention, which of Tauber's observations he refers to.4 As a matter of fact, Tauber explicitly states that the gas chamber of crematorium II was in full operation in summer and fall of 1943. 11 Tauber also reports of uninterrupted extermination activities right into the fall of 1944, and of course about the usual four mil- lion victims.12 There is nothing in Tauber's statement that would indicate that homicidal gassings in the crematoria had been abandoned after initial experiments. That Tauber makes technically impossible claims — up to eight corpses in one oven chamber, flames belching out of the chimneys, self-burning corpses, female corpses used to ignite other corpses, accumulation of boiling human fat — , is a different matter and proves nothing else but that this witness is simply a vulgar liar when it comes to the alleged mass ex- termination. If considered in an isolated way, such testimonies cannot prove anything, not even whatever thesis put forward by Meyer.
About the other two witnesses, Meyer has made some quite re- markable statements, since he considers Miklos Nyiszli's book with its "extreme statements" to have been "obviously edited" and Filip Mtiller's report nothing but a "novel" — which, in Meyer's view, does not reduce the credibility of this witness's
testified court testimony (IMT, Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial). But why did he not publish such far-reaching statements in his article, rather than hiding them in an email which he for- bade me from publishing?
Meyer really cannot plead lack of knowledge when it comes to eyewitness accounts, since he himself quoted Jiirgen Grafs book on the most important Auschwitz witnesses, and in his email to me he listed the names of many witnesses he relies upon (again without reference),13 which indicates that he knows what he is writing about. But why did he not quote his evidence where it was necessary, that is, in his article? It is of no help to anybody to hide them in private lists that he forbids to be published.
3. Meyer's Factual Deficiencies
I have already addressed Meyer's naive acceptance of Tau- ber's absurdities, which do not support Meyer's claims. Meyer makes another error in his footnote 3 when introduc- ing an argument which allegedly supports the failure of the conversion of the morgues into gas chambers: 3 "These openings were made at ground level whereas the Zyklon gas rose upward, toward the ventilation shafts; Jean-Claude Pressac in: Beate Klarsfeld Foun- dation (ed.): Auschwitz — Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers, New York, 1989. p. 288f. " (p. 632) Here one person incompetent in the exact sciences and in technology is plagiarizing another! Since 1993 I have pointed out over and over again that the difference in density between air and gaseous cyanide is negligible — apparently in vain. But even if Meyer's argument were true, it is too weak to es- tablish that those places once designated as having been "the absolute center" of the "geography of atrocities," as Prof. Van Pelt so lyrically phrases it, has been relegated to the trash pile. Considering the gigantic security problems which would have arisen from an assembly-line style of murder with hydrogen cyanide, does Meyer really believe the SS would have been discouraged by the question of whether cyanide-laden air should be blown out from above or below? But it does not stop there. Meyer continues:
U.S. President Gerald T. Ford laying down a wreath to commemorate at least three million victims too much at the Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial.
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"The actual genocide most likely took place primarily in the two converted farmhouses outside the camp. The foundations of the first house, the so-called 'White House, ' have recently been discovered.5 " Can anyone explain why the alleged bunker for mass murder would be more suitable than the basement morgues of Cre- matories II and III with their allegedly poor ventilation, when the alleged bunkers had no ventilation apparatus at all? In his reply, Meyer maintains that Bunker Ii had a ventilation system according to former camp commander Aumeier.4 If the revisionist thesis that the(se) farmhouse(s) was/were in- deed debusing facilities is correct,14 such a ventilation sys- tem would have been mandatory indeed. Meyer also knows that most witnesses on these houses state that there was no ventilation system. What Meyer does here is to selectively pick one witness account and ignore all the rest, simply be- cause it fits into his thesis. He cannot, of course, come up with anything more substantial, such as a document indicat- ing that there was a ventilation system in these farmhouses. However, this still does not prove Meyer's thesis that the original plan to use the morgues of the crematories was aban- doned in favor of the farmhouses due to an inefficient venti- lation system.
Objectively seen, however, Meyer may not be totally wrong here. As a matter of fact, the ventilation systems of the cre- matory morgues were planned to ventilate the morgues, but not homicidal mass gassing cellars or delousing chambers. The reason for this, however, was not the wrong direction of ventilation, but the simple fact that the performance of this ventilation system would not have been adequate.15 Due to the dangerous nature of hydrogen cyanide, it is also quite likely that it would have been used in buildings outside of the camp's immediate vicinity, for example in those farm- houses.16 This would have been the proper way of arguing, whether one were talking about homicidal gassings or delous- ing gassing.
In his footnote 5, as already mentioned above, Mr. Meyer hopes to prove the existence of the so-called bunkers. And what scientific evidence does he offer as proof?
"Corriere della Sera, 11/20/2001. - Le Monde, 11/20/2001, - dpa [German Press Agency] 11/19/2001. " One could have added the German tabloid Bild of Nov. 1 1 , 2001, which carried the same story. Methodically seen, it is more than questionable to rely on daily newspapers in the first place, because journalists frequently report superficially and unreliably. Imagine what we would have to accept as true if we believed everything in the tabloid papers! However, the newspaper articles cited do not mention any- thing about recently found foundations of what Meyer calls "Bunker I," but rather an existing residential building which a researcher from the Contemporary Jewish Center for Docu- mentation in Milan claims to have identified as the former Bunker I — wrongly so, as Carlo Mattogno has shown in a de- tailed study.17 Apparently Meyer has confused something here. Pictures of the foundations of a former building outside of the Birkenau camp with an unknown history were pub- lished by J.-C. Pressac in 1989. However, these are the rem- nants of Bunker II, not Bunker 1 , at least according to Pres-
sac.18 We must therefore conclude that there are still no mate- rial traces of Bunker I, which does not, of course, prove that such a building with an unknown purpose did not exist. This is aside from the fact that Meyer is again disseminating shithouse science, this time from the German Press Agency. Carlo Mattogno proved efficiently and scientifically that the GPA{DPA?} report consisted of outdated and warmed-over hoaxes.19
It is also significant that Meyer's article does not mention open-air burnings of bodies in deep ditches, which are prominent in eyewitness testimony. These allegedly took place in deep ditches near the bunkers which Meyer prizes so highly. Meyer merely mentions in passing:
"According to Hofi around 107,000 bodies were exhumed from mass graves around the end of November 1942 and burned on pyres.21 Pressac disputes this number, counting only 50, 000. 22 Still unexplained is the location of remains of victims of the very large number of gassings which took place during the winter of 1942/43, that is, up until the time the crematories went into operation. Until now this has not even been recognized as a problem. We are justi- fied in assuming that around 57,000 of the 100,000 un- registered victims who arrived between December 1942 and March 1943 were burned in the open. Hofi included them in his testimony.
Less those victims of the Hungary operation whose bodies were burned on pyres [...]" (p. 636) Meyer is right: The question of where the victims of these al- leged mass murders could have been cremated during "Op- eration Hungary" (and before the crematories were com- pleted) has heretofore not been recognized as a problem. He too fails to recognize the real problem, however. The simple fact is that witnesses claimed the bodies were burned in deep pits, and this is a physical impossibility because of the high water table around Birkenau.20 Furthermore, John Ball, on the basis of numerous Allied aerial photographs, proved in 1992 that no large-scale burnings took place at the time, either on pyres or in pits.21 Meyer's transfer of the site of the alleged mass murders to the so-called bunker(s) increases the scope of the alleged problem. He contributes nothing toward solv- ing the problem — he merely disguises it. Once again he pre- sents a problem in a way which contradicts his own sources: He changes deep ditches into above ground pyres. Also, concerning the hotly debated question of alleged open- ings for the insertion of Zyklon B in the ceiling of Cellar Morgue 1 of Crematories II and III, which might or might not have ever existed, Meyer makes another assertion which is as dogmatic as it is unfounded:
"Then, both Irving and Van Pelt sank their teeth into the question whether or not the openings made in the ceiling for the insertion of Zyklon B during conversion of the morgue are still visible today (they still are, which Van Pelt did not yet know.) " (p. 633) This question, central to the dispute, is of a material nature and is solvable by objective means. It should have been one of the main questions to be addressed in his article, if only he were interested in facts. But no, Meyer takes refuge behind an assertion in parentheses. No wonder his point is com-
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pletely mistaken. If it were any different, one could have expected arguments.
4. The Numbers of Victims
In his short 1998 article on the evolution of Auschwitz victim numbers, Thomas Ryder predicted the continuing lowering of these numbers in the near future.23 He may have been overly optimistic about the rapidity with which the numbers would decline, but he was certainly correct about the tendency. Meyer's latest contribution to the numbers game states:
"These considerations lead us to the con- clusion that half a million people were murdered in Auschwitz, including 356,000 who were gassed.37 " After a short reference to the fact that the number of four million originated with Soviet propaganda, Meyer gives details of the state- ments made by Auschwitz Commandant Ru- dolf HoB. Regarding his treatment by his Brit- ish captors he reports:
"After three days of torture and sleep deprivation,41 flogged after every answer, naked and forcibly alco- holized,42 the first interrogation came about under 'shock- ing evidence, ' as H6J3 reported later: T have no idea what is in that confession, even though I signed it. The alcohol and the whip were too much for me. 43 At 2:30am he signed the following statements in a strained and irregu- lar hand:
I estimate that cca (sic) 3,000,000 persons died at Auschwitz proper. I assume by estimation that around 2,500,000 of these were gassed.44 " (p. 639.) Meyer goes into detail about the various and well- documented tortures which HoB underwent, and shows that the numbers which he gave could not possibly be correct. It would have been appropriate for Meyer to acknowledge the researchers who first reported on HoB's tortures and on the impossibility in his confession. Courtesy between scientific researchers demands no less. The fact that one dislikes A. R. Butz, W. Staglich, and R. Faurisson does not give anybody the right to trample on academic custom and courtesy.24 In keeping the style of his article, Meyer ends with a political statement:
"This result does not relativize the barbarity, but rather verifies it — an even more stringent warning against re- newed collapse of civilization. " However, Meyer did not succeed in verifying the barbarity of the National Socialists here. As far as Auschwitz is con- cerned, he succeeded only in confirming the barbarity of the official historians, who trample on the most basic fundamen- tal rules of scientific research. This is yet another offense against civilization which must be rectified.
5. Conclusions
In his contribution, Meyer has reduced the numbers of vic- tims of Auschwitz once more; has more or less abandoned
Inscription on the same monument in 1995 'May this place where the Nazis murdered a million and a half men, women and children, a majority of them Jews from diverse European countries, be forever a cry of despair and of warning for mankind. Auschwitz-Birkenau
1940-1945"
the crematories of Auschwitz-Birkenau as locations of mass murder; for the first time, a revisionist source has been quoted and at least partly acknowledged as being correct; fur- thermore, he has publicly accepted as correct the fact that former Auschwitz commandant HoB was tortured, and he doubts the veracity of HoB' statements. In his private writ- ings, he also admitted that the highly praised books of two authors frequently referred to as "key witnesses," Miklos Ny- iszli and Filip Miiller, have been edited or are nothing but novels, and he has once again characterized Mattogno's work as acceptable. We may therefore hope for the future. "It moves," after all!
Considering, however, the massive methodical as well as fac- tual deficiencies of his article, it seems droll for Meyer to ac- cuse us revisionists, in his footnote 19, of having "missed the points presented in this [his] study [...J."25
Notes
First published in Vierteljahreshefte fiir freie Geschichtsforschung 6(4) (2002), pp. 371-378; translated by James M. Damon.
1 Fritjof Meyer, "Die Zahl der Opfer von Auschwitz. Neue Erkenntnisse durch neue Archivfunde" (Number of Auschwitz Victims: New Insights from Recent Archival Discoveries), Osteuropa, 52(5) (2002), pp. 631- 441.
2 Jiirgen Nowak, "Kurzwellen-Entlausungsanlagen in Auschwitz", VffG 2(2) (1998), pp. 87-105; Hans Lamker, "Die Kurzwellen- Entlausungsanlagen in Auschwitz, Teil 2," VffG 2(4) (1998), pp. 261- 273.
3 Robert Faurisson, "Das Schwimmbad im Stammlager Auschwitz," VffG 5(3) (2001), pp. 254f
4 Email by F. Meyer to G. Rudolf, Nov. 8, 2002:
"[...] Ihrer Zeitschrift, die einen rein propagandistischen Charakter tragt [■■■]"
5 Cf. VffG 4(1) (2000), pp. 2-50.
6 Cf. R. Kammerer, A. Solms, Das Rudolf Gutachten, Cromwell Press, London 1993, p. 32; G. Rudolf, Das Rudolf Gutachten, Castle Hill Pub- lishers, Hastings 2001, pp. 97f.
7 Manfred Gerner, "Schlusseldokumenf ist Falschung", VffG, 2(3) (1998), pp. 166-174; cf. also C. Mattogno, " ,' Schlusseldokument' - eine alterna-
The Revisionist ■ 2003 • Volume 1 ■ No. 1
29
tive Interpretation," VffG, 4(1) (2000), pp. 51-56.
8 J.-C. Pressac, Die Krematorien von Auschwitz. Die Technik des Massen- mordes, Piper, Munich 1994, p. 103.
9 January 20, 1993, at 9:48 am in Room 4D2 of Max Planck Institute in Stuttgart, Germany
10 Summarized: G. Rudolf, The Rudolf Report, Theses and Dissertations Press, Chicago 2003, with further references.
11 "At the end of 1943, the gas chamber was divided in two [...]"; "These fittings [Banke, Kleiderhaken, falsche Duschkopfe] were not installed un- til autumn 1943," J.-C. Pressac, Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers, The Beate Klarsfeld Foundation, New York 1989, p. 484.
12 Ibid., pp. 500f.
13 "Briider Dragon, Feinsilber, Langfuss, Lewental, Buki, Benroubi, Briider Gabarz, Tabeau, Lettich, Nyiszli, Gulba, Wisorka, Wohlfahrt, Puchala, Bila, Wolken, Plastura, Porebski, Paisikovic, Eisenschmidt, Rozin, Schellekes, Hejblum; SS: HoB, Aumeier, Kremer, Munch, Broad, Bock, Holblinger, Lorenz, Hradil, Kaduk." Jiirgen Graf plans to deal with the testimonies offered as evidence by Meyer at a later date..
14 TCIDK 520-1-24-77, 30.11.42; 520-1-24-33, 3.12.42; 520-l-332-46a, 9.1.43; 520-1-26-66, 9.4.43; 502-1-238-10, 30.9.43.
15 C. Mattogno, Auschwitz: Das Ende einer Legende, in: Herbert Verbeke (ed.), Auschwitz: Nackte Fakten. Eine Erwiderung an Jean-Claude Pres- sac, Vrij Historisch Onderzoek, Berchem 1995, pp. 133-135.
16 Mentioned for the first time by H.J. Nowak, "Kurzwellen-
Entlausungsanlagen in Auschwitz,, VffG 2(2) (1998), pp. 87-105.
17 Carlo Mattogno, "Die 'Entdeckung' des 'Bunkers 1 ' von Birkenau: alte und neue Betriigereien," VffG 6(2) (2002), pp. 139-145; this article will be published in English the next issue of The Revisionist.
18 Op. cit. (note 11), p. 176.
19 Carlo Mattogno, "Die 'Entdeckung' des 'Bunkers' von Birkenau: alte und neue Betragereien," VffG 6(2) (2002), pp. 139-145.
20 See the two contributions by Michael Gartner/Werner Rademacher, and Carlo Mattogno in this issue.
21 J. Ball, Air Photo Evidence, Auschwitz, Treblinka, Majdanek, Sobibor, Bergen Belsen, Belzec, Babi Yar, Katyn Forest, Ball Resource Service Ltd., Delta, B.C., Canada 1992 (online: www.air-photo.com).
22 Cf. my expert report, op. cit.. (note 10); more recently: C. Mattogno, "„Keine Locher, keine Gaskammer(n),' " VffG 6(3) (2002), pp. 284-304; this article will appear in English in one of the upcoming issues of The Revisionist.
23 "Die Formel der Wahrheit," VffG 2(3) (1998), pp. 204f.
24 Although Meyer mentions Staglich's skepticism regarding HoB' testi- mony— he erroneously calls him Ernst Staglich — and the title of his book, he fails to mention the usual referential data (location, year, page). Butz and Faurisson aren't mentioned at all.
25 After reading the initial version of this article, Meyer even stated he un- derstood why I was so angry, since the German right-wing weekly Na- tionalzeitung had "declared my study to be the 'truth,' thus inflicting a defeat upon the revisionists," op. cit. (note 4). LOL.
Auschwitz: Fritj of Meyer's New Revisions
By Carlo Mattogno
1. The Background
In 1993, Jean-Claude Pressac published his second study on Auschwitz,1 which provided even more grist to revisionist mills than did his first study.2
For this reason, Pressac 's second book was devastated by Franciszek Piper, head of the history department of Ausch- witz Museum, in a long and vicious review.3 Piper's critique was a kind of ritualistic excommunication of Pressac by the official historiography. As a result, the American and Euro- pean Holocaust lobbies placed the French researcher under their ban, which continues to this day. It was no coincidence that in the Irving-Lipstadt defamation trial, the defense did not choose Pressac to defend the orthodox version of homi- cidal exterminations at Auschwitz. Instead they chose Robert Jan Van Pelt, who was much inferior to Pressac in historical knowledge, methodology and critical ability. One of the greatest sins committed by Pressac in his research was that he involuntarily destroyed the fragile evidentiary ba- sis which devotees of the Holocaust story had laboriously cobbled together in decades of tedious effort. The official his- toriography had until then supported (and to an extent con- tinues to support) the view that in the summer of 1941, Auschwitz Commandant Rudolf HoB received orders from Himmler to exterminate all the Jews of Europe in his camp. According to this story, Auschwitz was converted to an "ex- termination camp" with crematories designed and constructed at Birkenau to carry out the alleged policy of extermination. Pressac, however, definitively proved just the opposite: that the crematories were planned and constructed as ordinary sanitary installations. On the basis of highly questionable
"criminal traces" he then declared that, around the end of November 1942, they had been converted into extermination facilities.
Another unforgivable sin of Pressac consisted of relegating eyewitness testimony to a lower grade of importance than documentary evidence, even though he himself often failed to live up to the principle. Worst of all, he accepted the scien- tific methodology of the revisionists.
In 1994, I concluded my review of the second Pressac book
with the following remarks:4
"In an article in Le Monde which appeared on 21s' Feb- ruary 1979, 34 French historical researchers published a statement which ended with the following words: "It is impermissible to ask whether such mass murder was technically possible. Mass murder was technically possi- ble because it happened, and it is the obligatory starting point for every historical investigation of the subject... " Jean-Claude Pressac did not abide by this directive. He wanted to deal scientifically with the questions of crema- tory ovens and alleged gas chambers in Auschwitz and Birkenau, even though he was utterly incompetent to un- dertake such a study.
He felt obliged to embrace the methodological principle of the revisionists, according to which, in case of contra- diction between eyewitnesses and forensic science, the latter must be given precedence. In compliance with this principle, he correlated the numbers of 'poison gas vic- tims ' with the capacity of the cremation ovens, although he greatly overstated the capacity. By doing this, he caused a crack in orthodox historiography. Forensic sci-
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ence clearly demonstrates the physical impossibility of mass homicidal exterminations at Auschwitz and Birke- nau; if Pressac wants to pursue scientific arguments he must accept scientific conclusions, for better or worse. Otherwise, he has no choice except to furl his sails and join the French historians in declaring that it is imper- missible to inquire about whether such mass murders were scientifically possible. " Faced with this dilemma, Holocaust historians have reacted in different ways. Some, such as Van Pelt, have sounded the retreat and entrenched themselves in the twilight morass of eyewitness accounts, where the light of science can not shine.5 Others, such as John C. Zimmermann, violate science and historiography by responding to revisionist arguments with bald-faced lies.6 Now a real wizard has joined the fray: He accepts the scientific framework of revisionist arguments and puts Pressac in the shade by simply tossing overboard the "criminal traces" with which the French historian attempted to prove homicidal gassings in the Birkenau crematories.
2. The Revisions of Fritj of Meyer
In May 2002, Fritj of Meyer, former chief editor of the Ham- burg news magazine Der Spiegel, published a rather startling article with the title "Die Zahl der Opfer von Auschwitz. Neue Erkenntnisse durch neue Archivfunde" (The Number of Auschwitz Victims: New Revelations through New Archival Discoveries).7 Meyer defends the thesis of homicidal gas- sings but deviates from his predecessors in two important points. In the first place, he moves the center of the alleged mass murders from the crematories to the so-called "Bun- kers" of Birkenau. In the second place, he lowers the number of Auschwitz victims to 510,000. This contrasts greatly with 1,100,000 (the number presently postulated by official histo- riography)8 and 711,000 to 631,000 (the numbers postulated by Pressac.)9.
Meyer maintains that "The actual genocide probably took
Ernst Zundel in 1 990 in front of the removed old memorial plates at Auschwitz-Birkenau
place in the two converted farmhouses outside the camp" (p. 632). Since in his view 510,000 persons were killed in the camp, of whom 356,000 were gassed, it is clear that he thinks the alleged mass murders took place almost entirely in the Birkenau "Bunkers."
Meyer touches on several important themes, including the basic question of whether the Birkenau crematories could have been used as instruments to commit the alleged mass murders. He also deals with the number of persons deported to Auschwitz as well as, of course, the total number of vic- tims.
3. The Two Foundations of Meyer's Revisions
In the following I shall analyze primarily the twin founda- tions of Meyer's thesis, which he summarizes as follows:
"Existing documents concerning camp deliveries provide new evidence about the capacity of the crematories. " (p. 631) He continues:
"A key document giving information about the capacity of the crematories at Auschwitz and Birkenau has recently been found, along with a statement of camp commandant Hofi concerning their useful life. In conjunction with in- formation about persons sent to the camp, which has long been available but largely ignored, the new evidence al- lows us to more accurately determine the number of per- sons murdered at Auschwitz. We now know there were half a million victims of genocide. " (p. 631) Meyer gives credit for his "breakthrough" to Robert Jan Van Pelt. But as we shall soon see, Van Pelt deserves no credit at all.
Since the basis of both of his theses have to do with cremato- ries, Meyer quotes the familiar letter written by Bischoff on June 28, 1943. It states that in Crematories II and III, "work- ing round the clock," 1,440 "persons" could be cremated daily. In Crematories IV and V, the daily number was 768. 10 He adds the following:
"With his arguments, Irving was completely unable to support his doubts about the accuracy of the document, which in this case were thoroughly justified. Van Pelt's re- buttal was more graphic, although not necessarily convincing. Seven years earlier, the French expert Jean-Claude Pressac had labeled the writing 'an internal propaganda lie of the SS. ' " (p. 634) Regarding the historical and scientific analysis of this document, I refer the reader to my article "Key Document: An Alternative Interpretation." It dealt with the doubts about the authenticity of this letter, which was written by the Central Building Administration of Auschwitz. Dated June 28, 1943, it deals with the subject of capacity of the crematories.11
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4. The First Main Point of Meyer's Thesis
Meyer continues:
"In the report which he prepared for the Irving/Lipstadt trial, Van Pelt supplied two new bits of information which were nothing less than sensational. Along with material which was already present but had hardly been consid- ered, the new information allows us to precisely calculate the total number of Auschwitz victims. Van Pelt practi- cally hid this new information in his 570-page work, hardly interpreting it, and he did not introduce it at the trial. It is outside his area of expertise, although it does not support Irving in any way. Van Pelt is the first to quote a document which, to the best of my knowledge, has escaped consideration until now. The document raises questions about Bischoff letter of June 28, 1943, by re- ducing Bischoff's figures by half.
It says that a letter from head engineer Kurt Prufer, who was employed in Auschwitz construction, was found in the archives of crematory firm Topf & Sons (now Erfurter Malt and Warehouse) in File 241. It is dated Sep. 8, 1943, that is, nine weeks after Bischoff's letter, and after com- pletion of the crematoria. Among other things, it deals with the results of initial operation of the crematory. Ac- cording to Prufer, each of Crematories I and II could cre- mate 800 bodies daily, while each of the smaller Crema- tories III and IV could cremate 400, for a total of 2400. " (p. 634)
Actually, Van Pelt has simply expropriated a discovery of Pressac's. I am not exaggerating when I report that this "newly discovered" document was in fact discovered by Pressac seven years earlier, in 1995. He stumbled across it while researching the archives of EMS (Erfurter Malzerei und Speicherbau.) In an article which appeared in 1998, Pres- sac summarized its contents as follows:12
"The question of capacity of the crematories at Ausch- witz-Birkenau is answered in an internal memo written by Prufer on Sep. 8, 1942, and bearing the heading 'Reichsfiihrer SS, Berlin-Lichterfelde-West, Krematorium Auschwitz: Confidential and Secret!' The memo states that the three double-muffle ovens of Crematory I could cremate 250 bodies daily, the four triple-muffle ovens of Crematory II 800 daily; those of Crematory III likewise 800; the two four-muffle ovens of Crematory IV 400 daily; and those of Crematory V likewise 400. Theoreti- cally this gives a total capacity of 2, 650 bodies per day, which was never realized. This memo, written by the best known German cremation specialist of the time, shows that the total cremation capacity of 4, 756 bodies per day, as stated by Auschwitz Central Building Administration in a report for Berlin dated June 28, 1943, is greatly exag- gerated. "
Thus this "sensational" document dates from September 8, 1942, not September 1943. This means it was written at a time when the crematories at Birkenau did not yet exist and thus cannot be considered an indicator of initial operational efficiency.
Pressac has not yet published this document, so I must rely on his evaluation and summarization. For a more detailed
treatment of the technical problems raised in this article, please refer to my two-volume work on the subject.13 As I have emphasized above, the Birkenauer crematories had not yet been constructed as of September 8, 1942. On or about August 23, the first triple-muffle oven had gone into operation in the crematory at Buchenwald; it was practically identical with the Birkenau model. There is no evidence to suggest that Prufer knew anything about the capacity of this setup. On the other hand, we know that the average mortality at Buchenwald during the period August 23 to September 8 was around 10 deaths per day.14 Thus, the alleged cremation of 800 bodies in 5 ovens, 160 bodies per day in a triple- muffle oven, could not possibly have taken place; it is just an extrapolation. However, this latter hypothesis is likewise technically unsupported. Even the Ignis Machine Works models in the crematory at Theresienstadt15 needed around 35 minutes per cremation,16 which corresponds to a theoretical maximal capacity of 41 bodies per oven per day and 123 bod- ies total for three ovens. Furthermore they burned oil rather than coke, which greatly increased efficiency. They also used an excellent, much improved system for introducing combus- tion air, which they had taken over from Volckmann-Ludwig Ovens. The Topf Oven System was downright primitive in comparison. Finally, the Ignis ovens utilized a huge muffle. This made possible an extremely efficient cremation system whose performance simply could not be achieved by the Topf ovens. Under these circumstances, it is impossible that a tri- ple-muffle Birkenau oven, which necessarily worked at a lower temperature, could accomplish 53 cremations per muf- fle per day (160-K3). A capacity of 50 cremations (400^-8) per day using the eight-muffle ovens is likewise impossible. From all this we conclude that Prufer' s memo of September 8, 1942 does not reflect reliable data, but rather wishful thinking.
Did Prufer really believe he could build a coke-fired crema- tion oven that would cremate a body in less than half an hour on average? I doubt it, for the simple reason that Prufer was very competent in the field of cremation. In his first proposal regarding the future Crematory II, Prufer had in mind a tri- ple-muffle oven such as did not yet exist, which could reduce to ashes two bodies within half an hour.17 Obviously he was envisioning a kind of oven which was radically different from anything in existence, something patterned on an instal- lation for large-scale cremation. However, the ovens which were subsequently built were all designed to cremate one body per muffle.
In the memo of Sep. 8, 1942, the capacity attributed to Cre- matory I is likewise enormously exaggerated. In the previous year, Prufer himself had stated to the SS Department for New Construction at Mauthausen Concentration Camp that the double-muffle oven could cremate a maximum of 144 bodies in 24 hours:18
"Our Herr Prufer has already informed you that two bod- ies per hour can be cremated in the proposed oven. " Thus Prufer was fraudulently attributing to the double-muffle ovens of Auschwitz the same capacity as the muffles of the oven at Gusen, a satellite camp of Mauthausen. According to a letter from the Topf firm to the SS Department for New
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Construction at Mauthausen, this oven ". . .in approximately 10 hours, can cremate 30 to 36 bodies."20 This was made pos- sible by an efficient forced-draught installation as well as a special muffle grate. Even the resistance movement at Auschwitz Camp, which consistently supplied fantastically exaggerated numbers of exterminations, was content to report a capacity of 200 bodies daily for Crematory I. A letter dated July 10, 1942 from Bischoff to Stutthof Con- centration Camp states that the five triple-muffle ovens of the future Crematory II were designed for an anticipated camp population of 30,000. This indicates that Priifer had already abandoned his earlier idea of cremating two bodies simulta- neously in a single muffle. In order to play along a potential customer for his firm, however, Bischoff stuck to the overly optimistic assumption of a cremation time of 30 minutes per body. This is the reason why he wrote: "According to Topf & Sonne of Erfurt, each cremation takes around a half hour." Practical experiments with these ovens soon exposed Priifer' s wishful thinking. After the war he stated that the ovens of Crematory II (and Crematory III as well, since they were ex- act copies) were able to cremate only one body per muffle per hour. My sources for this are the interrogations of Engineer Priifer as carried out by Soviet authorities of the counteres- pionage organization SMERSH between 1946 and 1948 and published by Gerald Fleming.22
In the session of March 5, 1946, the Soviet interrogator wanted to know:23
"How many bodies were cremated per hour at Ausch- witz? " Priifer responded:
"In a crematory with 5 ovens and 15 muffles, fifteen bod- ies were cremated. " This means an average cremation time of one hour per body per muffle and indicates that the theoretical maximum capac- ity of Crematory IV (and each of the ovens of Crematory V as well) in a 24-hour period was 192 bodies — half the num- ber given by Priifer on 8 Sep., 1942.
At his interrogation on March 19, 1946 Priifer elaborated as follows:24
"I have mentioned the enormous load to which the over- taxed ovens were subjected. I told Chief Engineer Sander I was worried about whether the ovens could withstand the excessive load. In my presence, two bodies were placed in one muffle, instead of a single body, and the ov- ens were unable to handle the load " (my emphasis) Thus the simultaneous cremation of two bodies in one muffle was impossible. I am speaking of course of rational economi- cal cremation, in which the muffles will not be damaged and the time requirement as well as consumption of coke are not doubled.
We note that the above-mentioned document alone suffices to contradict the assertion that the crematories of Birkenau could have been used for criminal purposes. It shows that there was precisely one muffle for every 2,000 prisoners; that is to say, the 46 muffles of the Birkenau Crematory were de- signed for 92,000 prisoners. According to future plans of the SS, however, the camp was to receive 140,000 inmates. Therefore 70 muffles would have been necessary,25 and the
number of available muffles was in fact inadequate for the planned camp expansion. How could the crematories, in addi- tion to processing the normal load of bodies of prisoners who died of natural causes, have possibly processed the victims of mass murder?
Meyer resorts to all kinds of reckless calculating tricks to an- swer that question. At first he maintains that the length of cremation lasted "one and a half hours" (p. 634). This was accurate for civilian ovens during the thirties, but not for the ovens of Birkenau, for which the average cremation time was one hour, as we have seen. The time mentioned by Priifer in his interrogation corresponds exactly to practical results of several experiments which I carried out in my studies of cre- mation.26
Starting with this interval, Meyer reckoned that, with hypo- thetical round-the-clock operation, each oven could cremate 16 bodies per day (1,440 minutes ^ 90 minutes per body = 16). He calculated that, in the 15 ovens of Crematories II and III, the daily cremation of 16 bodies x 15 muffles = 240 cre- mations. In conjunction with this he made the startling as- sumption that each muffle could be loaded with three bodies at a time. This raised the total number of bodies (3x240) to 720 per day. For Crematories IV and V he calculated a capac- ity of 48 x 8 = 384 cremations per day. Without doubt Meyer's second hypothesis (the simultaneous cremation of three bodies in a single muffle) contradicts both the technological possibilities of the time27 and Priifer' s tes- timony.
5. The Second Basis of Meyer's Thesis
The second basis for Meyer's thesis is a declaration attributed
to Rudolf HoB, which he relates as follows:
"Van Pelt provided a second surprise with the revelation of a statement made by Hofi during cross examination be- fore the Krakau court in 1947: 'After eight or ten hours, the crematories were no longer available for further use. It was impossible to keep them in continuous operation. ' Using a mean average of nine hours of daily operation}2^ each muffle yields, with three bodies per muffle, 18 cre- mations per day. In Crematories I and II inclusive 270 each, which makes 540 total; in Crematories III and IV 144 each, 288 together. The grand total is 828 per day. " (p. 635 )
The alleged statement by Rudolf HoB could be the result of a misunderstanding or a mistake in translation. I say this be- cause, during the hearing on March 11, 1947, the former commandant of Auschwitz gave a completely irrelevant an- swer to a question about the capacities of the crematories. Specifically he stated that Crematories II and III could cre- mate "...in a period of 24 hours (na przestrzeni 24 godzin), not more than 2,000 persons each".29 Technically seen, this statement by HoB is absolutely impossible. We know that the coke-burning Topf double-muffle oven at Gusen cremated 677 corpses between October 31 and November 12, 1941, and was in operation an average of 18 hours per day. The length of the Birkenau ovens' daily operation was limited by the necessity of cleaning the combustion grates. The removal of coke cinders30 was possible only when the oven was not
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burning, and required about a four-hour pause in operation (for cooling, cleaning and reheating.) Therefore, the maxi- mum operation time was on average 20 hours per day.31 Thus we get for Crematories II and II a daily capacity of 300, and 160 bodies for Crematories IV and V.
In the article which I wrote in conjunction with Engineer Franco Deana "The Crematory Ovens of Auschwitz-Birke- nau,"32 I calculated, in consideration of the numerous opera- tional lapses and breakdowns of the crematories, that Crema- tories II and III together were in operation 971 days, Crema- tories IV and V altogether 359 days.33 In his Footnote 19, Meyer accepts and includes them in his arguments as fol- lows:
"The conclusion is simple: on these 971 days of operation in I and II 262, 1 70 bodies were cremated; in III and IV in 359 days 51,696; altogether 313,866 dead who were cre- mated in Birkenau. " (p. 636) With this, Meyer multiplies the days of crematory operation by the highest possible number of cremations: 971x270 = 262,170 cremations in Crematories II and II; 359x144 = 5 1,696 in Crematories IV and V.
With these exercises in calculation Meyer commits an in- credible error of logic. He is postulating not a purely theo- retical maximum of cremations, but rather an actual number, as though the crematories had been operated full blast every day with a full load, never hindered by malfunctions and breakdowns! Here we must make clear that by "days of op- eration" of the crematories is meant simply every day on which the crematories were technically functional. It does not mean that they were in constant operation. Here Meyer is committing a double fallacy: First he makes the assumption that the crematories were in actual operation every day they were functional; second, he assumes that they were operated at full capacity as well.
Meyer's unfortunate inability to think logically leads him to massively overestimate the actual number of cremated bod- ies. For the year 1943, we are able to compare the numbers which he alleges, with the accurately documented numbers. Beginning with March 15, when large scale cremations in Crematory II began, until October 25, 1943, a total of 607 tons of coke and 96 cubic meters of firewood were delivered to all the crematories of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Since the heat value of the firewood corresponds to 21.5 tons of coke, we can simplify and speak of an additional 628.5 tons of coke. During this period Crematory II was in operation for 110 days, Crematory III for 123 days, Crematory IV 50 days, and Crematory V 82 days.34 In addition, Crematory I in the origi- nal camp continued in operation until July 17, 1943, thus, 125 days. To cremate a moderately emaciated corpse, the double-muffle oven needed around 25 kilograms of coke; the triple-muffle oven around 19 kilos, and the eight-muffle, 14 kilos.35 If we take into consideration the mean average of all these figures, as well as the length of time the crematories were in operation, we arrive at an average coke consumption of around 20 kilos per cremation. With the 628.5 tons of coke delivered to the crematories, one arrives at a theoretical maximum of 31,400 bodies (628,500-20). I say "theoretical maximum" because a very considerable part of the coke was
consumed in preheating the ovens, rather than for actual cre- mation.
Using his basis for calculations, however, Meyer estimated that the following numbers of cremations took place during the period in question:
- Crematories II and III: 233 x 270 = 62,910
- Crematories IV and V: 132 x 144 = 19,008
- Crematory I: 125 x 10836= 13,500
This gives a total of 95,418 cremations, which is more than three times the theoretical maximum.
According to the death books of Auschwitz, around 16,000 prisoners died between March 15 and October 25, 1943 (the number of continuing registrations extends from around 15,000 on March 15 to 31,000 on October 25.) According to this, each cremation (including warming the oven) required around 39 kilos of coke per body (628,500-16). In Danuta Czech's Kalendarium, however, it is alleged that around 118,000 people were gassed in this same period. If this were true, a total of around 134,000 corpses would have been on hand.37 Each corpse would have been cremated by around 4.7 kilos of coke, which would be radically impossi- ble under the laws of thermodynamics.38 The cremation of 16,000 persons who died of natural causes corresponds easily to the documented consumption of coke, but the cremation of 118,000 victims of poison gas could not have been possible under any conditions. This is proof that there were no deaths from poison gas.
This leads to another example of the crass absurdity of Meyer's structure of argumentation. In July of 1943, Crema- tory II was in operation from the eighteenth until the thirty- first of the month, but Crematory III was in operation the whole month; together they were in operation a total of 45 days. According to Meyer's calculations they could have cre- mated 12,150 bodies (45x270) — and therefore did cremate that number. According to the death books, however, 2,000 people died that month. Danuta Czech mentions in her Kalendarium a single gassing of 440 French Jews, on July 20. If one proceeds from the hypothesis that the gassings actually took place, the number of bodies would have risen to around 2,400, or a fifth of the number derived from Meyer's calculations. Meyer ignores still another significant argument, which I de- velop in Dissecting the Holocaust. That is the maximum ser- vice life of the fire resistant masonry in the Birkenau ovens, which, as I have shown, amounted to around 3,000 firings per muffle. Given 46 muffles, this gives a maximum number of 138,000 cremations.39 After reaching this number, it would have been absolutely necessary for Building Maintenance to replace the firebrick. However, in the correspondence be- tween the Topf company, which constructed the crematories, and Central Building Maintenance there is no mention what- soever of such an extensive undertaking.40 This provides still more evidence that the theoretically highest number of cre- mations in the Birkenau cremation ovens is around 138,000 rather than 3 14,000.
6. The Number of Victims
Let us now consider the method Meyer used to calculate the total number of Auschwitz victims.
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He begins with a figure of 3 13,866 bodies cremated in Birke- nau (which he rounds off to 314,000), then adds 50,000 cre- mated under open skies prior to November 1942. Then he adds another 57,000 for the period from December 1942 until March 1943, as well as 12,000 cremated in the base camp. These produce a grand total of 433,000 cremated bodies. In order to reach his final goal of 510,000 bodies, Meyer still needs 77,000 bodies. He recruits them from among the Hun- garian Jews.41 These dead bodies, he writes, were all cre- mated in the open air.
Of his total of 510,000 corpses, he tells us, 326,000 were in- cinerated in crematories (314,000 in Crematories II-V and 12,000 in Crematory I.) The remaining 184,000 bodies were cremated under open skies.
He believes that 356,000 prisoners were gassed, while an- other 154,000 died of "natural causes." Meyer arrives at his "gassed" figure by taking the 315,000 unregistered deportees and adding the 40,564 who, according to Danuta Czech, were gassed "in October of 1944 alone" (see p. 638). The latter, he says, were incinerated in the crematories. However, since he accepts my figures for the crematory operational days, and Crematories II, III, and V were all functional in October, he would have to take the theoretical maximum number for that month of 21,204 (Crematories II and III: 31x270x2 = 16,740 bodies; Crematory V: 144 x 31 = 4,464 bodies, altogether 21,204.) But why does Meyer accept the figure of 40,564 cremations in October 1944?
7. The Number of Cremated Bodies
As we have seen, Meyer maintains that around 314,000 peo- ple were converted to ashes in the Birkenau crematories. Let us now analyze this figure.
We have already pointed out that the numbers suggested by Meyer for the period March 15 to October 25, 1943, as well as October 1944, are infinitely exaggerated. For the first pe- riod his calculations produced 95,418 cremations, while the theoretical maximum number was 31,400. For the second pe- riod he suggests 40,564, even though his own system of cal- culating produces a theoretical maximum of 21,204. For these eight months we are dealing with a total of 95,418 + 40,564 - (31,400 + 21,204) = 83,378 postulated bodies which were cremated!
Between November 1943 and September 1944, according to Czech's Kalendarium, 95,000 people were gassed and cre- mated, not including the Hungarian Jews and those from Lodz. Concerning the first batch Meyer writes that they were cremated under the open sky, while he makes no mention of the second batch. According to his logic their bodies must have been cremated in the open, as well. Furthermore, if we deduct the individual figures of cremated bodies from the grand total, we get (314,000 - (31,400 + 21,204 + 95,000) =) around 166,400, too many to have been cremated. Who could these have been?
According to the estimates of F. Piper, around 80,000 regis- tered prisoners died in Auschwitz in 1943, 42 and around 30,000 in 1944^15.43 As for 1943, we have already calcu- lated, on the basis of coke deliveries, that a maximum of around 3 1 ,400 bodies could have been cremated for the pe-
riod from the beginning of operation of Crematory II until the end of October. This leaves the months of November and December, in which, if we extrapolate the number proposed by F. Piper, approximately 13,500 prisoners died, bringing the maximum number of dead and cremated to a total of around 44,500. Even in this case, however, there are still (166,400 - 44,500 =) 121,900 postulated bodies cremated. This is more than a third of all the cremations that took place during the existence of the camp, according to Meyer
8. Irreconcilable Contradictions
Fritjof Meyer's thesis contains contradictions which are even more glaring than those we have mentioned so far. He as- sumes a number of 510,000 dead, of whom 356,000 are pre- sumed to have been gassed. In addition he alleges that the al- leged mass murders occurred "for the most part" in the "Bunkers" of Birkenau. Since he rejects the theory of mass gassings in the Birkenau crematories, however, and since the story of the "gas vans" on which it depended has been re- jected by even orthodox historiography as propaganda of the immediate postwar period, it is obvious that the alleged 356,000 gassing victims met their death in the so-called "Bunkers." As far as method is concerned, Meyer's thesis is a black hole of logic, and nothing else.
As we have already noted, he is in fact defending the proposi- tion that all gassings took place in the "Bunkers."
"It is not possible here to discuss the point that the exist- ing evidence, i.e., documents pertaining to the refitting of these buildings, which were not originally designed to be gassing cellars (for example, insertion shafts and devices for measuring gas) as well as the well-known witness ac- counts, rather indicates that attempts were made in March and April of 1943 to use the mortuary cellars for mass murder in the early summer of 1943. Apparently, the tests were not successful, both because the ventilation was counterproductive31'1 and because the expected masses of victims did not arrive during the ensu- ing eleven months. The actual commission of the genocide probably took place mainly in the two converted farm- houses outside of the camp. The foundations of the first of these houses, the 'White House, ' or 'Bunker F has re- cently been discovered. " (p. 632) With the above statement, Meyer is challenging the tradi- tional theory of homicidal gas chambers in the Birkenau Crematories. He says he is relying on "existing evidence" but he does not specify a single item.
It is all too clear what has moved Meyer to this incisive revi- sion: It is the evidence provided by revisionist researchers, whose conclusiveness he cannot and will not acknowledge. Meyer disputes the gassings, despite the fact that Jean-Claude Pressac collected dozens of documents from which he ex- tracted around forty "criminal traces." These are best de- scribed as "arguable" but there is no doubt that the docu- ments themselves point to cellar morgues. Pressac and other exterminationists assumed they were homicidal gas chambers as well. Thus Meyer transfers the location of the alleged mass murders to the "Bunkers," although not a single document indicates that they were used by the Central Building Ad-
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ministration of Auschwitz for anything, not even as ordinary houses — not to mention mass murder!
Meyer quotes a "Construction Contract of the Building Ad- ministration to WVHA in Berlin" which deals with the "re- modeling of an existing house for special purposes" (no blueprints are available). The costs ran to "14,242 Reich- marks each" (his note #7). As I have explained elsewhere, however, this document has absolutely nothing to do with the alleged "Bunkers."44 This is because the construction contract appeared in a "Cost Proposal for Refurbishing of the Ausch- witz Prisoner of War Camp of the Waffen-SS" dated October 1, 1943. The reason why Meyer hesitates to mention the date is all too obvious.45 Furthermore, this document contains nothing more than reference to a "house for special pur- poses." It mentions one house but not two houses, so Meyer's statement that "both houses are mentioned" is false and mis- leading. Furthermore this house is mentioned in the "Prelimi- nary Report on Enlargement of the Waffen-SS POW Camp in Auschwitz" dated September 30, 1943. It is listed in Con- struction Zone III rather than among the outlying buildings, however. It was not outside the camp, like the so-called "Bunkers," but rather inside, along with Houses 903-914. All these houses were located in the area of Construction Zone III. They were taken over by Zentralbauleitung (Central Building Administration) and numbered as housing units, as is shown in Plan Nr. 1733 dated October 5, 1942. The house was used as "Temporary Sauna and Hygiene Station for the Troops." In a letter from Bischoff to Kammler dated January 9, 1943, he mentions the following: 46
"A disinfection device manufactured by Werner and a heater of the forced-air type manufactured by Hochheim, along with a Sauna of the same type, have been provi- sionally installed for the troops in the existing building in Birkenau. They have been in operation since December 1942. "
If Mayer disputes the existence of homicidal gas chambers in the crematories, for which the Exterminationists have pro- duced dozens of consistently misinterpreted documents, how can he then speak of homicidal gas chambers in the "Bun- kers" for whose existence there is no documentary evidence whatsoever?
By disputing homicidal gassings in the crematories, Meyer is also questioning the credibility of numerous eyewitness ac- counts. Why then believe the less numerous accounts of gas- sings in the "Bunkers"?
The whole thing is all the more foolish because the story of the "Bunkers" and their homicidal function is founded en- tirely on eyewitness accounts. To accept the "Bunker" eye- witness accounts while dismissing the crematory eyewitness accounts of homicidal gassings is just one more logical salto mortale on Meyer's part.
In spite of everything, we have to credit Fritjof Meyer with considerable moral courage. His article, to an even greater degree than Pressac's, proves that a serious technical debate with the Auschwitz problem represents a fall over the preci- pice for orthodox Holocaust historiography. Sooner or later, after the xth reduction of number of victims and the xth con- cession to revisionists, orthodox historians must arrive at the
same conclusion at which revisionist historiography arrived years ago.
Notes
First published in Vierteljahreshefte fur freie Geschichtsforschung 6(4) (2002), pp. 378-385; translated by James M. Damon
1 Die Krematorien von Auschwitz: Die Technik des Massenmordes, Piper, Munich-Zurich 1994.
2 Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers, The Beate Klarsfeld Foundation, New York 1989.
3 Zeszyty oswiecimskie, 1995, pp. 309-329.
4 Auschwitz: Das Ende einer Legende, in: Herbert Verbeke (ed.), Ausch- witz: Nackte Fakten. Eine Erwiderung an Jean-Claude Pressac, Vrij His- torisch Onderzoek, Berchem 1995, p. 162.
5 Just as Judge Gray wrote in his verdict following the Irving-Lipstadt trial (1 1 April 2000, Point 7.125), Van Pelt assures us that the amount of coke required to cremate a body is "no more than 3.5 kilograms." Proportion- ally, that is the same as saying that Schumacher's Ferrari F2002 can go 1600 kilometers per hour!
6 See my article "Supplementary Response to John C. Zimmermann on his 'Body Disposal at Auschwitz' " at: www.russgranata.com/Risposta-new- eng.html.
7 Osteuropa. Zeitschrift fur Gegenwartsfragen des Ostens, No. 5, May 2002, pp. 631-641. The article is available online at www.vho.org/D/Beitraege/FritjofMeyerOsteuropa.html.
8 F. Piper, Die Zahl der Opfer von Auschwitz, Verlag Staatliches Museum in Auschwitz, 1993, p. 202.
9 Die Krematorien von Auschwitz, op. cit. (note 1), p. 202.
10 RGVA (Rossiiskii Gosudarstvenni Voienni Archiv), formerly TCIDK (Tsentr Chranenija Istoriko-dokumentalnich Kollektsii), Moskau, 502-1- 83, p. 269.
11 VffG, 4(1) (2000), pp. 51-56.
12 Jean-Claude Pressac, Enquete sur les chamhres a gaz, in: Les Collections de I 'Histoire, Supplement to the magazine L 'Histoire, No. 3, October 1998, p. 41.
13 / forni crematori di Auschwitz. Studio storico-tecnico in collaborazione del dott. ing. Franco Deana; Anticipated publishing date with Edizioni di Ar, Padua, is early 2003.
14 335 prisoners died at Buchenwald between 3 and 30 August 1942; 203 died between 3 1 August and 27 September. Konzentrationslager Buch- enwald. Bericht des internationalen Lagerkomitees Buchenwald. Wei- mar, without year, p. 85.
15 There are numerous lists of cremations which give the corresponding time required to complete each procedure. See also / forni crematori die Auschwitz, op. cit. (note 13), Vol. I, 2nd part, chapter XL
16 The Ignis-Hiittenbau muffles were 2.6 meters long, as compared to 2 me- ters for the Topf ovens. Cadavers were encased in a lightweight coffin of unfinished boards and shoved into the muffle. After about 35 minutes the cadaver, dehydrated and disintegrating, was shoved further back in the muffle, where the most important part of cremation took place. Mean- while another cadaver was placed in the front part of the muffle. In this system two cadavers were always in the muffle, one undergoing dehydra- tion in the front and one undergoing actual cremation in the rear. Intro- duction of the second cadaver was considered the end of cremation of the first, even though it lasted another 20 or 30 minutes in the oven.
17 Erlauterungsbericht zum Vorentwurf fur den Neubau eines Kriegsgefan- genenlagers der Waffen-SS Auschwitz O/S, October 30, 1941. RGVA, 502-1-233, p. 20.
18 Letter from the Topf firm addressed to SS Department of New Construction (SS-Neubauleitung) at Mauthausen Concentration Camp, dated November 1, 1941. German Federal Archives, Koblenz, NS4/MA 54.
19 Staatsarchiv Weimar, LK 465 1 .
20 This corresponds to a cremation period of 33 to 40 minutes per oven. The grates of the Gusen ovens had eight square openings measuring 30x25 centimeters. After about 35 minutes the remains of the dehydrated disin- tegrating cadaver fell through these openings into the ash receptacle be- low, where the principal cremation took place. Meanwhile another ca- daver was placed in the muffle, which was now empty. In this system, two cadavers were always in the muffle. The heat was intensified by a bellows, which made possible replenishing the consumed coke every hour on each grate. In the triple-muffle oven, the bars of the muffle open- ings were 21 centimeters in diameter, just as in civilian ovens. The ca-
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daver remains fell into the ash receptacle only during an advanced stage of the cremation process. It took place after approximately one hour.
21 Oboz koncentracijny Oswiecim w swietle akt Delagatury Rzqdu na Kraj, In: Zeszyty oswiecimskie, special edition I, 1968, p. 42. On 4 March 1943, resistance fighters attributed to the "new crematorium" (Krema II) the fantastic daily capacity of 3,000 cadavers! Same as above, pp. 93f.
22 Hitler and the Final Solution, University of California Press, 1994.
23 Ibid., p. 200.
24 Ibid, p. 207.
25 Map of the POW camp dated October 6, 1942. Vojensky Historicky Ar- chiv, Prag, Fond OT 31 (2)/2.
26 Iforni crematori di Auschwitz, op. cit. (note 13), Vol. I, sec. part, chapter VIII.
27 Ibid., chapter IX, 2. At that time, the only other existing facilities in which multiple cadavers per muffle were burned were ovens for animal cremation. In these extremely efficient devices, constructed by the Kori firm in Berlin, 300 kilograms of flesh could be cremated within 13.5 hours using 300 kilograms of fossil fuel. This would correspond to simul- taneous cremation of 12 cadavers weighing 75 kilograms each, in a pe- riod of 67 minutes and using 25 kilograms of fuel. Thus if simultaneous cremation of 3 cadavers per muffle had been possible in the Birkenau ov- ens, they would have lasted three times as long and required three times as much fuel as single muffle cremation and would not have been the least bit more economical.
28 Since Bischoff s letter dated 28 June 1943 mentions "24 hour utilization" in describing crematory capacity, this document would have to be a falsi- fication , according to Meyer's theory.
29 Archiwum Glownej Komisji Badania Zbrodni Przeciwko Narodowi Pol- skiemu/Instytutu Pamieci Narodowej, Warsaw, NTN, 105, p. 99.
30 By this is meant the incombustible remains of the coke, which melt in the high temperatures. They then drip through the fuel, are cooled by incom- ing air and coalesce on the grill. Here they form a deposit which clogs the spaces through which air flows.
31 / forni crematori di Birkenau, op. cit. (note 13), Vol. I, second part, chap-
ter IX, 1.
32 In: Ernst Gauss, Dissecting the Holocaust, Theses and Dissertations Press, Capshaw, AL 2000.
33 Ibid, p. 403.
34 Ibid., p. 402. For Crematories II and III, deduct the 67 days between 26 October and 3 1 December from the operational days given (respectively 177 and 190).
35 / forni cremator di Auschwitz, op. cit. (note 13), Vol. I, second part, chap- ter X. Coke consumption was determined on the basis of actual coke con- sumption at the camp in Gusen.
36 According to Meyer's hypothesis, 18 cadavers per muffle per day = 108 cadavers per day in 6 muffles.
37 No witnesses or historians have alleged that there were open-air crema- tions during this period.
38 According to him, cremation of three cadavers required 14.1 kilograms of coke. In reality, a triple-muffle oven operating at 800 degrees Centigrade required around 17 kilograms just to compensate for loss of heat from conduction and radiation.
39 I discuss John C. Zimmermann's counterarguments, which were based on ignorance and deceit, in my article against him. Cf. note 6.
40 In addition to the absence of documents related hereto, the list of invoices which the Topf firm submitted for work and deliveries in and around Auschwitz proves that this work never took place.
41 Meyer is assuming here that 1 80,000 Hungarian Jews were deported to Auschwitz, of whom 100,000 to 1 10,000 were transferred to other camps and 70,000 - 80,000 were gassed (page 638).
42 This number is actually greatly exaggerated.
43 F. Piper, op. cit. (note 8), p. 164.
44 Carlo Mattogno, „ Sonderbehandlung " ad Auschwitz. Genesi e signifi- cato, Edizioni di Ar, 2001, pp. 77f.
45 The document also mentions construction projects which were already completed, but F. Meyer, whose only familiarity with it was through R. J. Van Pelt, is unaware of this.
46 RGVA, 502-1-332, p. 46a.
Poison Gas UberAlles
By Friedrich Paul Berg
Twenty years ago I had the good fortune to spend many hours with Austin J. App, who was one of the first Holocaust revisionists and an American of German descent. Almost as soon as the war had ended, he had begun to speak out and write against the anti-German atrocity claims. He admitted to me decades later during our long talk around 1980 and with great frankness that he had had little to go on in the way of strong evidence or arguments against the horror stories that were filling the newspapers, books and media outlets of that time. What drove him, however, was — and these were his ex- act words to me — "his faith in the inherent goodness and de- cency of the German people." I was moved by those words and recognized that the same kind of faith had driven me and many others who I knew. The inherent decency of the Ger- mans has a serious downside which has, I believe, made them especially vulnerable to the propaganda. For the ordinary de- cent Germans, how could the stories not be true when there were all those trials and eyewitnesses and confessions and so on? In any event, my faith in Germany is shaken by what one
sees there today. Years of Americanization and re-education and terror have had their effect. The moral breakdown and loss of self-pride of the Germans which had not been achieved by the enormous destruction and defeat of two world wars were finally achieved by the holocaust propa- ganda campaign of which the Nuremberg Trials were only a small part. A major reason for why the propaganda campaign succeeded is precisely because the Germans are a moral peo- ple. Americans by contrast would have been far more tena- cious because they are surrounded by the kinds of corruption and accommodating to corruption which Germans found al- most unimaginable.
Within the revisionist message there is an implied, unstated message, which shocks most listeners and should therefore be recognized and dealt with by revisionists. When a revisionist says the Holocaust story is a hoax or substantially false he or she is, in effect, also saying there is something seriously wrong with America. This wonderful, greatest of all countries with boundless freedoms and what to many seems like a bril-
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liant, totally free press where all ideas are thoroughly thrashed out in the open so that the country as a whole con- tinues on the path to near perfection could not possibly have made such an enormous, collective error. The revisionists must be wrong on that basis alone. We may as well spit it out for all to hear: there is a lot that is seriously wrong with this country. When people like Tom Brokaw write best-selling books about America's wartime generation being "the great- est generation," they are criminally insane. Twenty-five years ago Arthur Butz referred to the Jewish ex- termination claims as a hoax in order, as he explained, to suggest that those claims constituted something "cheap and vulgar." I share that view and would add that the Holocaust story is also obscene and racist and downright crazy. The mass gassings were carried out supposedly with either Diesel engine exhaust or cyanide. Although mass gassings with ei- ther diesel exhaust or cyanide are certainly possible — a criti- cal examination of the details shows the claims to be either totally impossible or so absurd that they are unbelievable. But one must be cautious with one's technical analysis and arguments. It does no good to insist that impossibly large fans would have been required to ventilate a pile of corpses, or to insist that one could not possibly have used cyanide for murder because of the prox- imity to crematory ovens or to insist on any number of other quickie arguments that have no real merit. One fools hardly anyone except the faithful and sooner or later their faith is thoroughly shaken as well, as the truth emerges. Prosecutors who are brought against us are well armed against the quickie, false arguments. The point is that the Germans certainly could have commit- ted mass gassings with technology that was readily available to them through- out German-occupied Europe, even within the concentration camps. The terrible problem for the extermination- ists is however in the details — which are generally technical in nature. The devil for them is in the technical details.
The Abundance of Survivors
The Holocaust story is a hoax because no one was murdered by the "Nazis" in gas chambers or gas vans, and because the total number of Jews who could have possibly died in Ger- man-occupied territory is minuscule compared to what is al- leged. Just a few years ago, Steven Spielberg proudly an- nounced to the world in an Academy Award acceptance speech that "there are 350,000 survivors of the Holocaust alive today."1 Other sources, including Israeli sources, have in recent years given even higher numbers.2 All such num- bers more than fifty years after the war would be impossible if there had been any kind of physical extermination of the Jewish people under German control. It never happened!
The Killers
Most of the alleged three million gassings were supposedly carried out with Diesel exhaust, which is technically absurd since Diesel exhaust contains hardly any carbon monoxide. This is well-known to anyone who owns a Diesel-driven car or truck from their own state vehicle inspection results (just check the auto emission inspection procedures for diesel cars or trucks in any state.) Zyklon-B was only used by the "Na- zis" to keep people alive using well-designed gas chambers rather than the makeshift, Rube Goldberg-like3 confabula- tions alleged for mass murder at Auschwitz for example. Al- though the U.S. Army War Crimes Branch assigned doctors such as Dr. Charles P. Larson to perform autopsies on many of the thousands of dead found in Germany's concentration camps at the end of the war, those doctors never found any forensic evidence of deaths from poison or poison gas. No such evidence was ever presented at the Nuremberg trials where precisely such evidence would have been expected. The killer had been disease, especially typhus, brought on primarily as an indirect but inevita- ble result of Allied bombing.4
Elie Wiesel
Erinnerurg und Zeugnis
Die Nacht
Vorwort von Martin Walser
HERDER spektrum
The Choices
In the book for which Elie Wiesel is most famous, namely Night,5 which is recommended reading in public schools across this country, Wiesel paints an horrendous picture of life in Ausch- witz from April 1944 to January 1945, when he was there. Although many hundreds of thousands of Jews were supposedly gassed there during this time, Wiesel makes no mention of gas- sings or gas chambers anywhere in his book, as Jilrgen Graf and Robert Fau- risson have pointed out to us.6 He does however claim to have seen flames from the chimneys and Dr. Mengele wearing a monocle. Both claims are clearly lies.
When the Russians were about to over- run Auschwitz in January 1945, both Elie and his father "chose" to go west with the retreating "Nazis" and SS rather than be "liberated" by America's greatest ally. They could have told the whole world about Auschwitz within days — but, both Elie and his father as well as countless thousands of other Jews chose instead to trek west with the "Nazis" on foot at night in the middle of one of the coldest winters and continue working for the defense of the Reich thereafter. In effect, they chose to collaborate. Some of Wiesel's exact words in Night are:7
"The choice was in our hands. For once we could decide our fate for ourselves. We could both stay in the hospital, where I could, thanks to my doctor, get him [the father] entered as a patient or nurse. Or else we could follow the others. 'Well, what shall we do, father? ' He was silent. 'Let 's be evacuated with the others, ' I told him. "
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Elie's tale in this regard is corroborated by other "survivor" accounts including that of Primo Levi. In Levi's book Sur- vival in Auschwitz, we have his words for January 17, 1945: "It was not a question of reasoning: I would probably also have followed the instinct of the flock if I had not felt so weak: fear is supremely contagious, and its immediate reaction is to make one try to run away. " But he's talking here about running away with the "Nazis" — and not "Nazis" who were mere rank and file party members but supposedly the worst of the worst. He's talking here about running away with the same "Nazis" and SS who had supposedly carried out the greatest imaginable mass murders of Jews and others in the entire history of the universe. He's talking about running away with the people who supposedly did the actual killings of thousands daily for several years. But, according to his own words he would probably have gone with them nonetheless, except that he was not feeling good that day; he was feeling weak. The "fear" that he over- came was clearly fear of the Russians and not the 'Nazis;' there is no mention of fear of what the "Nazis" and SS might do when the evacuees entered the forest or sometime later. The choices that were made here in January 1945 are enor- mously important. In the entire history of Jewish suffering at the hands of gentiles what moment in time could possibly be more dramatic than this precious moment when Jews could choose between, on the one hand, liberation by the Soviets with the chance to tell the whole world about the evil "Nazis" and to help bring about their defeat — and the other choice of going with the "Nazi" mass murderers and continuing work- ing for them and to help preserve their evil regime. In the vast majority of cases, they chose to go with the "Nazis". The momentous choice brings Shakespeare's Hamlet to mind: "To remain, or not to remain; that is the question ": to remain and be liberated by Soviet troops and risk their slings and rifles in order to tell the whole world about the outra- geous "Nazis " — or, take arms and feet against a sea of cold and darkness in order to collaborate with the very same out- rageous "Nazis. " Oh what heartache — ay there 's the rub! Thus conscience does make cowards of us all. So what was the final score — here a drum roll seems fitting in the background as Vanna White comes onto the stage with the sealed envelope and the answer to the great riddle. The envelope is torn open and the choice is — drum roll again — according to Levi himself 800 choose to remain in Ausch- witz, but 20,000 choose to go and collaborate with the "Nazi" mass murderers. Wow! Such a surprise — already! We see the same deliberate pro-"Nazi" collaboration in the "survivors" from Schindler's List. In their well-known story, as the Russians were about to overrun Plaszow just thirty miles down the road to the east from Auschwitz in November 1944, Schindler and more than a thousand Jews chose to go west with the retreating "Nazis" rather than hang back and be "liberated" by the Soviets. Some even spent the next several weeks at Auschwitz — and none were gassed, not even in the movie. The hoax has certainly had its day. If there had been any kind of extermination of Jews at all Auschwitz, all of the Jews in Cracow and Plaszow would have known about it as well. All of the Jews who went west in effect also denied the
Holocaust albeit only with their hands and feet. The Jews themselves were the first true Holocaust deniers, and it is about time they get all the credit they deserve. The rather simple analysis of Holocaust survivor tales I have given here is an easy to understand refutation of the hoax in general. I urge all readers to reexamine the survivor accounts for themselves— but critically and systematically. The Inter- net, with search engines like Google, allows anyone to ana- lyze literally thousands of survivor accounts in seconds for major flaws of the type I have discussed. Just search for key- words like "evacuation" or combinations of words like "holocaust survivor Auschwitz."
One last piece of literature for this discussion is the highly acclaimed book Sophie's Choice by William Styron. What does Styron have to say about Sophie or any other Auschwitz survivor going west in January 1945? The book is a novel, but it is an historical novel by a great writer and intellect — or so we are told — and where we might find an explanation or insight for Elie's kind of choice. But there is really nothing there. The important choice Sophie made in the book was be- tween her two children: which one should be killed in the gas chamber and which one should live? Certainly that would have been a heart-wrenching choice and worthy of a great novel — but as to the later choice to go west with the "Nazi" mass murderers, even the murderers of one of those same precious children, there was nothing except for the following: "The Russians were coming and the SS wanted the chil- dren destroyed. Most of them were Polish; the Jewish children were already dead. They thought of burning them alive in a pit, or shooting them, but they decided to do something that wouldn 't show too many marks and evidence. So in the freezing cold they marched the chil- dren down to the river and made them take off their clothes and soak them in the water as if they were wash- ing them, and then made them put on these wet clothes again. Then they marched them back to the area in front of the barracks where they had been living and had a roll call. Standing in their wet clothes. The roll call lasted for many, many hours while the children stood wet and freez- ing and night came. All of the children died of being ex- posed that day. They died of exposure and pneumonia, very fast. "
If anything like that had actually happened, it would have been all the more reason to stay in Auschwitz and wait for the Soviets to arrive rather than go west with the "Nazis" and the SS. I dare say there is absolutely no serious corroboration of Styron' s tale of the freezing children. Although Styron does not tell us, Sophie apparently chose to trek west with the Nazi murderers as well.
An Implied Message
There is an implied but unstated message in Holocaust revi- sionism which we should address because that message is so shocking that it is actually a major hurdle for our work in general and, therefore, we should deal with it. When we say the Holocaust story is not true, I believe we are, in effect, also saying that there is something seriously wrong with America. Most Americans firmly believe that America is still
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far and away the most wonderful, most nearly perfect society in every possible way that the world has ever seen. If the Holo- caust is not true, then there must be some- thing seriously wrong here because the ac- cepted story is almost universally embraced by the media, press, and institutions gener- ally. Since America is so wonderful, the re- visionists must therefore be wrong — or so the pseudologic goes.
The Real Holocaust
Japanese and German women and children were murdered by the U.S. by the most ex- cruciatingly horrible means imaginable — by roasting them alive. If the "Nazis" had murdered people in gas chambers, although criminal it would nonetheless have been humane and painless and even civilized compared to what Americans actually did even when, in the very last months of the war, there was no real danger to the U.S.. To this day in America, there is still no sense of shame or apology. Please do not be taken in by the false argument that it was the Germans who started the bombing of civilian targets and therefore have nothing to complain about. It was the British who began the deliberate bombing of civilian targets already in May of 1940, to which Germany, after much restraint, only responded in kind in September of 1940. The Japanese bomb- ing of Pearl Harbor was clearly aimed only at military targets without any consultation with the women and children of Hi- roshima or Nagasaki or Tokyo or any other Japanese city.
Biography
As many of you know, I am an engineer by profession. I re- ceived a degree in mining engineering from Columbia Uni- versity in 1965. I never worked as a mining engineer as such but rather as a mechanical engineer, first for a number of consulting design engineering companies and later as a tech- nical writer and even as an environmental specialist for a government agency at a major New York airport. For a time I had designed poultry processing plants and slaughterhouses. That experience had prompted Keith Stimely to introduce me to an IHR audience in 1983 as a person who had actually worked on the Final Solution to the chicken problem.
The AIDS Disaster
Keith Stimely was a great editor who is unfortunately no longer with us. He died of AIDS, which is well worth men- tioning here because in this terrible worldwide epidemic we actually see one of the horrible consequences of Holocaust propaganda. The logical countermeasures such as quarantine of carriers and other restrictive controls have been known and used effectively for centuries for many diseases from plague to measles, but ever since WW2 they have also been so closely associated with the supposedly fiendish work of "Nazi" doctors that public health officials and doctors dare
Holocaust victims of Allied mass murderers
not recommend any of these controls. They fear for their careers and reputations as tens of millions die. This cowardly behavior will certainly contribute enormously to the AIDS disaster — but the key is the Holo- caust hoax and its power to intimidate. We all know how hard it is to break through with our views. The establishment has an aura of respectability that is hard to shake — but it is an aura that it certainly does not deserve at all. Even if the Holocaust story were true and even if we revisionists were completely wrong, the crimes by the Allies in World War 2, especially the United States, are still far worse. The United States murdered well over a million totally innocent civilians, mostly women and children, by deliberately roasting them to death. If the "Nazis" had ever committed mass murder of millions of innocent people in gas chambers — as hor- rific and criminal as that would truly be, it would still have been relatively humane, and painless and even civilized compared to the mass murder by incineration that the U.S. inflicted deliberately upon well over a million civilians. That the numbers of innocent people murdered in America's incendiary and nuclear attacks is less than the mythical six million attributed to the "Nazis" was certainly not for lack of trying on the part of Americans nor from any lack of popular support — even to this day. Those crimes were as cowardly as they were evil. They actually grew in ferocity as the war ap- proached its inevitable end and long after there was any dan- ger to the United States.
The truly horrible scenes at Bergen-Belsen and Dachau and elsewhere in Germany at the end of World War 2 are falsely and routinely presented as if they were typical of conditions in Germany's wartime concentration camps; they were not typical at all — far from it. On the contrary, they were a direct,
This grandmother of Malawi has to provide for her nine grandchildren, since their parents had died of AIDS. Mean- while, some 10% of all children in Africa are half or full or- phans, many of them are HIV positive.8
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albeit unintended result of American and British bombing of German civilian targets. The real wartime mass murderers were the Americans.
The fire-bombing of entire German cities was generally a specialty of the British but those attacks would not have been possible without American financing beginning with Lend- Lease in March of 1941. From that point on, the entire British war effort was subject to control from the U.S. and that con- tinued even long after World War 2 as Eisenhower demon- strated in 1956 when he brought the entire British, French, Is- raeli invasion of Egypt to a speedy halt when he simply threatened to call on the British to pay off American govern- ment bonds that had been issued during the war to finance Britain's war effort. The deliberate, terror bombing of civil- ians was begun by the British in World War 2 in May, June and July of 1940 and not by the Germans lest anyone is unin- formed about that fact — furthermore, lest one think it was in- evitable that all sides would take up this practice, we have the example of the French military leaders who refused to go along with the British and actually denounced this kind of mass murder from the skies. The German air response only began in August of 1940.
Cigarettes
I find it useful in some of my verbal confrontations to ask someone questions which I recommend to all of you for your own missionary work. I ask the true Holocaust believer whether they believe the Germans murdered millions of in- nocent people in gas chambers and what do they think about that — after they finish their usually quite pious answer, I ask them how they feel about roasting people to death. They are usually a bit stunned by the question and so the answers vary — but then I remind them that roasting people to death was just what nice, happy-go-lucky ail-Ameri- cans were actually doing with almost unanimous sup- port from their fellow, happy-go-lucky Americans. Here the responses often turn quite ugly and I have to ex- plain that the women and children and old men of Hi- roshima and Nagasaki and Tokyo and every other Japa- nese city were not responsi- ble for or even aware of the planning of the attack on Pearl Harbor — and that the attack on Pearl Harbor was only upon military installa- tions and not on civilians. Before Americans condemn anyone else in the world for crimes of any sort — whether it be Saddam Hussein or Hit-
ler— they should look at themselves in the mirror. With the World Trade Center bombing in 2001, Americans got a small taste of their own medicine!
The counter-argument to some of what I have said is that it really doesn't matter how you murder people — murder is murder, regardless of whether it is done with poison gas or with flames. At this point, I recommend a simple "cigarette experiment" and here I can also begin to get into my more technical arguments. I suggest that the true Holocaust be- liever smoke a cigarette by taking a few long, deep breaths. In those deep breaths the CO concentration may be as high as 3% which, if they continue to inhale much longer, should kill them rather quickly — in about a minute or so. But, the whole experience may not be all that agonizing. Dr. Ker- vorkian admitted that he preferred death by CO for his euthanasia patients over lethal injection and over death from any other gas.9 It caused the least amount of stress on the patient was the way he put it. Usually, the true believer is surprised but willing to admit that death from cigarette smoke may not be that unpleasant. I then suggest they try the other end of the cigarette; place the burning end of the cigarette on their lip or on any other part of their body. At that point the argument is over. It does make a difference how one murders people.
Bergen-Belsen and the Horrific Photographs
The picture from Bergen-Belsen which appears with this text was taken after the SS had turned the camp over to the British by mutual agreement. It is typical of many pictures that were used to condemn the SS as an organization and many indi- vidual members of the SS — often to death. It is also used in
Mass grave of typhus victims in the camp Bergen Belsen at war's end.
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the endless racist hate campaign to con- demn Germans and Germany in general even to this very day. The medical reality is quite different because none of the victims in any of these photos died in gas chambers but from disease. I once had a terrible ar- gument with a Czech emigre doctor of some renown about this subject which I brought to an end by challenging him to let me go to his favorite, major hospital any- where in America — but, with the authority to line up all of the patients according to how near they were to dying. And then, af- ter they were all lined up — have them take the tops off their pajamas so that I could photograph them. The Czech doctor under- stood my point instantly — and, needless to say, he could not accept my challenge. If we do not die quickly, we die slowly — often from cancer or AIDS. In such cases, we do not look any better than the victims of Belsen or any- where else as we meet our ends — that is a fact of life which we should recognize before we condemn anyone. In January of 2001 I was severely ill with cancer. In two weeks I lost more than 25 pounds and did not look much better than the poor souls in this picture.
The following pictures are of innocent German civilians who were murdered in the British firebombing attack on Hamburg in 1943. They did not die from disease. Are these photos any less horrible than any Holocaust-type pictures? It was not cigarette smoke that the "Nazis" are accused of having used for mass murder for most of their gassings — but Diesel exhaust. Diesel exhaust does smell quite terrible at times — but that has nothing whatever to do with the presence or absence of carbon monoxide, which is totally odorless. But, the smell alone has given rise to the widely held, false belief that diesel exhaust must also be highly toxic — and that the Diesel holocaust claims are plausible. The fact is that it is far from easy to kill people with diesel exhaust — it is so dif- ficult in fact that I regard the claims as absurd, especially when one considers the alternative technology that was avail- able with the gasoline engine — and furthermore, with an ad- ditional form of technology which the Germans had readily available at that time but which is no longer widespread. That additional technology was the producer gas technology which is enormously important to unraveling the entire hoax. I have never claimed that it is impossible to commit mass murder with Diesel exhaust or Zyklon-B — although there have been a number of people who have tried to get me to say precisely that.
The title of my chapter in Dissecting the Holocaust is I be- lieve an excellent title — it only took fifteen years to formu- late it: "Diesel Gas Chambers: Ideal for Torture — Absurd for Murder."10 I might have expanded on the subtitle by adding "... and Unbelievable." It is impossible for me to believe that the "Nazis", otherwise so clever and technically sophisti- cated, would have ever been so stupid as to use Diesel ex- haust to even try to murder anyone.
Eran Sher
Let us see what experts on Diesels and die- sel emissions are saying today. A major engineering textbook from 1998, which should contain just about everything one would need to know about diesel emis- sions, is entitled: Handbook of Air Pollu- tion from Internal Combustion Engines — subtitle: Pollutant Formation and Control. The book is more than 550 pages and is co- authored by a dozen of the world's leading experts on emissions from internal combus- tion engines. It should an excellent source of information on how one might kill peo- ple with Diesel exhaust. But in this entire book, which is typical of all other books one can find, there is only one sentence which is relevant to our subject — and here it is from page 288:11
"Although carbon monoxide (CO) emissions are regulated, they will not be considered here, as the diesel engine combustion process by definition in- hibits the production of CO. " In other words, the entire subject of toxic effects from carbon monoxide in diesel exhaust, including long-term effects, is just not worth bothering with. What is ironic is that the editor of this major work on engine emissions and pollution is an Is- raeli professor of engineering. His name is Eran Sher and he is in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Ben- Gurion University in Israel. Someone should reach out to him and ask if he actually believes the "Nazis" murdered people with Diesel exhaust — and whether he had ever considered testifying as an expert witness in the trial of John Demjan- juk.12
Surely, if Eran Sher and the Israelis really believe it hap- pened in "Nazi" Germany, then it might happen again. Surely, we should all be concerned that Sadam Hussein might someday use some of his tens of thousands of diesel trucks to perpetrate another Holocaust. Surely, the United Nations arms inspectors who are so concerned about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq will miss the boat if they fail to report on Sadam's diesels.
Diesel History
One can judge the murderous possibilities of a diesel gas chamber arrangement by studying industrial accidents involv- ing diesel engines — especially in underground mines which can often become totally enclosed spaces from the inevitable accidents which occur there. Gasoline engines have generally been outlawed for underground applications because of their toxic exhaust but the history of diesels underground is quite different.
Diesel engines were first used underground in coal mines in 1928 in Germany, in the Saar, and quite safely from all I have seen in the excellent German literature on this subject — especially in the German mining journal Gliickauf. In Brit- ain, Diesels were first used underground in 1939 more than ten years later in Yorkshire — but over the following decades,
Pollution from ■nal Combus Engines
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thousands more were used throughout Britain. For an indus- try where heavy machinery is used in the most difficult and unnatural circumstances imaginable — and where the indus- trial accident rate has always been among the highest any- where, one expects many fatal accidents — but the British safety record with Diesels was a stunning surprise to many mining professionals, especially in the USA.14 The safety record was spelled out in June of 1974 when Mr. S. Gilbert of the British National Coal Board wrote the fol- lowing in a major British technical journal about the British experience going back 35 years to 1939:15
"Although it is accepted that there are potential hazards arising from the emission of noxious gases in the exhaust gases of diesel engines, the degree to which these are con- trolled in British coal mines has proved to be very effec- tive.. An examination of ALL safety records has revealed that no person has suffered any harmful effects either tem- porarily or permanently as a direct result of breathing any toxic gas emitted from any vehicle powered by a diesel en- gine. "
Does this prove that Diesels cannot be used to commit mass murder? Of course not — but, it is good reason to believe that killing people with diesel exhaust is far from easy — and yet, because of the smell, there is the widely held belief that just the opposite must be true. That false belief has been used in Holocaust propaganda as early as 1943. One more quote from the technical literature summarizes much of what can be found there. This is from an American essay by a Mr. Dennis S. Lachtman — Director for Health En- gineering for the EIMCO Mining Machinery company. In the Mining Congress Journal for January of 1981 on page 40, we have his four-page essay entitled "Diesel Exhaust — Health Effects." One section of his essay is entitled: "NO significant human hazard seen in over 20 studies":16
"A number of studies evaluating human response to expo- sure of diesel have included experience among diesel bus workers, diesel railroad workers, and metal and non- metal miners working with diesel production equipment and underground. There are more than 20 human health studies involving working populations exposed to diesel exhaust emissions. As can be seen from a careful review of these studies, NO SIGNIFICANT health hazards have been associated with exposures to diesel exhaust emis- sions.
More recently, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has reported on epidemiol- ogical studies it has performed in underground mines. One of these studies included an MSHA[11] and NIOSH joint study of the relationship between the underground environments in 22 metal and non-metal mines looking at the health of more than 5000 miners. This comprehensive study focuses on the health effects of both silica dust and other substances including those found in Diesel exhaust. [...] The researchers reported that the data showed an absence of harmful effects from diesel exhaust. " In other words, there was not even one fatality or even one injury from Diesel exhaust. No doubt there must be some oc- casional deaths somewhere in the world — but they are few
and far between — and that should give everyone a good idea as to how relatively harmless diesel exhaust truly is — and how absurd the holocaust story is. If the holocaust by diesel allegation is to be believed — there should be strong, over- whelming, and clear evidence — but the best the extermina- tionists have ever found is the Gerstein statement which is absurd and unbelievable for countless reasons aside from the diesel claim.18
Every year, many thousands of deaths occur worldwide due to carbon monoxide poisoning from gasoline engines. Sui- cides in cars from gasoline engine exhaust are common also and are well documented in public health reports. The most common death from carbon monoxide occurs, however, when people simply run their car or truck engines to keep warm in winter — or cool in summer by means of an auto- motive air conditioner. Approximately a thousand acciden- tal deaths occur in this way every year in the U.S. alone even though the cars in the U.S. are routinely equipped with catalytic converters and emission control devices — but not with Diesel engines. There are no known Diesel suicides ei- ther.
Every night across the world, tens of thousands of truck driv- ers sleep inside their truck cabs with their Diesel engines running throughout the night — to keep warm in winter or cool in summer. Although there are always some exhaust leaks into a van compartment of a truck, there is no evidence that I have ever found of a single trucker dying or even being injured in such circumstances from Diesel exhaust. It never happens.
Diesel exhaust is inherently safe-and that is a major reason why the Holocaust story is a hoax.
Internal Speed Governor
In some of my previous essays, I stressed the fact that rela- tively high CO emission rates are related primarily to high fuel/air ratios. One might think that all one has to do to get high fuel/air ratios is to press the fuel pedal to the floor — without any load being coupled to the engine. What happens then is quite interesting. Without any load, the engine speed will rapidly increase and the fuel/air ratio will indeed go to the maximum — but within a few seconds also, the engine speed will reach the maximum safe engine speed set by the manufacturer. Long before that speed is reached, however, an internal speed governor in the fuel injection pump assembly will cut back on the fuel — and quite severely — to make cer- tain that the maximum safe speed or "redline" speed is never exceeded. After a few seconds, the actual fuel/air ratio at high speed idle stabilizes to nearly the same fuel/air ratio as at low speed idle.
Even though the driver might want the fuel/air ratio to remain at high levels, the speed governor will override his demand as expressed through the fuel pedal. There are only two realistic ways to get the engine to run at high fuel/air ratios for more than just a few seconds: either by coupling some kind of load such as a pump or generator or some other kind of device to the engine to force the engine to work against some heavy re- sistance, or by reducing the air intake of the engine to a minimum, hence almost suffocating the engine. Otherwise
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the engine will race — and the governor will cut the fuel/air ratio.
As a practical matter, coupling a loading device to an engine in a truck or tank is far from easy — and thoroughly impracti- cal. Nothing like that is even remotely suggested in any of the anecdotes in the Holocaust accounts.
Reducing the air intake, however, is quite easy, but experi- ments of British researchers during the 1950s have shown that the resulting maximum carbon monoxide concentration is still so low that it took more than three hours to kill all animals exposed to these exhaust gases.19
Combined Effects of Carbon Monoxide and Reduced Oxygen
One objection to my 1984 essay was that I had not properly considered the combined effects of carbon monoxide and re- duced oxygen. If one uses a multiplier to determine an effec- tive carbon monoxide level, one will see that there is no sig- nificant difference due to reduced oxygen until one gets the engine running under heavy loads, which is exactly what I claimed in 1984.
The effective carbon monoxide level is determined by divid- ing the concentration of oxygen in normal air — which is 21% — by the reduced oxygen concentration. Until one has reduced the oxygen level to about 8-10% (heavy engine load), the symptoms in any intended victims are not signifi- cantly different from those at a normal oxygen concentration. Serious symptoms only begin when oxygen is reduced to be- low 8% and that only occurs when the diesel engine is run- ning against a heavy load.20
Exhaust Gas Recirculation for Mass Murder
A diesel gas chamber might have worked by recirculating the exhaust gas from a diesel engine. This is actually a well- known problem with diesel exhaust going back to at least the 1920s in Germany. The idea is that the diesel engine air in- take for the engine is connected directly to the same enclosed space to which the engine discharges its exhaust. The exhaust goes around and around through the engine and the enclosed space — and eventually so much oxygen is consumed by combustion and so much carbon monoxide is produced that together these changes kill anyone within the enclosed space. But the engine eventually shuts itself down when there is no longer enough oxygen to sustain combustion and then ceases producing anymore carbon monoxide also.21
One should remember that nearly all of the carbon monoxide which is recirculated will be consumed in the engine if suffi- cient oxygen is available — and so, any additive increase in carbon monoxide levels, which one might at first expect, will in fact not occur at all. Carbon monoxide gas is an excellent fuel and actually burns far more easily than diesel fuel or even gasoline. If the CO level is initially only 0.05% after the first pass through the engine, one might — wrongly — expect it to double to 0.10% after second pass and then on to 0.15% after the third pass and so on and on. In reality, however, the carbon monoxide concentration in the exhaust gas basically depends on the oxygen concentration in the air only. Hence, there is not likely to be any significant change in the CO con- centration until much later, when the oxygen level has been so reduced that complete combustion is no longer possible and the engine shuts down.
Recirculating exhaust gases basically has the same, but ex- tremely delayed effect as reducing the air intake of the en- gine. Whereas the oxygen content decreases only slowly when applying exhaust gas recirculation, it is immediately minimized when restricting the engine's air intake. There- fore, an attempt of murder with exhaust gas recirculation would take even longer than the minimum of over three hours as established in the above mentioned experiments with air intake restriction. Finally, a combination of both methods, i.e., restricting the air intake and recirculating the exhaust gases, would eventually suffocate the engine. The important question is whether any deaths can occur be- fore the engine actually shuts itself down. There is no men- tion in the Gerstein statement or anywhere else of the engine shutting down during the half hour needed to kill the 700-800 Jews trapped inside — there is only mention of Mr. Hecken- holt needing more than two hours to get it started. And so, it seems about as reasonable as anything else one can conclude from the Gerstein statement that the engine must have been operating throughout this period without any serious operat- ing problem from lack of oxygen or for any other reason. In other words, even the recirculation argument fails to fit any of the Diesel gas chamber scenarios from Gerstein or anyone else.
The Gas Vans
When I first saw this picture in 1983, my last doubt about the revisionist position ended. This picture represents a kind of epiphany for me — because the existence of vehicles like this
Top: Saurer Diesel, an emission-friendly Vehicle Left: Generator gas bus
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totally undermines the Holocaust story for two important rea- sons. First of all, this type of vehicle makes the use of diesel exhaust as a source of lethal concentrations of carbon monox- ide even more absurd than it would otherwise be — and sec- ond of all, it helps to explain and undermine the allegation that the "Nazis" used gas vans to murder some of their vic- tims.
This vehicle was a real gas van, which used poison gas as its fuel. That poisonous fuel was primarily carbon monoxide and was generated on the vehicle as well.
There were, however, accidental gassings arising from the use of a different kind of gas van which is enormously impor- tant to unraveling the Holocaust gassing legend. Those "vans" were the producer gas wagons commonly used throughout all of Europe during this era — not just German- occupied Europe. Well over half a million of these vans or gas wagons had been built and used for transportation of al- most everything by the end of the war and even for many years after the war.22 They were ubiquitous. When the war ended the use of these vehicles declined — but only gradually. In the early 1950's in West Germany, at least 20,000 were still in use and their safe operation was still of great concern to medical professionals.23
The Soviet Origin of the Gas Van Story
The earliest reference to mass murder in gas vans that I have ever found is in July of 1943, when Pravda reported on the show trials of a number of German prisoners who had sup- posedly murdered Soviet citizens in Krasnodar with diesel powered vans. English translations of the Pravda stories ap- peared in The Trial in Britain through Hutchinson & Co., and Foreign Languages Publishing House we have the following text:
"In the autumn of 1942, the Germans began to use specially equipped automobiles which the population called 'murder vans, ' for the purpose of doing away with Soviet citizens. These 'murder vans ' were covered five-ton or seven-ton gray-painted motor trucks, driven by Diesel engines. " For a later trial in Kharkov in December of 1943 we have in a publication called The People 's Verdict the following information on page 43 :24
"The vans are lined inside with galvanized iron and have airtight folding doors at the back. The floor is equipped with a wooden grating under which passes a pipe with apertures. The pipe is connected to the exhaust pipe of the engine. The exhaust gases of the Diesel engine, containing highly concentrated carbon monoxide, enter the body of the van, causing rapid poisoning and as- phyxiation of the people locked up in the van. " Of course, diesel exhaust never contains "highly con- centrated carbon monoxide."
In a later publication entitled: "Soviet War Docu- ments" from December 1943 and published by the Soviet Embassy in Washington, DC, we have a de- scription of the gas van on page 172 which claims the
engine was a "Sauer" engine and that the body of the van was constructed in Berlin. There is no Sauer engine manufacturer but there is a famous company called "Saurer." The connec- tion that is made here to a company called "Sauer" is signifi- cant because it reappears in the infamous fake letter from Becker to Rauff in Nuremberg File PS-501.25 By their com- mon errors one can often recognize the work of a forger. There is never any mention anywhere of the engines having been gasoline engines although that would have certainly made sense technically — nor is there any mention of pro- ducer gas wagons which would have made all the sense in the world.
Accidental Gassings in Gas Vans
Although there is no credible evidence of any deliberate gas- sings with gas vans, there were no doubt many fatal acci- dents. These accidents arose almost inevitably from the na- ture of the producer gas vans, which made and used poison gas in highly concentrated form to drive the vehicles. Fatal accidents were inevitable from the earliest uses of these vehi- cles— and no doubt increased with increasing use of this technology. However, this author has found no actual record of such accidents in the German wartime literature to date. The dangers involved are however clearly spelled out in the German literature, which includes the various safety guide- lines which were required reading of all drivers and operators of these dangerous vehicles.
It is in the post-war literature of Scandinavia that one can find the most startling detailed information as to the many medical problems arising from producer vehicles.26
German air raid shelter door of World War II
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Bomb Shelter Doors and Baskets for Zyklon B
Many photographs and illustrations from Germany's wartime civil defense literature show that the Germans used well- designed, steel, gas-tight doors with peepholes for their bomb shelters. All German bomb shelters had to be gas-tight and that also meant annual testing with a blower and pressure gauge.
The important point I want to make is that each bomb shelter could with hardly any modification have also served as a highly effective gas chamber. All that one needed to do to kill any group of intended victims was to lock them in and cut off any fresh air from either the supply or exhaust air ductwork. That this was easy enough to do is proven by the fact that it occurred often enough during actual bombing attacks when the air supply was affected either through structural failure or when the outside air was poisonous as well. If anyone had wanted to introduce a poison gas such as cyanide, all that would have been needed would have been to slightly alter some of the sheetmetal supply ductwork with a hinged cover section so that a basket of Zyklon-B could be dropped-in — and, then as supply air passed through, preferably warmed air, the cyanide would be driven from the granules and into the bomb shelter.
German Zyklon B delousing chambers of World War II were based on these principles. The standard, 10-cubic-meter de- lousing chambers could have been used to kill prisoners just as easily and safely as American execution gas chambers, one or a few prisoners at a time. The only important feature they lacked was a big window to allow witnesses to see what was going on.
Zyklon B granules will hold onto the liquid hydrogen cyanide within the granules rather tenaciously — until the cyanide is forced out of the granules by a blast of warm air passing through the granules. That's the way the delousing chambers worked — and everyone working with them understood that. If the air passing through the granules was too cool or not moving fast enough, that would adversely effect the rate at which the cyanide would escape from the granules into the chamber — and that in turn would slow the entire delousing process down rather dramatically and reduce the effective- ness of the delousing process. Baskets were necessary to hold the Zyklon granules while still allowing warm air from a blower or forced air duct to pass through the basket and granules.
By contrast, the story we are given about Zyklon B for mass murder in Auschwitz is absurd. According to some Holocaust tales, the poison gas product Zyklon B was allegedly simply poured out onto the floor of the gas chambers. A somewhat more complicated version exists regarding the morgues of crematoria II and III of Auschwitz-Birkenau, which were al- legedly converted into homicidal gas chambers. In those lo- cations, wire mesh baskets full of Zyklon B were allegedly lowered through holes chiseled through the reinforced con- crete ceiling into introduction columns which were suppos- edly also made of wire mesh. This was supposedly done to allow recovery of the Zyklon B granules after the cyanide gas had escaped and killed the people trapped inside the alleged homicidal gas chambers. Without any real forced ventilation
through the granules, it would have taken hours before all hydrogen cyanide would have evaporated. The alleged homicidal gas chambers were supposedly equip- ped with a room ventilation system, as is to be expected for morgues. Only minor modifications to the ventilation shafts outside of the alleged gas chamber would have solved the problem, but nothing even remotely close to what would have been needed is described anywhere in the Holocaust litera- ture.
Functioning Mass Homicidal Gas Chambers
The Zyklon B railroad delousing tunnels which were oper- ated in many places of German-occupied Europe would have actually been perfect for mass murder but, ironically, they have never been implicated anywhere in the Holocaust claims. Even more important is the fact that the railroad de- lousing tunnels already existed in key locations, such as Bu- dapest and other major cities throughout Eastern Europe. What one really needed was already in place, but rather than having used any of that superbly designed available technol- ogy, the "Nazis", who were supposed to have been so fiend- ishly clever in so many other respects, used some basement cellars with little holes in the ceilings instead, in Auschwitz, far away from Budapest. It is just too cuckoo to be believed. It never happened!
Conclusion
I will conclude by giving an answer to a question that was put to me just recently by a journalist. What is driving you and other revisionists? The answer is the evidence — it is as sim- ple as that. It is the evidence that drives us. If one looks at the Holocaust story with some healthy curiosity and some per- fectly normal skepticism, the evidence cries out for conclu- sions that are totally different from what we are required to believe. But instead of truly coming to grips with our past, true Vergangenheitsbewdltigung and recognizing who the bad guys really were, we may be entering a new kind of Dark Age where repression and terror far more subtle than any- thing Orwell imagined become normal. Big Brother is preaching democracy, freedom, and tolerance as he practices the exact opposite. We are clever creatures indeed — but, if we continue to blindly believe in the hoax which is so central to the madness around us, then we are retarded as a species — and a menace to ourselves as well.
Notes
First published in Vierteljahreshefte fiir freie Geschichtsforschung 6(4) (2002), pp. 436-446.
1 Cf. e.g. : http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/people/survivor.htm
2 Cf. in the regard G. Rudolf, "Statistische Erhebungen zu 'Holocaust'- Uberlebenden", VffG 2(3) (1998), pp. 223f; VffG 1(2) (1997), pp. 69f.
3 Rube Goldberg was a well-known Jewish American newspaper cartoonist after World War II, who made a specialty of cartoons showing bizarre mechanical contraptions, generally with many pulleys, belts and strings to achieve mundane tasks such as breaking eggs in a frying pan shortly after a chicken laid them. The often hilarious, mechanical arrangements were superficially plausible but thoroughly impractical in reality and readers recognized the inherent absurdity of Goldberg's complex ar- rangements.
4 Vgl. z. B.: "Typhus Causes a Truce," The Journal of the American Medi- cal Association (19.5.1945), p. 220.
5 Munich/EBlingen 1962.
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6 Cf. the table compiled by J. Graf at the end of R. Faurisson, "Witnesses to the Gas Chambers of Auschwitz," in: E. Gauss (ed.), Dissecting the Holocaust, Theses & Dissertations Press, Capshaw, AL, 2000, p. 145.
7 E. Wiesel, Night, Bantam paperback edition, 1960, p. 78
8 http://www.avert.org/pictures/
9 Dr. Jack Kervorkian is an American doctor who became well-known in the 1990s for assisting more than 130 people to commit suicide. In 1999 he was imprisoned for second-degree murder. See: http://www.finalexit.org/drkframe.html. Although Kervorkian developed a suicide machine he called "Mercitron" which some patients used to in- ject themselves — first with saline solution, then sedative thiopental, and finally potassium chloride with a timer — in actual practice, Kervorkian generally used and preferred canisters of carbon monoxide. See: George J. Annas, "Physician-assisted Suicide — Michigan's Temporary Solution," New England Journal of Medicine, Vol. 328, no. 21, pp. 1573-76, May 27, 1993. See also: Jack Kervorkian, Prescription Medicide, Prometheus Books, New York 1 99 1 . On pages 59-60 he argues that CO should have been used for executions of criminals over cyanide.
10 E. Gauss (ed.), op. cit. (note 6), pp. 435-465.
11 Eran Sher (ed.), Handbook of Air Pollution from Internal Combustion Engines: Pollution Formation and Control, Boston, San Diego, New York, London, Sydney, Tokyo, Toronto: Academic Press, 1998, p. 288.
12 See for this Arnulf Neumaier, "The Treblinka Holocaust", in E. Gauss (ed.), op. cit.. (note 6), pp. 467-495; cf. also Yoram Sheftel, The Demjanjuk Af- fair. The Rise and Fall of the Show Trial, Victor Gollancz, London 1994.
13 H.H. Muller-Neugliick, F£. Werkmeister, "Grabensicherheit der Diesello- komotiven", Gluckauf Aug. 23, 1930, p. 1 145.
14 S.O. Ogden, "The War over Diesels," Coal Mining & Processing, June 1978, p. 102. See also Frank E Scott, "Diesel Underground: Overcoming a Bad Image," Coal Mining & Processing, August 1982, p. 45.
15 S. Gilbert, "The Use of Diesel Engines Underground in British Coal Mines", The Mining Engineer (GB), June 1974, p. 403.
16 Dennis S. Lachtman, "Diesel Exhaust — Health Effects," Mining Con- gress Journal, January 1981, p. 40.
17 Mine Safety & Health Administration.
18 Cf. Andre Chelain, La These de Nantes et I 'affaire Roques, Ogmios Dif- fusion, Paris 1989.
19 R.E. Pattle, H. Stretch, F. Burgess, K. Sinclair, J.A.G. Edginton, Brit. J.Industr. Med. 14 (1957) pp. 47-55; I referred to this possibility and to this source in 1994 for the first time: F.P. Berg, "Die Diesel- Gaskammern: Mythos im Mythos," in Ernst Gauss (ed.), Grundlagen zur Zeitgeschichte, Grabert, Tubingen 1994, pp. 321-345.
20 Cf. for this my first reflections in "Holocaust: Dieselmotorabgase toten langsam," VffG, 1(3) (1997), pp. 134-137.
21 W.F. Marshall, R.W. Hum "Hazard from Engines Rebreathing Exhaust in Confined Space," U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Mines, Report of Investigations 7757, 1973, pp. 7-10.
22 E. Eckermann, Alte Technik mit Zukunft: Die Entwicklung des Imbert- Generators, Oldenbourg, Munich 1986.
23 E. W. Baader, Gewerbekrankheiten, Munich/Berlin 1954, pp. 178-184.
24 The People 's Verdict, Hutchinson & Co., London 1944.
25 Niirnberg Dokument PS-501 ; cf. I. Weckert, "The Gas Vans: A Critical Assessment of the Evidence," in E. Gauss (ed.), op. cit. (note 6), pp. 217- 243.
26 Poisonings by generator gas were so common in Sweden that two special clinics were erected to treat the victims: Aage Grut, Chronic Carbon Monoxide Poisoning, Ejnar Munksgaard, Copenhagen 1949, p. 69. See also; Leo Noro, "Uber die durch Motorabgase verursachten Koh- lenoxydvergiftungen bei der Mannschaft von Panzerformationen," Acta Medico Scandinavica, CXXI(IV) (1945); K. v. Bagh, "Neurologisch- psychiatrische Gesichtspunkte zur Diagnostik und Behandlung der chronischen Generatorgasvergiftungen," Annates Medicinae Internae Fenniae,Yol.35,l946.
Certainty about Werner Heisenberg
About U.S. Plans to Murder the German Nuclear Physicist Werner Heisenberg
By Dr. Gerhard Sommer
There have been much speculation about the desire and the capability of the German Reich to build and use the atom bomb, just as, there has been similar speculation over whether or not Hitler ever planned to use poison gas, and, if not, why not. Historical research has established that Hitler was evidently the only national leader of the Second World War who — doubtless because of his personal experiences in the First World War — adamantly op- posed the use of weapons of mass destruction and the waging of any kind of inhumane warfare against civilians. Undisputed is — and will likely continue to be — the fact that in the Second World War at least — only the Allies can be seriously shown to have used weapons of mass destruction for the mass murder of innocent civilians, a fact which the gas propaganda aimed at Hitler was obviously meant to obfuscate. Thus, it was not a German atomic bomb, but America's "Jewish" bomb, that shocked the world with total destruction, What has also gone unnoticed, until now, is that for the American espionage services apparently any means to prevent even the mere possibility of the development of a German atom bomb during World War II were justified (parallels to the current conflict with Iraq are no coincidence). In the following, it will be shown how former "friends" and "colleagues" of Werner Heisenberg helped in an abortive plan to murder him in order to prevent the German bomb. The question that arises, of course, is whether Heisenberg was the only object of such U.S. murder plans.
Uncertainty (in the sense of "unclear") is the title of an American author's biography of physicist Werner Heisen- berg— with reference to the epoch-making discovery of the "Unscharferelation," the uncertainty principle (David C. Cassidy, Uncertainty: The Life and Science of Werner Heisenberg, W.H. Freeman, New York 1992).
Now, the uncertainty has come to an end with a book by an- other American, even if several decades need pass before it become certainty in the awareness of the newspaper reader or even the educated physicist. The book deals with nothing less than a U.S. wartime effort to murder Werner Heisenberg. There is no uncertainty about the identities of the authors of
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the plan: they were "colleagues," even "friends," of Heisen- berg, who had never done, or even intended, them any harm. Among were certain of his former students and assistants, al- legedly admirers of Heisenberg's genius. Among them were physicists whose names occur too frequently in the history of physics to be dismissed as unimportant.. Thomas Powers (Heisenberg's War: The Secret History of the German Bomb, Knopf, New York 1993) has published the kidnapping and murder plans in a substantial biography based on recently released British and American secret ser- vice files. He has not treated them, however, in the same way that murder plans devised by National Socialists or Fascists are usually presented today. Rather, Powers has fragmented the plans to kill Heisenberg into tiny pieces, and scattered them across many sections of his book — as is customary when slipping historical taboos past the censors; as is cus- tomary when the fascism of the anti-fascists cannot be named for what is. To be sure, the murderously inclined gentlemen's club that devised the all-contaminating nuclear bomb was spared taking responsibility for either its role in the attempted murder of its colleague, or for the mass murders of Hi- roshima and Nagasaki, and has minimized its involvement in both. Not infrequently Powers shows his understanding of this. Yet, in normal criminal cases, mitigating circumstances are not normally taken into consideration during the investi- gative phase. While Powers has not suppressed the evidence of attempted murder in his book, he has concealed it, insofar as the true instigators and perpetrators are concerned, inside a huge pile of negligible information. One must look for this evidence as for the proverbial needle in the haystack. But he who seeks will find.
Powers spells out the plain facts clearly enough: From De- cember 1943 on, the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) pursued a plan to abduct Heisenberg during a visit Switzerland, and it assigned to a certain Colonel Eifler the task of forming a special unit for this purpose. The main problem at the outset was that it was not exactly known where Heisenberg was residing. As a result of an indiscretion by the German nuclear physicist Wolfgang Gentner in con-
Werner Heisenberg, * Dec
fFeb.
versations with the Zurich physicist Scherrer, who was an in- formant of the OSS, it was eventually learned that Heisen- berg lived in Hechingen. It was next decided to relieve Eifler. Powers assumes that his superiors had lost confidence in his ability to conduct the operation in secrecy:
"Small surprise here; there was no hiding Eifler 's gung- ho, brutally direct approach to whatever he undertook. " (Powers, p. 313) Eifler' s replacement was given a different order in August 1944: Morris Berg, a former major league baseball player, was to murder Heisenberg during a physics colloquium or- ganized by Scherrer in Zurich. This reactivated a suggestion which had been made in October 1942, when Heisenberg traveled to his "friend" Scherrer in Zurich for the first time. On the following two pages, I forego any commentary. I only combine widely scattered parts from Powers's hidden presen- tation so as to present a straightforward account in readable form. Page numbers in the following text are according to the original English edition; the sources referred to by Powers are not given.
"[...] in the last week of October 1942, probably on the 26th or 27th, Bethe was contacted by an agitated Weisskopf who had just received a letter from Pauli at Princeton. [With two pieces of information ...] The sec- ond [piece of information] was Wentzel's news that Heisenberg would be visiting Zurich to give a lecture at the university in December [1942], only a little over a month away. Bethe and Weisskopf agreed the Allies were thus given a chance to cripple the German bomb program with a single bold stroke — the kidnapping of Heisenberg on neutral ground. " (p. 190)
"[... Weisskopf and Bethe] were far from warlike men, but this was war. They were certain Heisenberg was working on a German bomb; they had a bright idea, and they submitted it in haste to the one man they knew with an open channel to the authorities-Robert Oppenheimer. The channel was indeed open. Oppenheimer replied the following day, thanking Weisskopf for his 'interesting let- ter, ' saying he already knew the central facts and had passed them on to 'the proper authori- ties, ' but had 'taken the liberty of for- warding your letter' as well. " (p. 192) "Back in Cambridge by the end of the first week of November, Bethe sought out Samuel Goudsmit, the Dutch-born University of Michigan physicist who had been working on radar there for several months. Goudsmit had no offi- cial knowledge of the American bomb project, but like most physicists- especially those with European back- grounds-he knew from friends that something was in the works. Bethe de- scribed the news from Pauli 's letter and Goudsmit immediately agreed the chance to lay hands on Heisenberg in Zurich should not be wasted. " (p. 193; Goudsmit immediately wrote a letter
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about this to the British Secret Service circles, who also actually received it.)
"The American bomb program was not taken over by the U.S. Army until June 1942, and General Leslie Groves, put in command in September, concerned himself mainly with questions of internal security for nearly a year be- fore giving one of his aides the job of gathering intel- ligence on the Germans [i.e., a possible German program for atomic bombs]." (p. 155)
"[... Groves received] alarmed memos of project sci- entists, and Groves concluded they would never 'stick to their knitting ' until he convinced them the Germans were getting the full attention of a serious intelligence effort. But placating the scientists was not Groves 's only motive for doing something about the Germans. " (p. 216f.) "To Furman [the new head of his own secret defense or- ganization] Groves spelled out the two halves of his prob- lem: little or no information about the Germans, and con- stant agitation by scientists furious at the military for fail- ing to take the German danger seriously. The job Groves had in mind for Furman would address both halves through an effort to gather information about the Ger- mans with the aid of the worried scientists themselves; later on there might be some special projects for Furman to handle. " (p. 218)
"The bombing of German cities was routine, but the choice of [the Berlin suburb] Dahlem astarget was not. In one of his many historical notes written after the war, Leslie Groves refers to 'the bombing of the Dahlem sector in Ber- lin which we undertook at my request to drive German sci- entists out of their comfortable quarters. ' Groves 's success, however, was not quite complete " (p. 338f.) "Bethe and Weisskopf both say [during an interview with the author] they were not present when the proposal to kill leading German scientists was made to Groves, but both agree it was quite in character with other coldblooded de- cisions Oppenheimer made during the war years. [...] What Oppenheimer, Weisskopf, Bethe, Morrison and especially Samuel Goudsmit knew about the attempt to go after Heisenberg seems to have had an important effect
Physicists in an extermination frenzy: from left: Niels Bohr, Robert Oppenheimer,
Richard Feynman, EnriCO Fermi (http://sage.me.utexas.edu/~uer/manhattan/people.html)
on the way they treated him after the war. In particular, they would all-and Niels Bohr as well-find it hard to ac- cept as a fact that Heisenberg had completely lacked any- thing like their own determination to build the world's first atomic bomb. " (p. 258f.)
"Since December 1943 Groves had been pursuing the proposal to organize the kidnapping of Heisenberg. The OSS had agreed to undertake the job, and had assigned it to Colonel Carl Eifler, who began immediately to recruit a team for the task. But of course no operation could pro- ceed without one basic fact-where Heisenberg might be found. " (p. 287)
"It was Wolfgang Centner, all unknowing, who found Heisenberg for the Americans. " (p. 288) "Eifler was left in no doubt that Heisenberg 's survival was not the mission 's highest priority. 'Okay,' he said, 'I've got him into Switzerland, we're ready to take him out now but I'm about to be arrested by the Swiss police — what do I do now? ' Buxton said, 'You deny the enemy his brain. ' 'The only way to do that, ' Eifler said, 'is to kill him. So I kill him, and the Swiss police arrest me — what happens then? '
'Then, ' said Buxton, 'we 've never heard, of you. '" (p. 266) "[...] on June 23 [... Donavan] informed Eifler that the Heisenberg kidnapping had been scrubbed by the Man- hattan Engineer District. Of course Donovan did not identify the MED by name, and he offered the barest ex- planation for the change in orders: the project was no longer necessary, the race for a new type of bomb was over — 'We 've cracked the atom, ' he said. " (p. 312) "But the attempt to kidnap or assassinate Heisenberg was not dropped, as we shall see. A new effort was organized over the summer of 1944, and shortly after Furman left Rome for London, Berg was picked for a steadily growing role in the renewed effort. " (p. 313) "Berg was Jewish, but it was not Nazi anti-Semitism that angered him; it was book-burning.?' (p. 296) "But Berg was not idle in London while he waited for the plan to go forward. During long walks in the country he continued his private tutorial in atomic physics with his Prince- ton friend, Bob Robertson, and he received many cables and pouch letters, including one from [the OSS agent] Loof- bourow in Zurich, who reported that Heisenberg and Max von Laue met every Wednesday with the Swiss scientist Walther Dallenbach at his research insti- tute in Bissingen. Loofbourow also reported that the way to Scherrer 's heart would be a pre- sent of 100 grams of heavy wa- ter for experiments with his in- stitute's cyclotron. " (p. 390) "On December 10, Berg crossed
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the Channel for Paris, where he saw Tony Calvert [a member of the security staff of the Manhattan-Project] and Sam Goudsmit. Goudsmit gave Berg a small con- tainer of heavy water-a present for Paul Scherrer. A week later Berg left for Switzerland. " (p. 392) "Berg was a lifelong scribbler of notes, and when he died he left behind much paper. Among it were many raw notes on the episode in Zurich. At least twice he seems to have set out to write a history of his wartime work for the OSS; each ended after a furious bout of scribbling. Twice also Berg told friends what he had been sent to Switzerland to do, and among his many handwritten notes is a brief, fragmentary account of the conversations in Paris. It was Tony Calvert who told him that the OSS — 'the great Donovan grapevine ' — had just learned of Heisenberg 's impending arrival in Zurich, subject of the Bern cable sent to Goudsmit on November 28. Berg wrote: ' — gun in my pocket. '
Then on the next line: 'nothing spelled out but Heisenberg must be rendered hors de combat. ' The French phrase translates literally as 'out of the battle. ' There is a very narrow range of ways in which a gun may be used to take an opponent out of the battle. " (p. 392) "At least twice during the eight or nine days in Zurich Heisenberg brushed by an agent of the OSS [Morris Berg] armed with a pistol and authority to kill him. It was Scherrer who had invited Heisenberg to Zurich, who kept the OSS informed, and who arranged for the OSS agent to be present. " (p. 395)
"Scherrer himself left no memoir of his role in the war; he destroyed most of his papers after he retired from the ETH (Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule, Zurich University), and he apparently never discussed the war years with friends. Many of his students, at any rate, knew nothing of his extensive contacts with the OSS over a pe- riod of nearly two years, and his old friend Wolfgang Pauli sometimes complained in later years of Scherrer 's silence about the war. The only substantial surviving evi- dence of what Scherrer felt about these matters is to be found in OSS cables reporting his views, and in notes which Morris Berg made at the time of his conversations with him. " (p. 396)
"With the OSS officer Leo Martinuzzi as companion, Berg arrived at the University of Zurich on Ramistrasse in good time for the seminar on theoretical physics sched- uled to begin at 4:15 on December 18. There was no se- curity of any kind; anyone was free to join the small group gathered for Heisenberg 's talk" (p. 397) "Berg scribbled a kind of running account. He caught Heisenberg 's eye. "H. likes my interest in his lecture, " Berg wrote. " (p. 398)
"Berg wrote, "As I listen, I am uncertain — see: Heisen- berg's uncertainty principle — what to do to H... discuss- ing mathematics] while Rome burns — if they knew what I'm thinking. ' [...] Berg did nothing. " (p. 399) "Berg went further when he described the episode to his friend Earl Brodie three or four years after the war. [...] As Brodie remembers it:
He said they wanted to get Heisenberg out of Germany and into Switzerland to give a lecture. Berg was sent to shoot him and he didn't do it. He'd been drilled in physics, to listen for certain things. If anything Heisen- berg said convinced Berg the Germans were close to a bomb then his job was to shoot him — right there in the auditorium. It probably would have cost Berg his life — there would have been no way to escape. " (p. 393) The all too convenient excuse of the Allied physicists — especially those who "originated from Europe" — that they raced to produce the first atomic bomb in America out of their naked fear of a German atomic bomb, runs through the history of the bombs that fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki like a ritual. Over the past half century years, nobody has really looked more closely at these scientists', motives. Powers re- peats their assertion again and again as well. On the other hand, Powers 's book offers for the first time facts which ap- pear to render such excuses untenable. General Groves, for example, was informed on January 5, 1944, by formal letter from the British that the German atomic bomb was a pure phantasm:
"All the evidence available to us leads us to the conclu- sion that the Germans are not in fact carrying out large- scale work on any aspect of TA (Tube Alloys) [the British code word for atomic bomb]. We believe that after an ini- tial serious examination of the project, the German work is now confined to academic and small-scale research, much of which is being published in current issues of their scientific journals. " (Powers, p. 284f.) These assessments of the situation, which by the way proved to be quite correct, were, for reasons not yet released for in-
Leo Szilard, here together with Albert Einstein, the intellec- tual grandfather of the atomic bomb and promoter of it's use against Germany, assisted the implementation of the "Man- hattan Project" to build the US atom bomb. Together with Enrico Fermi, Szilard succeeded with the first chain reaction. Both physicists had left Germany because of hostility toward
Jews.
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vestigation by critical authors, politely shrugged off by Gen- eral Groves as irrelevant. The reader has to draw his own conclusions. The reason lay probably in the sentiment quoted above: in order to make the scientists "stick to their knit- ting"— at least those who worked on the bomb for reasons other than vengeance. After all, one cannot depend on all Jews having complementary feelings to anti-Semitism. Thomas Powers does not seem to belong to those authors who don't know what they are writing about. He belongs to those who do know — but don't say what they think. He did at least not dare to blindly repeat everything. Power's final as- sessment ofppenheimer, one of the great executioners of mankind, is worth to be quoted here unabridged:
"When Oppenheimer [after the first atom bomb test on July 16, 1945] returned to the base camp and stepped down from the jeep his look, his stance, his walk spoke triumph to his friend I. I. Rabi. Rabi himself had declined to work on the bomb; he hated the thought that this was the culmination of three centuries of physics. But he con- sented to hold the overworked Oppenheimer 's hand, to brace him when he flagged, to witness his triumph at Alamogordo. 'His walk was like High Noon, ' said Rabi. 'I think it's the best I could describe it — this kind of strut. He 'd done it. '
The elation survived even Hiroshima. Among those at Los Alamos on August 6 when the public address system an- nounced the use of one of the lab 's "units " on Japan was the young physicist Sam Cohen. He remembers vividly the whistling, cheering and foot-stomping in an auditorium that night when Oppenheimer entered at the rear — not from the wings, his custom — and made his way forward up the central aisle through the crowd. On the stage Op- penheimer pumped his clasped hands above his head in the classic self-congratulation of the prizefighter. When at last he could speak, there was no shadow of regret in his words and he did not hesitate to play to the crowd. What Cohen remembers is unambiguous triumph: It was too early to determine what the results of the bombing might have been, but he was sure that the Japanese didn 't like it. More cheering. He was proud, and he showed it, of what he had accomplished. Even more cheering. And his only regret was that we hadn 't developed the bomb in time to have used it against the Germans. This practically raised the roof" (Powers, p. 46 If.)
A couple of years ago, when I was researching the New York Times for something completely different, I saw the following entry in the year's index: " 'German refugees' role in Atomic Bomb creation discussed.". It was a series of four articles which explained the atomic bomb for laymen. The author of the series was William L. Laurence, one of the star journalists at that time of this thoroughly circumcised paper, as Karl Kraus would have said. Part 3, published on September 28, 1945 — seven weeks after Hiroshima had been turned into a ra- dioactive field of rubble — bore the title: "Atom Bomb Based on Einstein Theory." The name of the discoverer of nuclear fis- sion, Otto Hahn, does not appear anywhere in the whole series. Part 4, published the following day, bears the title: "Atomic
Factories Incredible Sight" and describes in hymnal lines the creators of the bomb and how it was created:
"The design and construction of the bombs called for the concentration of the most powerful 'beam ' of collective intelligence ever brought to bear upon any single project. Some of the outstanding minds in this group came to us as exiles from Nazi and Fascist fury. " The rest I would like to reproduce completely, because I un- derstand fascist "kitsch" just as well as Mr. Laurence:
"Hidden in the mesas and canyons of New Mexico, peaked by the mountains of the majestic Sangre de Christo, which appear like mountains of fire during sun- rise and sunset, this place, Los Alamos, is the 'most Mars- like ' on of all places in the 'atom land of Mars. ' With every step one finds incredible things here, a new species of man, the Mesa-Man, lays the foundation of the civiliza- tion of the future. " (retranslated) Two years after reading this in the New York Times, I noticed that Mr. Laurence was the only journalist who was allowed to observe the first atom bomb test with his own eyes. The man who guided Laurence through the top secret precincts of Los Alamos and who assisted him writing this, was the future Einstein and Nobel Prize laureate Richard P. Feynman. In 1985, he still had a remarkable Weltanschauung:
"The Germans had Hitler and the possibility of develop- ing an atomic bomb was obvious, and the possibility that they would develop it before we did was very much of a fright. So I decided to go [.. .to Los Alamos]." (p. 108) "We were recruited, by the way, by Oppenheimer and other people [...] he was a wonderful man. " (p. 110) "I ended up as a group leader under Bethe with four guys under me., "(p. 112)
"I was an underling at the beginning. Later I became a group leader. And I met some very great men. It is one of the great experiences of my life to have met all these wonderful physicists. " (p. 132)
"Then there was John Von Neumann, the great mathema- tician. We used to go for walks on Sunday. We 'd walk in the canyons, often with Bethe and Bob Backer. It was a great pleasure. And Von Neumann gave me an interesting idea: that you don 't have to be responsible for the world that you 're in. So I have developed a very powerful sense of social irresponsibility as a result of Von Neumann 's advice. It 's made me a very happy man ever since. But it was Von Neumann who put the seed in that grew into my active irresponsibility!" (p. 132; all quotations from: Richard P. Feynman, Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman, W.W. Norton, New York 1985). Even then, I pondered whether these "Mesa-Men," who al- legedly laid "the foundation of the civilization of the future," were not simply Judeo-Nazis who — as Israel Shahak has re- peatedly emphasized — grow like weeds, especially in Amer- ica. And after reading Thomas Powers' book — the title of which would more appropriately be: "The War of Heisen- berg's Colleagues. The Secret History of the Mesaic Nuclear Bomb" — I am absolutely certain of this.
First published in Vierteljahreshefte fur freie Geschichtsforschung 3(2) (1999), pp. 182-186; translated by Fabian Eschen.
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The Hole in the Door
By Hans Pedersen
Introduction
It is important for understanding political and religious phe- nomena to realize that abnormal behavior is transmittable. At the turn of the 20th century, the German neurologist Kraepelin described a condition which he called "induced insanity";1 whereby a psychotic person, called the inductor, can cause a similar sickness in otherwise normal persons. The disease always includes more than one person: the inductor and one or more induced. The development of the psychosis within the inductor depends on the feedback from the induced per- sons. The inductor is dominant, and the induced follow him/her like a dog follows his master. Their behavior only re- turns to normal when their contact with the inductor is inter- rupted.
A variation of Kraepelin' s "induced madness" will be de- scribed in the following and includes two disease descrip- tions: 1) The disease of the inductor, which — after the first described case — can be named Rachel-Hertz-Syndrome, and 2) the disease on the side of the induced. For this I suggest the name "Acquired Behavior Deficiency Syndrome" — abbreviated ABDS — in order to emphasize the similarity with AIDS.
This condition can be distinguished from neuroses, psychoses and psychotic conditions as a form of stand-alone disease. Whole epidemics can develop. Causes for the disease are not viruses or bacteria, but ideas and imaginations. Similar to AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome), however, is the initial condition for the development of the disease: a blocking of defense mechanisms, here the higher neurologi- cal functions of the brain.
The similarity between ABDS and AIDS is that in both cases the distinction between "foreign" and "own" is warped in such a way that outsiders — viruses or non-members of the group — can attain control. If a degenerated cell is not recog- nized as such, cancer develops. When AIDS has blocked the immunization, parasites like viruses and bacteria can destroy the body. This also has a parallel with ABDS.
Rachel-Hertz-Syndrome
Rachel-Hertz-Syndrome consists of a pathological impulse by the sick person to gain attention and devotion, by employ- ing knowingly deceitful means.2 He or she knows, that s/he must hide these means from other persons. In contrast to this, the urge to commit the deception is unconscious and not sub- ject to the will. But the reaction of people in the environment can suppress or enhance the pathological behavior; things can reach such an extent that the sick person dominates his or her environment totally.
Contrary to the syndrome described by Kraepelin, the induc- tor here is not affected by the same disease which he caused in his victims; s/he does not have the same insane imagina- tions which s/he evoked in the induced. The inductor blocks the mental defense mechanism of the victim. By imposing a taboo, s/he eliminates the victim's capability to look at
him/herself critically and to use his/her capacity to reason. The inductor causes an emotional blockage which blocks the induced 's rational questioning about his or her own behavior; by so doing, the inductor, whose actions may otherwise ap- pear utterly embarrassing and ridiculous to unaffected, healthy individuals, becomes able to exploit the victim . In this way, paranoid perceptions develop regarding certain contemporary eras. For the thorough understanding of this disease, the case which gave this disease its name shall be de- scribed in the following. It happened almost 180 years ago, which guarantees that there will be only a minute danger that it will cause the above described emotional blockages among readers perhaps already induced.
The disease was first described in Denmark regarding a Jew- ish girl named Juliane Rachel Hertz who became known as the "Sewing Needle Virgin".3 Characteristic of the disease is the uninhibited use of constant deception by a person who at- tempts to bring herself to the center of attention in order to gain support from the people around her. Rachel Hertz exhibited symptoms which at least initially al- lowed for suspicions as to whether this was a type of hys-
Address: Fredericiagade Nr. 26 in Kopenhagen, the House of the "Sewing Needle Virgin"
(Picture Archive City-Museum Kopenhagen)
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teria — in psychiatry a condition where the patient unknow- ingly shows neurological symptoms. It can be difficult for the doctor to distinguish between hysteria and conscious deceit, since the patient's specific acts of deception can be very con- vincing. Most of the time the patient has helpers for his de- ceitful actions.
In the case of the "needle-virgin," the deceptions were mainly aimed at a Danish medical doctor, J.D. Herholdt, professor of internal medicine and chief physician of the Royal Frederiks Hospital in Kopenhagen from 1819 to 1825. The behavior of the patient was therefore characterized by physical symptoms and self-inflicted injuries.
Rachel Hertz had a Jewish family background. In 1750, her mother's father emigrated from Portugal to Denmark. In 1752, he married Rebekka Wessely. Their daughter Esper- ance Warburg married Levin Hertz, who had been born in Berlin about 1756.
All the individuals named were of Jewish origin. Rachel Hertz was the fourth of six children. The family was among to the wealthiest in Kopenhagen and had no problems in pay- ing for Rachel's three and a half years of hospitalization and her care afterwards.
Rachel Hertz was gifted and had a lively imagination. She had a tendency to irritate others and to make herself look fa-
Professor J. D. Herholdt (1764-1836), Victim and Hero (Medical-historic Museum, Kopenhagen)
vorable. In the years from 1808 to 1811 she exhibited hys- terical symptoms of screaming and of attacks of madness and cramps. Prof. Herholdt was the family doctor. It was not until 1819, at age 26, that Rachel started her acts of deception which later gave her the name "needle-virgin." Herholdt was called because the patient experienced severe pain in the ab- domen, had vomited, and was whimpering. Below the navel Herholdt found a large hard and painful knot. He made an incision and removed a narrow and hard foreign substance, which turned out to be a needle. Rachel explained that she had swallowed the needle, which then traveled on its own to the spot where Herholdt found it. Peo- ple around Rachel, including Prof. Herholdt, at first did not doubt this explanation, although Rachel was exposed later. During the following seven years, Herholdt had to remove several hundred needles.
In 1820, Rachel's mother suffered apoplexy (stroke) with pa- ralysis of her left side. In the meantime, Rachel developed a "paralysis" of her arms as well as legs, but by New Year 1820 only the "paralysis" of the right arm remained. In the spring of 1821, Rachel showed symptoms she had evinced before 1811: she could not urinate and had to be catheterized. This was done by Herholdt twice a day. The quantity of urine, however, which was released through the catheter from the bladder exceeded by far the quantity of fluid which Rachel took in. In 1822, Rachel was hospitalized in the Royal Frederiks Hospital where Herholdt had become chief physician. After admission she became mute and com- municated from then on by writing with her left hand.
Exposure
In 1825, Herholdt completed his work at the Royal Frederiks Hospital, and Rachel came under the care of the shoemaker family Kuhn. Her hosts had the suspicion that she was faking and therefore drilled a hole through the door of her room in order to observe Rachel. It turned out that Rachel, during moments when she felt unobserved, sat up in her bed, moved the "paralyzed" arm, and walked about in her room. She combed her hair with her right hand and wrote messages on communications on the blackboard for Herholdt. She also in- serted liquids and air through the catheter into her bladder. Herholdt was informed about this and observed Rachel through the hole in the door. A few days after Rachel had been told that she had been exposed, her body functions were back to normal. Criminal proceedings were considered against her, but Queen Marie Sophie Frederikke intervened on her behalf.
After the exposure, it became clear that Rachel must have had accomplices who had helped her. Furthermore, it turned out that Rachel had always been aware of the fact that she was deceiving the people around her.
The "symptoms" which Rachel developed were partly in- spired by the apoplexy of her mother, which had resulted in real paralysis, and partly were selected for those who she wanted to impress. When a medical authority like Herholdt recognized the symptoms as real, then the people around also accepted them as real. Little is known about her helpers, who must have known about the fraud.
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If no one had reacted to Rachel Hertz's deceit, and had she not been the object of interest of prominent persons, the dis- ease possibly would not have broken out in the first place. High level persons paid regular visits: Prof. Justizrat Weedemann from Kiel, His Excellency Geheimer Konfer- enzrat WJ.A. von Moltke, Bishop Dr. Theol. CD. Kofoed, the secretary of the Russian embassy, Louis de Bioloier, as well as Prof. Dr. H. Chr. Orstedt (discoverer of electromag- netism), to name only the most prominent. Rachel was not diagnosed as being psychologically abnor- mal. She was not "insane" according to the medical science of that time. From a medical point of view, her case was in- teresting, and Herholdt introduced the patient to the highest social circles. Rachel was gifted and even translated medical- historical works for Herholdt from Latin into Danish. As- signment to this work doubtlessly gave Rachel some ideas about the "symptoms" and provided her with the theoretical knowledge which was necessary in order to deceive a medi- cal doctor for years. Herholdt's thorough and persevering ex- aminations, on the other hand, contributed to perpetuate her interest in the matter.
The case also shows that the inductor gets his or her ideas for the acts of deception from his or her environment and adapts them to the expectations of the target person(s). Without the possibility of deception, i.e., when the patient's social contacts are aware of this phenomenon, the sick person can lead a perfectly normal life and integrate into society. On May 8, 1829, Rachel Herz gave birth to a daughter, Juliane Krilger. According to the church book of the Trini- tatus parish in Kopenhagen, the father was one Kruger, an of- fice manager. From that time onward, Rachel lived com- pletely outside the Jewish community, and in 1834, she moved with her daughter to the Forester House Svendstedille on the Danish island Seeland. She died in 1841, after finally coming to lead a completely normal life. On Seeland, Rachel Hertz was treated affectionately and with understanding by her landlords. However, because of their attitude — they were of course familiar with her history — Rachel Hertz no longer had any opportunity for her deceptions. (Today, certain cir- cles would denounce this attitude as "anti-Semitism.") The "needle virgin" is the first well-documented example of this form of mental disease in the history of medicine. This condition is not characterized by physical symptoms but by the tendency and capability to deceive those in the environ- ment. It is not fraud in the general penal sense but a behav- ioral malfunction which has to be considered 'endogenous.' Which means that it comes from within; it has a genetic ori- gin. In order to achieve an emotional gain, the sick person — the inductor — must influence and deceive other people. In doing this, s/he utilizes innate trigger mechanisms of the vic- tim which are not pathological, but are instrumental for the integration and assumption of social roles within society. This includes helping other members of the community in case of weakness or sickness, offering protection, showing compassion, and providing comfort. By simulating an af- flicted person, which triggers certain mechanisms within the victim — the induced — the inductor causes a "false alarm" and thus brings about reactions which are inappropriate to the
actual situation. This condition in itself cannot be viewed as pathological. In a similar fashion, every baby tries to "drill" others, especially its mother. If the mother is overly respon- sive and reacts with disproportionate devotion, the develop- ment of a tyrant is preprogrammed.
The behavior becomes pathological when the inductor pre- vents his/her victim from acting rationally by developing new symptoms, for instance by going berserk, screaming, having attacks of hysteria, and by inducing guilt feelings. When every attempt of the victim to judge his/her part rationally is "punished" with such violent reactions from the inductor, the victim finally stops resisting at all. Instead of thinking ration- ally, the victim allows him/herself to be controlled through guilt complexes. Only if the victim is confronted with the truth in the presence of others, will s/he dare to think ration- ally again.
Neurotic persons can totally terrorize their environment, be- cause most people cannot stand the emotional stress produced when a neurotic person does not get his or her will. The in- ductor of ABDS does not suffer from neurosis alone, as is shown by the quite painful self-mutilations of Rachel Hertz. This proves that it is independent of symptom. The urge to deceive is the core of the disease, and self mutilation can be one means to this end. In contrast to the often severe self- mutilations of schizophrenic persons, those of inductors are usually less dangerous and are committed for their useful- ness. The self-mutilations of ABDS inductors have a parallel in "pseudo-tetamen suicidi," attempted suicide with ineffec- tive means. Patients with this diagnosis attempt to commit suicide not in order to kill themselves, but to alarm those in their environment. The attempt is intentionally carried out so as not to succeed.
The practical diagnosis of Rachel Hertz syndrome also in- cludes traits of related clinical syndromes including neurotic, psychotic, psychopathic, and hysteric components. But it has to be emphasized that the inductor him/herself does not be- lieve in the insane delusions which s/he causes in his/her vic- tims. It is, in fact, possible that s/he suffers from other delu- sions, but s/he is aware of the deceptions, and behaves quite rationally and carefully in order to prevent their revelation. In those cases where there are accomplices, the inductor most likely bribes them.
The inductor acts compulsively, and even the danger of being exposed cannot deter him/her from his/her activities. Curing him/her is only possible if there is no longer any opportunity to deceive.
Syndrome of Acquired Behavior Defects {ABDS)
In most cases, the victim gets entangled in a web of emo- tional involvements and blockings which s/he cannot untan- gle alone. The victim's delusions have a different origin than do psychogenic delusions. Though both delusions cause enor- mous emotional stress, ABDS does not limit the ability for normal and rational behavior in other areas of life. The ABDS psychosis exists only when confronted with the inductor (and other, equally induced victims).
Kraepelin's syndrome of "induced madness" is also known in older psychiatric theory by the French designation "folie a
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deux" or "folie a trois" (madness of two/three). The diagnosis of "induced psychosis" means that, as already mentioned, both the inductor and the induced jointly accept the same de- lusions, but that the induced operates pathologically. Gener- ally, individuals outside of the normal population fall victim to it.
Herein lies the difference between induced madness and ABDS, where the inductor abuses normal people. Here, the induced are not individuals outside the normal population, as the case of Prof. Herholdt indicates. Herholdt distinguished himself only positively: he certainly had an intelligence above average and was a very social person. Another difference between Kraepelin's "induced madness" and the case of Rachel Hertz is — as has already been deter- mined— that she as the inductor has no delusions. It is Her- holdt whose picture of the situation is formed by delusions. His judgment of the condition of the patient is wrong and ir- rational. Of course, not every wrong diagnosis by a doctor can be described as a delusion. In the case of Rachel Hertz, the justification for this is based on Herholdt' s intellectual blockage regarding his capabilities to rationally analyze the clinical findings. Already the difference in quantity between Hertz's consumed and excreted liquid should have made Prof. Herholdt think.
Only after Herholdt looked through the hole in the door did it occur to him that he had been made a fool of. He did not even consider whether Rachel herself had introduced the needles and other objects underneath her skin. The pathological na- ture of Rachel's behavior becomes clear when one considers the pain that this must have caused.
Herholdt can be excused to some extent if one considers the poor anatomical and physiological knowledge of the medical doctors at that time. But Herholdt must also have had an emotional desire for an extraordinary doctor/patient relation- ship in order to participate in this hoax without becoming aware of it. The intensive and time consuming treatment of Rachel Hertz indicates a deep emotional involvement. Prior to the exposure, however, Herholdt was at no time aware that it was a deception.
One also has to consider that the physicians of that time did not expect such behavior from any patient. Even today's phy- sicians can get in trouble and let themselves be tricked by ap- proaching a patient too uncritically. In the case of Rachel Hertz it was sober non-experts who became suspicious and found irrefutable proof of the hoax. When Herholdt looked through the hole in the door, he described his impression as follows:
"Oh man! I thought, what are you? Does a madness really exist that is not based on the aberration of the mind? I walked away quietly and felt hurt. " The reactions after Rachel's exposure were condemnation and disgust. Even the medical world — as Herholdt' s reaction indicates — had difficulty in imagining that a person who could perform difficult intellectual work — for example, trans- lating from Latin — could be "insane," but at the same time might not show any sign of mental malfunction. While looking through the hole in the door, Herholdt real- ized— as did the surgeon Prof. C.C. Withusen — that Rachel's
behavior was the expression of a pathological condition of the mind. He was cured of his own delusions within seconds. The emotional bond with the patient, which was a prerequi- site for maintaining the physician's "induced" condition, was broken and replaced by a normal doctor/patient relationship. In this case, the physician had been the patient. A sudden contact with a non-induced individual or an acci- dental exposure of the inductor can cause a "miraculous cure" by immediate cessation of the emotional blockade. Of course, not only physicians can fall victim to this form of psychosis.
The condition of ABDS was thus far unknown in the psychi- atric literature; at least it did not get any attention. There exists in the English-language medical literature a re- lated concept called "Holocaust Survivor Syndrome (HSS).4 This is a disease with massive induced delusions, which oc- curs almost exclusively among Jewish individuals. Other groups of people, who were affected by war, internment, or catastrophes, do not usually show these pathological reac- tions.
Jews afflicted with HSS exchange their real experiences for those from circulated cliches — in fact independently of whether they were in camps or not.
Some of them testify about persecution which they did not experience, and relate stories which are conspicuous merely due to their inner contradictions, their fantastic constructions, and their technical-scientific impossibilities. The intent of deception is obvious but becomes secondary because another form of psychosis is superimposed, namely that of "being persecuted". The claim of "being persecuted" probably originates from a compensation mechanism which serves to render inner tensions, resulting from a contradiction between high ambition and the inability to realize it. bear- able. The same disharmony can be observed in the USA in the intermixing of blacks and whites, leading to considerable criminal and psychiatric problems.5
Characteristic of the HSS is a mutual induction whereby the difference between inductor and induced ceases to exist. All inductors are at the same time induced. Additionally, a sub- stantial number of inductors or induced do not belong to normal, but to highly pathological personality types. The ef- fects can be devastating. The group of people affected by HSS can finally cause ABDS within normal non-Jews.
Epidemiology
The epidemiological risks of ABDS are considerably higher than the risks of the Kraepelin-Psychosis; an entire popula- tion can be effected by ABDS. The delusions can be induced in the majority of a population without the victims being sick or abnormal. What we are dealing with here is a blockage of the normal neurological mechanism at a higher level. Popu- larly put: this is a "mental AIDS." This parallel is valid also in a broader sense. The disease is incurable as long as emo- tional contact exists between the carrier of the pathogen and the victim. But in case of ABDS, this emotional contact to the virus carrier can easily be removed, in contrast to the (cur- rently) permanent infection of the human body by the HIV virus.
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The importance of any case of ABDS is limited as long as only a single sick person triggers delusions in the individuals in his immediate environment. In the case of Rachel Hertz, a closely limited circle suffered from ABDS. Recent history, however, indicates that broad sections of a population can be kept in a condition of delusion. This is achieved by an influ- ential group of inductors using emotional reactions and social taboos which block the victim's capabilities to react ration- ally. In such cases, it is not obvious to the victims that those imposing the taboo are sick inductors.
The possible damage can be immeasurable when a group of sick but cunning deceptors causes delusions in order to profit from their victims, i.e., when they deliberately shut down the defense mechanisms of a society. In the case discussed here, nearly all the journalists, judges, and even university scholars of an entire society act in accord with delusions induced in them, and Nobel Prizes are awarded to the inductors because of their deceptions.
Once the group of inductors has reinforced its totalitarian domination of a society, nobody dares to see that "the em- peror has no clothes." Even healthy individuals will be dis- abled: through induced policemen who persecute the non- induced, through induced employers who dismiss him and destroy his existence, through induced judges who sentence him and put him in jail, through induced media who harass him and call for measures against him. . . Then the paranoid illusions can spread worldwide. None of the induced indi- viduals recognizes the abstruseness to which it leads. Physi- cians who recognize the condition as pathological will be banished as "unworthy," for example, by revoking their li- cense to practice. The only cure against this collective delu- sion is to look "through the hole in the door."
When a new era comes, physicians will be surprised to what extent the world population of the 20th and early 21s' century, beyond all borders and up to the highest social levels, was seized by a form of ABDS, while the few unaffected indi- viduals were socially ostracized and persecuted. One may still be ostracized or even incarcerated when one looks "through the hole in the door" — but it is the only way to health, freedom, and truth.
We recommend using as a "hole": Ernst Gauss (ed.), Dissec- ting the Holocaust. The Growing Critique of 'Truth ' and 'Memory ', 2nd edition, Theses & Dissertations Press, Chicago 2003; see http://vho.org/GB/Books/dth and advertisement on the inside of the back cover of this issue.
Notes
First published in Vierteljahreshefte fiir freie Geschichtsforschung 1(2) (1997), pp. 79-83; translated by Fabian Eschen.
1 Emil Kraepelin, Psychatrie, Leipzig 61899.
2 Hans Pedersen, Postbox 99, DK-6340 Krusa, unpublished.
3 All the information in this article on the Herz case was taken from: J.D. Herholdt, Auszuge aus den iiber die Krankheit der Rachel Hertz wahrend derjahre 1807-1826 gefiihrten Tagebiicher, Kopenhagen 1826. Under "Vorerinnerung" we read: "I wish that the content of this writing would cause thoughtful physicians and philosophers [...] to examine the invisi- ble bond which links our body to our mental nature. [. . .] the manifold hardship which this sick woman caused me. [...] May her sad example be a warning deterrent to all other erring people, [. . .] not to resist the voice oftruth!"
A more recent survey of this case appeared by Henrik Dam, "Synalejom- fruen," Medicinisk Forum (Landemasrket 25, DK-1 1 19 Kopenhagen), 39. Vol., no. 3, 1986, pp. 84-92, from which the pictures of this article were taken.
4 In this regard, the Polish Historical Society reported on a conference of Polish and Ukrainian physicians in the Polish Consulate of New York on Jan. 1, 1993, Press release, Jan. 25, 1993, 91 Strawberry Hill Ave., Stamford, CT 06902, USA.
5 Dept. of Justice, FBI Report, Vol. 25, no. 2, 1954, quoted acc. to H.E. Garrett, Race and Psychology, The Mankind Quarterly, Vol. l,No. 1, 1960.
WW II: Whose War was it?
By Prof. Emil Schlee
The period from the beginning of the First to the end of the Second World War is increasingly called what it actu- ally was: the Third Thirty Years War (1914-1945) for the destruction of Germany, which from the end of the nine- teenth century had been growing into a scientific and economic superpower. This fact, however, is hidden behind a veil of continuing war propaganda from the media, the historians, and the politicians. The reason for the propa- ganda is that the entire postwar order hangs on hiding the truth. Historical accuracy, however, demands a correction of the historiography of both world wars: Germany did not unleash either.
1. Is Germany's guilt for two world wars an illusion?
The victorious powers in both world wars against Germany understood and labeled both world wars a "Thirty Years War," not without reason (Winston Churchill, Herbert Glad- wyn, John Major, Alfred M. de Zayas, Charles de Gaulle). Lord Gladwyn1 even called the two world wars the "third Thirty Years War." In order to fend off embarrassing ques- tions, the Allies had an easy response to the question in the headline of this article: without historiographical substantia-
tion and against better knowledge, they imposed the respon- sibility for both wars on the vanquished. Article 23 1 of the "peace dictate" of Versailles reads as follows:2
"The allied and associated governments declare and Ger- many acknowledges that Germany and her allies are re- sponsible for all losses and all damages which the allies and associated governments and their dependants have suffered as a result of the war forced upon them by the at- tack of Germany and its allies. "
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By treating the question of responsibili- ty for the war thus, morality, trust, and justice were destroyed as the basis for peaceful coexistence and policy be- tween the nations. Because this era was, by declaration, the era of a "Thirty Years War," the French scientist Jacques Bainville, known for his anti- German attitude, could declare in 1920 in his best selling book Les con- sequences de la paix (The conse- quences of the peace):
"It can be said that the peace treaty of Versailles organized the eternal war. "3
In accordance with the demands for "unconditional surrender" as agreed upon in Casablanca in 1943, the victo- rious powers did not even attempt to enter into peace negotiations during or at the end of World War II, but let the German Wehrmacht first surrender, then disarmed it, subsequently simply arresting the German Donitz-govem- ment, and finally and illegally seizing power in Germany according to the "Berlin Declaration" of June 5, 1945. Moreover, they did not forget to state:4 "The German forces on land, water, and in the air are totally beaten and have surrendered unconditionally, and Germany, who is responsible for the war, is no longer able to defy the will of the victorious powers. Thus the unconditional surrender of Germany took place. " At this point it can simply be noted: The German Reich did not surrender in 1945. No documentary evidence exists for this. To the contrary: in the declara- tion of Monheim of July 5, 1945, the last head of state of the German Reich Admiral Karl Donitz, who had been ar- rested by the Allies, protested against the illegal seizure of power by the Allies.5 The sole responsibility for starting the war, which was assigned arbitrarily to the Germans by the victorious powers at the end of both world wars, is his- torically without proof, not justifiable by international law, and therefore po- litically untenable. Only one year after the termination of the Reinsurance Treaty between Germany and Russia in 1 890, France and Russia signed a secu- rity treaty, and by 1892 a military alli- ance had been forged between France and Russia, which resulted in a twenty-
From Local Conflict to World War
Crucial Turning Point of Foreign Policy After Bismarck's Departure 1890
1 882 Secret Three-Power Treaty with military alliance between Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy in case of a French attack against Italy or Germany
1 887 Renewal of the Three-Power Treaty (further re- newals 1891, 1902 and 1912)
1887 Secret neutrality agreement between Germany and Russia (limited for three years) in case of war; excluded are a Russian war of attack against Aus- tria-Hungary and a German war against France (Re-Insurance Treaty). In a very secret add-on protocol the Russian interest for access to the Black Sea is recognized.
1 890 Re-Insurance Treaty not renewed by Germany. Decisive turning point of foreign policy.
1891 Treaty between France and Russia about mutual agreement in case of imminent danger of war.
1892 French-Russian military alliance: In case one of the treaty partners would be attacked by a third power alliance under participation of Germany, the other is obligated to the fight against Germany with all forces.
1 904 French-British colonial treaty: Termination of all quarrels overseas. General political agreement (entente cordial).
1 907 British-Russian treaty about Persia, termination of colonial quarrels.
1908 Enforcing of the British and Russian entente (un- der inclusion of France's Three Power Alliance')
191 2 French-Russian navy convention, cooperation of
sea-forces in case of war. 191 2 Agreement about taking over the protection of the
French North Sea coast by Great Britain in case of
war.
Encirclement completed, condition for war readiness is reached.
The Automatism of the Mobilization 1914
July 25 15:00 Serbia orders mobilization.
21 .00 Austria's partial mobilization against Serbia.
July 26 03:26 Russia orders period for war prepara- tion.
July 29 Afternoon Great Britain declares state of threaten- ing war danger. Evening Russia orders partial mobilization against Austria-Hungary.
July 30 1 8:00 Russia orders total mobilization.
France orders mobilization of the border guard; Germany orders 'security' for the fleet.
July 31 Morning Austria-Hungary orders border protec- tion against Russia 1 2:23 Austria-Hungary orders total mobilization 1 3:00 Germany orders deployment of border
protection (threatening war danger). 1 9:00 Belgium orders mobilization. August 1 16:30 France orders mobilization.
1 7:00 Germany orders mobilization. 1 8:00 Border transgression by Russian cav- alry.
August 2 02:25 Great Britain orders mobilization of the fleet (practice mobilization since mid- July).
August 4 16.00 Beginning of hostilities in the west. August 5 Morning Great Britain orders mobilization of the army.
Declaration of War 1914-1918
Dare
Country
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY
July 28, 1914
Aug. 6, 1914 Russia
Serbia
GERMANY
Aug. 1, 1914 Russia
Aug. 2, 1914
Aug. 3, 1914
Aug. 4, 1914
Mar. 9, 1916
Aug. 28, 1916 Romania
Luxemburg
France
Belgium
Portugal
GREAT BRITAIN
Aug. 4, 1914 Germany
Aug. 12, 1914
Nov. 5, 1914
Oct. 15, 1915 Bulgaria
Austria-Hungary
Turkey
SERBIA
Aug. 6, 1914 Germany
Nov. 7, 1914
Turkey
MONTENEGRO
Aug. 11,1914 Germany
Aug. 7, 1914 Austria-Hungary
FRANCE
Aug. 11,1914 Austria-Hungary
Nov. 6, 1914
Oct. 16, 1915 Bulgaria
Turkey
JAPAN
Aug. 23, 1914 | Germany
RUSSIA
Nov. 2, 1914 Turkey
Oct. 20, 1915 Bulgaria
ITALY
May 23, 1915 Austria-Hungary
Aug. 20, 1915
Oct. 19, 1915
Aug. 20, 1916 Germany
Turkey
Bulgaria
BULGARIA
Oct. 14, 1915 Serbia
Sept. 1, 1916 Romania
ROMANIA
Aug. 27, 1916 | Austria-Hungary
TURKEY
Aug. 30, 1916 |Romania
GREECE
Nov. 25, 1916 | Germany
USA
Apr. 6, 1917 Germany
Dec. 7, 1917 Austria-Hungary
CHINA
Aug. 14, 1917
Aug. 14, 1917
Germany
Austria-Hungary
The Revisionist ■ 2003 ■ Volume 1 ■ No. 1
57
year-long lead-up to the First World War. With time, more nations joined this alliance, leading to the encirclement of Germany. Since the end of hostilities in 1945, there has been no international peace treaty with Germany, a treaty which, as should be general knowledge, can only be signed by the German Reich, which is still with power to do so. Hence, the so-called "Two-plus-Four Agreement" of 1991 signed by the four Allied powers and the two German postwar satellite states, cannot be considered anything even close to a peace treaty. Thus one could just as well speak of a hundred-year war against Germany (1891-1991).
The following critical remark comes from a book entitled Teufelszeug von A bis Z (Devil's Stuff from A to Z) by Carl- August Moser:6
"Because the peace treaty after the First World War was the reason for the second, in order to avoid a third there was no treaty at all ! " On the question of the responsibility for the war, the victori- ous powers' conduct toward the German nation and the Ger- man people at Versailles, Nuremberg or elsewhere is best de- scribed in a sentence by Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach: "The justice of the stronger is the greatest injustice."7 From the outset, the dragon's seed of Versailles8 and vengeful justice of Nuremberg9 were a challenge to the cultivated and civi- lized nations asking for correction.
Delving into the problem of responsibility for the wars, one sees can see why Hugo Wellems titled his book The Century of the Lie,10 and what Winfried Martini wanted to make clear to the re- educated reader with his book title The Victor Writes History}1 What Lord Buckmaster (Lord Chancellor, 1915/16) says about the treaty of Versailles is only the "tip of the iceberg":12
"To get any nation to lay down its weapons based on cer- tain conditions, and then, when it is defenseless, to im- pose different conditions, is a dishonorable act which can never be erased. " Senator Robert T. Taft (1889-1953) made a similar statement in October 1946 at a university in Ohio. Shortly after the judgments of October 1946 were announced, this respected jurist and honorable Republican spoke of the legal monstrosi- ties and historic falsifications of the Nuremberg International Military Tribunals:13
"I believe that the majority of the Americans will be very alarmed because of the war trials just coming to an end in Germany, and now beginning in Japan. They violate the fundamental principal of the American legal system, which requires that an individual cannot be sentenced with refer- ence to a law which was enacted only after the incrimi- nated deed was committed. The trial of the vanquished by the victors cannot be impartial, however the forms of its ju- risdiction may be disguised. About the sentences floats the spirit of vengeance. [...] In these trials we assumed the Russians' understanding of this type of trial. We risk to have discredited the concept of justice in Europe for years to come. "
U.S. President Ronald Reagan stated the real truth when he said at Bitburg (Eifel) on May 5, 1985:
"A feeling of guilt was unjustly forced upon the Ger- mans. "
War from 1800 to 1940 The following nations participated in 287 Wars: Great Britain in 80 wars = 28 Percent France in 75 wars = 26 Percent Spain in 66 wars = 23 Percent Russia in 63 wars = 22 Percent Austria-Hungary in 55 wars = 19 Percent Turkey in 43 wars = 15 Percent roianu in 5<l wars — in rercent Sweden in 26 wars = 9 Percent Netherlands in 23 wars = 8 Percent Germany with Prussia in 23 wars = 8 Percent Denmark in 20 wars = 7 Percent Quincy Wright, A Study of War, Vol. 1, 1960, p. 221 |
|||
Entrance into World War II |
|||
Allied Forces |
Germany |
Italy |
Japan |
Abyssinia |
Dec. 1 , '42 |
Dec. 1 , '42 |
Dec. 1 , '42 |
Egypt |
Feb. 26, '45 |
- |
Dec. 9, '41 |
Australia |
Sept. 3, '39 |
Jan. 3, '42 |
Dec. 8, '41 |
Belgium1' |
May 10, '40 |
Jan. 3, '42 |
Dec. 10, '41 |
Bolivia |
Apr. 7, '43 |
Apr. 7, '43 |
Apr. 7, '43 |
Brazil |
Aug. 22, '42 |
Aug. 22, '42 |
June 06, '45 |
Bulgaria2' |
Sept. 8, '44 |
- |
- |
China (Kuomintang) |
Dec. 9, '41 |
Dec. 9, '41 |
July 07, '371) |
Costa Rica |
Dec. 11, '41 |
Dec. 11, '41 |
Dec. 8, '41 |
Denmark |
Apr. 9, '40 |
- |
- |
Dominican Republic |
Dec. 11, '41 |
- |
Dec. 9, '41 |
Finland2' |
Mar. 3, '45 |
- |
- |
France1' |
Sept. 3, '39 |
June 10, '40 |
Dec. 10, '41 |
Greece |
Apr. 6, '41 |
Oct. 28, '40 |
June 03, '45 |
Great Britain |
Sept. 3, '39 |
June 10, '40 |
Dec. 8, '41 |
Guatemala |
Dec. 11, '41 |
Dec. 11, '41 |
Dec. 10, '41 |
Honduras |
Dec. 12, '41 |
Dec. 12, '41 |
Dec. 9, '41 |
India (British) |
Sept. 3, '39 |
June 12, '40 |
Dec. 10, '41 |
Iraq2' |
Jan. 16, '43 |
Jan. 16, '43 |
Jan. 16, '43 |
Iran2' |
Sept. 9, '43 |
- |
Mar. 1, '45 |
Italia2' |
Oct. 13, '43 |
- |
July 14, '45 |
Yugoslavia1' |
Apr. 6, '41 |
Apr. 6, '41 |
Jan. 3, '424' |
Canada |
Sept. 10, '39 |
June 11, '40 |
Dec. 8, '41 |
Cuba |
Dec. 11, '41 |
Dec. 11, '41 |
Dec. 9, '41 |
Liberia |
Jan. 27, '44 |
Jan. 27, '44 |
|
Luxemburg1' |
May 10, '40 |
Jan. 3, '424' |
Jan. 3, '424' |
Mexico |
May 22, '42 |
May 22, '42 |
May 22, '42 |
New Zealand |
Sept. 3, '39 |
June 11, '40 |
Dec. 10, '41 |
Nicaragua |
Dec. 11, '41 |
Dec. 11, '41 |
Dec. 8, '41 |
Netherlands1' |
May 10, '40 |
Jan. 3, 424' |
Dec. 10, '41 |
Dutch India |
Dec. 8, '41 |
||
Norway1' |
Apr. 9, '40 |
Jan. 3, 424' |
Jan. 3, 424' |
Panama |
Dec. 10, '41 |
Dec. 10, '41 |
Dec. 9, '41 |
Peru |
Feb. 12, '45 |
Feb. 12, '45 |
|
Poland1' |
Sept. 1 , '39 |
Jan. 3, 424' |
Jan. 3, 424' |
Romania2' |
Aug. 26, '44 |
||
San Salvador |
Dec. 12, '41 |
Jan. 3, 424' |
Dec. 9, '41 |
Soviet Union |
June 22, '41 |
June 22, '41 |
Aug. 8, '45 |
South African Union |
Sept. 6, '39 |
June 12, '40 |
Dec. 10, '41 |
Syria2' |
Feb. 26, '45 |
Feb. 26, '45 |
|
Czechoslovakia1' |
Mar. 15, '39 |
Dec. 17, '41 |
Dec. 17, '41 |
Hungary2' |
Dec. 31, '44 |
||
USA |
Dec. 11, '41 |
Dec. 11, '41 |
Dec. 7, '41 |
Turkey |
Mar. 1 , '45 |
Mar. 1, '45 |
|
1) Government in exile; 2) Axis power which joined the Allies during the war; 3) Beginning of the Chinese-Japanese war; 4) 26-power declaration directed against the Axis powers in Washington on January 3, 1 942 |
58
The Revisionist ■ 2003 ■ Volume 1 • No. 1
Thus setting straight the question of responsibility for the two world wars is now overdue. Let us therefore move from The Century of the Lie to the century of truth!
2. Germans are addicted to self-accusation
The inaccuracy with which the victorious powers of both world wars decreed Germany's war guilt has been convin- cingly proven through an abundance of documents, facts, wit- nesses, and testimonies as well as a large amount of expert literature from all over the world. One must therefore wonder why the leading officials of the Federal German authorities, who can easily be recognized by their false arguments, still seem to live in the fairy-tale world of early enemy propa- ganda. If German Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schroder had read only a few of the 2 1 books listed in the table below, he would not have revealed his own ignorance during a confe- rence for security policy in February 1999 in Munich. During this meeting of international "insiders," he stated that Ger- many must bear the burden of responsibility for both world
14
wars.
It does not seem to interest the representatives of the German people, their government officials, or the Federal Republic of Germany's historians whether the American historian Harry E. Barnes established in his thoroughly researched book The Genesis of the World War (New York 1929): 15
"Of all powers involved in the war, Germany was the only one which is not guilty at all for the outbreak of the war [of 1914]"; whether a joint declaration drafted during a German-British conference of historians in 1955 in Bamberg on the subject "Germany and England 1904-1914" stated:16
"In 1914, the German policy did not aim at the unleashing of a European war "; whether in 1928, the American historian S. B. Fay came to the conclusion that:17
"Germany did not instigate a European war, it did not want it. The best historical researchers of all countries generally acknowledge that the Versailles verdict of Germany 's guilt is no longer tenable or defendable "; or whether the Deutsch-Amerikaner (The German American, Chicago)18 introduced the basic theses of the book by R. F. Keeling, Cruel Harvest — The Expensive Attempt to Ex- terminate the German People (Chicago 1947) in November 1973 with the following words:19
"For a long time have honorable historians rejected the fable that Germany is solely or originally responsible for World War I. And even for the outbreak of World War II, Germany's enemies have to carry the burden of a large part of responsibility. " Nor does it seem to interest representatives of the Germans that Winston Churchill declared to the British people by radio in November 1939:20
"This war is a British war, and its goal is the destruction of Germany! "
Around Christmas 1970, on occasion of the preparation of the so-called German East Treaties with Poland and the Soviet Union, the German historian Emil Maier-Dorn prepared a compilation of a thousand statements by politicians, militar-
ies, and historians of the victorious powers. In their state- ments, they expressed their desire for war and their subse- quent satisfaction over the escalation of a local conflict into a world war. Maier-Dorn mailed this compilation to each Ger- man member of parliament and requested that they notify him of errors or falsifications, but the entire parliament stayed mute.21
Seen from an international perspective, such behavior by responsible officials of the German people after the Second World War is completely perverse. It caused American histo- rian Prof. H.E. Barnes, who visited Germany in the spring of 1964, just after publishing his book The Question of German War Guilt in Tubingen, to express the following surprise:22 "In my time [before WWII] the German people and its scholars searched for the facts of the origins of the war of 1914, which exonerated them from the sole responsibility for the outbreak of the World War I, but in 1964, they were still intentionally attempting to suppress all facts ca- pable of liberating them from the sole responsibility for 1939. Viewed in connection with German guilt feelings, the situation in 1964 presents a case of incomprehensible ad- diction to self-accusation that is unparalleled in history. I for one don't know of another historical example whereby a people shows this lunatic addiction to burden itself with the dark shadows of political crimes that it did not commit — except for the crime of imposing the respon- sibility of the second world war on itself. In the years 1926/27, the German government and the German public actively and enthusiastically supported research into the truth of 1914. In 1964, however, those who searched for the truth about 1939 were vilified and even exposed to persecution as political criminals. The German press, of course, made no mention of this fundamental fact. " In his book H.E. Barnes also praised the fundamental re- search results of Prof. Dr. L. Hoggan:23
"He has, for all time, destroyed the myth of Germany 's sole guilt for the outbreak of the war in 1939. This myth, on which all post-war German policy is based, will never again be revived successfully in the domain of learning, never mind how long West German policy can avoid its consequences. " This federal German myth that Germany must bear the bur- den of responsibility for both world wars of the twentieth century contradicts the current findings and knowledge of na- tional and international scholarly research. In 1963, this caused the British attorney and historian F.J. P. Veale to make the following attempt to explain:24
"The question of the responsibility for the outbreak of the second world war is of unique importance. It is not an academic problem. It is not a question of finding the truth for some event of the past. Its clarification will unavoid- ably influence the future on a massive scale. The main points of this question were much too important and their importance reached too far to leave its answering solely up to historiography. To the politicians, it was clear that practicality requires under all circumstances to uphold the interpretation which had been accepted for a quarter century. "
The Revisionist ■ 2003 • Volume 1 • No. 1
59
3. The 'Riddle's' Solution: Illegal Re-Education of the German People
During his visit to Germany in 1964, American historian H.E. Barnes was able to observe a war guilt feeling without parallel in history, accom- panied by an incomprehensible ad- diction to self-accusation. That this has not changed 35 years later is in- dicated by German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder, who stated in 1999 that Germany has to bear the burden of responsibility for both world wars of the twentieth century. Thus, this phenomenon must have deeper roots, particularly when con- sidering that Germany is often called the land of "Poets and Thinkers." We find a clue to the underlying rea- sons this in F.J.P. Veale's statement of 1963, when he noted that the so- lution of the question of war guilt, which is of unique importance for the future, is neither a mere aca- demic problem nor a matter of find- ing the truth, and hence cannot be left to the historians for resolution. For it seemed clear to the politicians that the standpoint of the victors had to be the generally accepted one, for a quarter of a century or more, in or- der to fulfil its usefulness (which one, for what?). This effort is re- flected in the scientifically indefen- sible statement by Prof. Eschenburg of March 1960, which shows a com- plete adaptation to the Zeitgeist?5 "The question of the guilt for the Second World War, which is sci- entifically clearly answered, is not a matter of historiography. Rather, the realization of Hitler 's uncontested and sole guilt is the basis of the policy of the Federal Republic [of Germany]. " In 1965, during the XIIth Interna- tional Congress of Historians in Vi- enna, the German historian Prof. B.V. Richthofen declared to the ap- plause of the large majority of par- ticipants:26
"The thesis that Germany car- ries the sole guilt for the out- break of World War II, is a false generalization that has long ago been finally refuted with schol- arly means. "
1803-1815 1807
1812-1814 1839 1840-1842 1849-1850 1850 1854-1856
1856- 1858
1857- 1858 1860 1860
1816-1862 1867
1878-1879 1879
1880-1881 1882
1884- 1885
1885- 1886 1893 1895 1896-1899 1897
1899-1902 1900 1904 1914-1918 1939-1945
1798-1801 1805
1806- 1807
1807- 1814 1809
1812- 1814
1813- 1814
1815
1823-1828 1827-1840 1844 1851
1854-1856
1858- 1862 1859
1860-1861
1863
1867
1870-1871
1881
1882
1883- 1885
1884- 1885 1895 1900
1914-1918 1939-1945
France Denmark North America Afghanistan Opium War Greece Africa (Kaffirs) Crimean War China
India (Sepoys) China
New Zealand
Mexico
Ethiopia
Afghanistan
Africa (Zulus)
Boer War
Egypt
Sudan
Burma
Africa (Matab.) India-Tschiral Sudan (Mahdi) India (Afridi) Boer-War China (Boxer) Tibet
First World War Second World War
Turkey (Egypt) Austria
Prussia, Russia Spain, Portugal Austria Russia
Prussia, Austria,
Great Britain a.o.
Nap.'s 100 Days
Spain
Algeria
Morocco
Morocco
Crimean War
Amman
Austria
Syria
Mexico
Italy
Prussia
Tunisia
Amman
China
Madagascar Madagascar China (Boxer) First World War Second World War
1794 1796 1799 1800
1804- 1813
1805- 1807
1806- 1812 1806
1808-1809 1812-1814 1813 1820
1826-1828
1828-1829
1833
1839
1847
1850
1853
1853
1853-1856 1860-1866 1865
1866-1868 1868
1873-1875 1877-1878 1880-1881 1884-1885 1901
1904-1905 1914-1917
Poland
Persia
France
Great Britain
Persia
France
Turkey
Sakhalin
Sweden
France
Georgia
Kazakhstan
Persia
Turkey
Constantinople
China
Kazakhstan
Kosh-Kurgan
Ak-Metched
Kokand
Crimean-War
Kokand
Tashkent
Bukhara
Samarkand
China
Turkey
Turkmenistan
Afghanistan
Manchuria
Japan
First World War
Soviet Union
1917 1918 1919 1919
1920-1921 1920-1921 1921 1939
1939-1940 1941-1945 1945
Finland Baltics White Russia Ukraine Poland Caucasus Georgia Poland Finland Germany Japan
The striking contradiction between the war guilt allegation, declared "politically useful," and the repeated scholarly refutation of this allegation on an international level is clearly explained by the re-education of the entire German population during the occupation period between 1945 and 1952, which was planned well in advance. The basic prerequisite for this was an "unconditional surren- der" not provided for by the conven- tions of international war. This is also evident in comparing the dif- ferent perceptions of the history of the war, of the immediate post-war generation on one hand and of the succeeding generations on the other. Thanks to the "mercy of late birth," the latter generations were fully hit by the "curse of the re- education."
The editor-in-chief of the New York World, Walter Lippmann (1889- 1974), explained the planned re- education as follows:27
"A war can only be considered lost when the territory is occu- pied by the enemy, the leading elite of the defeated people is sentenced in war crime trials, and the conquered are subjected to a re-education program. An obvious method for this is to plant the victor's perception of history into the minds of the van- quished. It is of the utmost im- portance to transfer the 'moral' categories of the victorious na- tion 's war propaganda into the conscience of the vanquished. Only if the victor 's war propa- ganda found entry into the his- tory books of the vanquished and is believed by the following gen- eration, then the re-education can be considered as really suc- cessful. "
No occupational power was author- ized to carry out this brainwashing and other meddling.
4. Thoughtful Ideas for the 21st Century
The twentieth century has come to an end. "It could have been Ger- many's century," stated the French
60
The Revisionist ■ 2003 ■ Volume I • No. 1
sociologist Raymond Aron and the German-American histo- rian Fritz Stern jointly in West Berlin in 1979. It did not be- come a German, but rather an American century. For the aspir- ing Germany, it became the Century of the Lie (H. Wellems). Envy and hate perfidiously triggered two unnecessary world wars. The victors decreed Germany's war guilt. These were the two lies of the century. International historiography has refuted them both long ago. Why is the truth kept hidden? Let us now begin the century of enlightenment and truth. Those who belong to the generation that shares the "mercy of late birth" usually do not know that they are also the victims of "re-education." One focus of the "re-education" of Ger- mans is also their de-nationalization and the instilling of be- lief in the war guilt. The victors' historical perception and the "moral" content of their war propaganda were meant to be implanted in the minds of the vanquished. When the history books have been rewritten in this fashion; when cinemas, theaters, churches, labor unions, and all media perform their mission of teaching; and the new generation believes, then the process of re-education has been successful. In May 1945, the ruthless application envisioned for the atrocity propaganda was explained to Prof. Friedrich Grimm by a high Allied official as follows:28
"We will continue with this horror propaganda, increase it, until no one will accept a good word from the Germans [...] and until the Germans themselves will have become so confused that they do not know anymore what they are doing! "
Consider whether you have become confused, and then struggle for the truth.
In November 1999, the writer Heinz Mahncke submitted a petition to the German Parliament requesting the forming of a "commission consisting of selected historians and scientists" investigating "dubious historical post-war allegations." The applicant was thinking among others of the following:
1) Research on the causes of the war, and on the responsibil- ity for it.
2) Coming to terms with all inhumanities of the last war, in- cluding the cruelties which befell the German people dur- ing expulsion, mass rapes, and territorial annexation.
3) Coming to terms with the question of guilt for the terror bombing of German civilians.
4) Investigation of the question of forced labor, including the German slave workers abroad.
5) The entire complex of questions regarding anti-Semitism. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the German people, as the nation's sovereign power should cooperate more intensively with its representatives and with state offi- cials, and demand more information of them.
For, according to Prof. H.H. von Arnim:
"the basic evil of [Germany's] democracy lies in the fact
that it is not a democracy! " Let's take a good look at this!
Notes
First published in Vierteljahreshefte fiir freie Geschichtsforschung 4(2) (2000), pp. 179-185; translated by Fabian Eschen.
1 Cf: Lord Gladwyn, F£.: Pladoyer fur Europa, Koln 1967, p. 29 & 32.
2 Cf.: Martini, W.: Der Sieger schreibt die Geschichte, Munich 1991, p. 35; Lentin, A.: Die Drachensaat von Versailles. Die Schuld der "Frie- densmacher, " Leoni 1994. - Ebray, A.: Der unsaubere Frieden. Ver- sailles - Der zweite Akt des Vernichtungskrieges gegen Deutschland im 20. Jahrhundert, Viol 1996 (first edition: 1925).
3 Bainville, J.: Les consequences de la paix, Paris 1920, p. 57.
4 Grabert, W. : Jalta-Potsdam und die Dokumente zur Zerstdrung Europas, Tubingen 1985, p. 44f.
5 Ibid, p. 541
6 Moser, C.-A: Teufelszeug von A bis Z. Worter und Worte der Zeitkritik, Berg 31986, p. 159 (keyword: „Geschichtslucke").
7 Quoted in: Peltzer, K. : Das ireffende Zitat, Gedankengut aus drei Jahr- tausenden und fiinf Kontinenten. p. Aufl. Thun 1974, p. 551 : aus Apho- rismen, Berlin 1880.
8 Lentin, A.: Die Drachensaat von Versailles, Leoni 1984.
9 Saunders, HA: Forum der Rache, Deutsche Generate vor alliierten Sie- gertribunalen 1945-1948, Leoni 1986.
10 Wellems, H.: Das Jahrhundert der Luge. Von der Reichsgrundung bis Potsdam 1871-1945, Kiel 21999.
1 1 Martini, W.: Der Sieger schreibt die Geschichte. Anmerkungen zur Zeit- geschichte, Munich 1991.
12 Quoted and retranslated from: Grenfell, R.: Bedingungsloser Hafi? Die deutsche Kriegsschuld und Europas Zukunft, Tubingen 1954, p. 78 (date of statement: 1922); Engl.: Unconditional hatred. German war guilt and the future of Europe. Devin- Adair, New York 1953.
13 Quoted in: Bardeche, M.: Niirnberg oder die Falschmiinzer, Viol 1992, p. 25f.
14 Cf: Sturmer, M.: Schrdders lockere Lektion uber eine Chefsache, in: Welt am Sonntag, Feb. 21, 1999, p. 35.
15 A. A. Knopf, New York, London 1929; quoted and retranslated acc. to: Maier-Dorn, E.: Alleinkriegsschu/d. 1200 Antworten auf 400 Fragen. Groflaitingen 1970, p. 118.
16 Ibid., in the report mentioned: p. 1 1, Chap. IX.
17 Quoted in: Lutz, FL: Verbrechervolk im Herzen Europas? Tubingen 1958, p. 26.
18 Official periodical of the German-American National Congress, an um- brella organization of 300 German- American associations.
19 Quoted in: Richthofen, B. v.: Kriegsschuld 1939-1941. Der Schuldanteil der anderen. Kiel 1 98 1 , p. 1 1 f.
20 Quoted in: Bernhardt, H.: Deutschland im Kreuzfeuer grofier Mdchte. 1000 aufschlufireiche Zitate als Jahrhundertzeugen, PreuB. Oldendorf 1988, p. 274.
21 Quoted in ibid., p. 357.
22 Barnes, H. E.: Die deutsche Kriegsschuldfrage, Tubingen 1964, p. 124; Engl.: Revisionism and brainwashing, 1963; more recent in: The Barnes Trilogy, IHR/HRP, Torrance/ London 1979.
23 Ibid, p. 125.
24 Veale, F.J.P.: Schuld und Siihne, Munich 1963. Quoted, acc. to: Rich- thofen, B. v.: op. cit. (note 19), pp. 31, 64; Engl: Crimes discreetly veiled IHR, Torrance, CA, 1979.
25 Eschenburg, Th.: Zur politischen Praxis in der Bundesrepublik. Kritische Betrachtungen 1957-1961, Bd. I, Munich 1961, p. 162ff.
26 Richthofen, B. v.: op. cit. (note 19), p. 7f.
27 Quoted acc. to Diwald, FL: Geschichte der Deutschen, Propylaen, Frank- furt, 1978, p. 98.
28 Grimm, F. W.: Politische Justiz, die Krankheit unserer Zeit, Scheur, Bonn 1953, p. 146ff; similar in Grimm: Mit offenem Visier, Druffel, Le- oni 1961, p. 248f.
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Hitler's, Churchill's, Roosevelt's, or Stalin's War?
Many of the following books, which are decisive for a thorough understanding of WWII,
never appeared in English
1 . Kunert, Dirk: Hitlers kalter Krieg - Moskau, London, Washington, Berlin: Geheimdiplomatie, Krisen und Kriegshysterie 1938/39, Kiel 1989. (Hitler's Cold War - Moscow, London. Washington, Berlin: Secret di- plomacy, crisis and war hysteria 1938/1939)
2. Klilver, Max: War es Hitlers Krieg? Die 'Irrtilmer' der Geschichtsschreibung iiber Deutschlands AuBen- politik 1937-1939, Leoni 1984. (Was it Hitler's War? The 'errors' of historiography about Germany's for- eign policy 1937-1939)
3. Kliiver, Max: Es war nicht Hitlers Krieg. Neues aus dem britischen Staatsarchiv, Essen 1993. (It was not Hitler's War. News from the British State Archive)
4. Berber, Friedrich: Deutschland - England 1933-1939. Die Dokumente des deutschen Friedenswillens . Veroffentlichungen des Deutschen Instituts fur AuBenpolitische Forschung, Vol. VIII., 106 Documents, Essen 1940. (Germany - England 1933-1939. Documents for the German desire for peace)
5. Ribbentrop, Annelies von: Deutsch-Englische Geheimverbindungen. Britische Dokumente der Jahre 1938/1939 im Lichte der Kriegsschuldfrage, Wuppertal 1967. (German-English Secret Connections. Brit- ish documents of the years 1938/1939 regarding the question of responsibility for the war)
6. Gellermann, Giinther W.: Geheime Wege zum Frieden mit England. Ausgewahlte Initiativen zur Beendi- gung des Krieges 1940/43, Bonn 1995. (Secret Paths to Peace with England. Selected initiatives to the ter- mination of the war 1940/43)
7. Hesse, Fritz: Vorspiel zum Kriege. Englandberichte und Erlebnisse eines Tatzeugen 1935-45, Leoni 1979. (Prelude to War. England reports and experiences of a witness 1935-45; cf. Hitler and the English, London 1954)
8. Kliiver, Max: Die Kriegstreiber. Englands Politik gegen Deutschland 1937-1939, Berg 1997. (The War Mongers. England's policy towards Germany 1937-1939)
9. Nicoll, Peter H.: Britain's blunder; an objective study of the Second World War, its cause, conduct and consequence, London 1949
10. Irving, David: Churchill's War, Focal Point, London 1987
11. Grohler, Olaf. Selbstmorderische Allianz. Deutsch-russische Militarbeziehungen 1920-1941, Berlin 1992. (Suicide Alliance. German- Russian military relations 1920-1941)
12. Becker, Fritz: Im Kampf um Europa. Stalins Schachziige gg. Deutschland u. d. Westen. Graz- Stuttgart 1991. (In the Fight for Europe. Stalin's chess moves against Germany and the West.)
13. Thadden, Adolf von: Stalins Falle. Er wollte den Krieg, Rosenheim 1996. (Stalin's Trap. He wanted war)
14. Topitsch, Ernst: Stalins Krieg. Moskaus Griff nach der Weltherrschaft. Strategic und Scheitern, Herford 1993. (Stalin's War. A radical new theory of the origins of the second world war. London/New York 1987)
15. Hoffmann, Joachim: Stalins Vernichtungskrieg 1941-1945, Munich 51999. (Stalin's War of Extermination 1941-1945, Capshaw 2001)
16. Becker, Fritz: Stalins Blutspur durch Europa. Partner des Westens 1933-45, Kiel 1995. (Stalin's Trace of Blood through Europe. Partner of the West 1933-45)
17. Kunert, Dirk: Ein Weltkrieg wird programmiert. Hitler, Roosevelt, Stalin: Die Vorgeschichte des 2. Welt- krieges nach Primarquellen, Kiel 1984. (A World War is Programmed. Hitler, Roosevelt, Stalin: The pre- history of the 2nd world war according to primary sources)
18. Dall, Curtis B.: FDR, my exploited father-in-law, Tulsa, OK, 1967
19. Colby, Benjamin: 'Twas a famous victory. New Rochelle, NY, 1975,
20. Bavendamm, Dirk: Roosevelts Krieg 1937-45 und das Ratsel von Pearl Harbor, Miinchen-Berlin 1993. (Roosevelt's War 1937-45 and the Puzzle of Pearl Harbor)
21. Fish, Hamilton: FDR: the other side of the coin: how we were tricked into World War II, New York 1976 / Tragic deception: FDR and America's involvement in World War II, Old Greenwich, CT, 1983
22. David L. Hoggan: The Forced War. When peaceful revision failed, Costa Mesa 1989
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No. 1
New Aspects of Andrei Vlassov
The Russian Army of Liberation (ROA): Corrective Revision by Russian Historians
By Wolfgang Strauss
On a spring day in East Prussia in 1945 an officer of the Red Army observed a mounted sergeant flaying a young Russian captive with a long leather knout. The captive was exhausted, half naked and completely covered in blood. Every time the whip cut into his flesh, the young man raised his bound hands and hoarsely addressed the officer in cultivated Russian: "Captain, Sir." Crack! "Captain, Sir." Crack! Crack! The captain, who was also a cultivated man, appeared impassive. He made no attempt to save the doomed youth, however. He knew that he would be arrested on the spot if he intervened and he knew that his gold epaulettes would not protect him. The flayed youngster was not Alexander Solzhenitsyn's first encounter with captured Vlassov soldiers, but it seems to have been the most gripping. On another occasion he was watching as three captured Vlassovtsis were being escorted to the rear. When a Soviet tank came thundering past, one of the three suddenly threw himself under its treads. When the Red Army began its offensive against Konigsberg, Stalin's orders were unmistakably simple yet inconceivably brutal: "Everything is allowed!" The soldiers of the Red Army were officially encouraged to pillage, rape, and massa- cre. Simple soldiers were allowed ten pounds weight of plun-
BOEHtiQ-HCTDPHHECKAfl CEI'Htt sCO.XHATbs
VI I HiDOPMA • BOO PyjKEHHE • OPrVHIIjUUM
B TO pan
MHposan bom Ha 1939-1945
PyCCKAH
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Title page of "The Russian Army of Liberation," AST Pub- lishing House, Moscow 1998, Text by S. Drobaiasko, lllus- trations by A. Karashtshuk.
der, generals several boxcars full. By terrorizing the civilian population the Russians caused them to panic and clog the roads behind the German lines, further hampering movement of the German army.
Solzhenitsyn instructed his men to maintain discipline, spare civilians, and observe the ten pound limit as he read Marshall Rokossovsky's orders of the day to his battery of artillery: "Tomorrow morning at five o 'clock begins our final of- fensive. All Germany lies before us! One final blow and our enemy will collapse. Our army will be crowned with immortal victory! " He did not repeat Stalin's order to rape and slaughter, but every member of the Red Army was aware of it. The terrible exhortation "Everything is allowed!" had no need of confir- mation by an insignificant officer such as himself. All East Prussia was soon in flames. In Nights in East Prus- sia , written in a slave labor camp later in 1945 and published in Germany in 1974, Solzhenitsyn describes the brutality of this volcanic eruption of rape and slaughter. Nights is a de- piction of stark terror in verse form, filled with vivid and hor- rifying images of cows bellowing in their blazing stables while the bodies of their owners char in the flames of their houses. Donald M. Thomas, Solzhenitsyn's English biogra- pher, has attempted a prose reconstruction which releases the horror from its lyric form. What remains is the protocol of an orgy of blood. Its title is simply Solzhenitsyn. He describes the fate of an old peasant woman in an isolated farmhouse. A merry group of Red Army soldiers tell her, "Cook us some eggs, Mother!" which she hurriedly does. They thank her, eat the eggs and shoot her down, then murder her bedridden husband. The grandson of the elderly couple is able to escape by jumping out of a window. "Halt! Click your heels together!" they laugh while shooting at the fleeing child.
According to Solzhenitsyn, the women who were shot were fortunate. He recalls one woman lying on a blood-soaked mattress next to the body of her young daughter. The woman is battered and mutilated but still alive. How many soldiers have raped her? A platoon? An entire company? The woman begs the Russians to shoot her. The author does not tell us whether she gets her wish, although he cannot bring himself to release her from her torment. His entire book is filled with such ghastly and haunting depictions. In another passage he describes the Red Army as "human hordes gone berserk." Donald Thomas asks: Were they really human? (Solzhenit- syn, page 156.)
Solzhenitsyn recalled that on January 26 his unit suddenly found itself isolated and cut off by the enemy. On this occa- sion, however, they were surrounded by their own country- men: Vlassov' s soldiers were attacking with desperate brav- ery. On page 252, volume 1 of The Gulag Archipelago (Paris edition) Solzhenitsyn writes:
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"I was watching when, in the early dawn, they suddenly sprang up from the snow where they had gathered in their camouflage coats. With a great 'Hurra! ' they suddenly at- tacked the positions of the 152mm section with hand gre- nades, putting the heavy guns out of commission before they could fire a shot. Pursued by their flares, our last lit- tle group of survivors fled for three kilometers across the snow covered fields, all the way to a footbridge across the narrow river. "
Even as early as 1945, Solzhenitsyn felt admiration for his countrymen in Wehrmacht uniform with the St. George cross on their arm, who fought so heroically. He created a human and literary monument to them in his epic story of the Gulag, written twenty years after the War. After another twenty years had passed, he completed the Vlassov epic with a radi- cal revision of the history of the "Great Patriotic War," for which he won the Nobel Prize in literature. He did more than demolish the Stalinist interpretation of World War II as a "good war," however. He was also the first Soviet combat of- ficer to make the transition from military tribute to political rehabilitation of the Vlassovtsis. In his essay "The Russian Question at the End of the Twentieth Century," which ap- peared in the renowned Russian literary magazine Noviy mir In July 1994, Solzhenitsyn wrote:
"As for the attempt on the German side to form Russian volunteer units, and the belated formation of the Vlassov army, I have already covered that in the Gulag Archipel- ago.
[...] It is indicative of their valor and devotion that at the end of the winter of 1944-45, when it was obvious to eve- ryone that Hitler had lost the war, in those last few months, tens of thousands of Russians volunteered for that Russian army of liberation. This was the real voice of the Russian people. The story of the Russian Liberation Army has been slandered by ideologues as well as the nations of the West, which could not imagine that the Russians desired liberation for themselves. Nevertheless it repre- sents a heroic and manly page in Russian history. We still believe in its continuation and future today. " (Page 120 of Piper's German translation, Munich, 1994) Solzhenitsyn defends General Vlassov against accusations of high treason with the historically based argument that in the history of the Russian Empire there have been times when domestic repression was a greater danger than the external usurper. "The enemy within was too dangerous, too deeply rooted," he writes. In order to overthrow the internal enemy, it was necessary to form an alliance with an external force. In order to overthrow Stalin, Vlassov was forced to form an al- liance with Germany.
When these revelations appeared in the leading Russian fo- rum of the intelligentsia in July of 1994, the publisher re- ceived sharp criticism as well as enthusiastic agreement. The criticism came primarily from the old, hard-line Stalinist his- toriography, which dictated that a renaissance of Vlassov style idealism should not and would not be tolerated. Now, five years later, the situation has changed dramatically. The counterrevolutionaries are in retreat and Stalin's Great Patri- otic War is no longer dogma for the young generation of his-
torians. Vlassov and his Liberation Army have become the icons of a nationalistic young intelligentsia which has an anti- Bolshevik as well as anti-liberal view of the world. The most recent evidence for this comes from the military historians S. Drobyasko and A. Karashtshuk the authors of the lavishly illustrated Wtoraja Mirowaja woina 1939-1945: Russkaya Osvoboditelnaya Armija (The Russian Liberation Army in World War II), published late in 1998 by the re- nowned Moscow military publishing house AST. There are several reasons for the rapid advance of revision- ism in Russia. In the first place, "Stalinist-Antifascist Politi- cal Correctness" has been effectively neutralized. In the sec- ond place, the formerly secret Soviet archives have been opened to international historians. In the third place, the in- fluence of revisionist literature from the West has had a pro- found influence. In the fourth place, the process of de- ideologizing historiography is continuing apace in Russia, as everywhere. In addition, there is no entrenched tradition of anti-nationalism in Russia comparable to that which now wields such powerful influence in Germany. As a result, Rus- sia is relatively free of the historical and political censorship oppressing Germany. And finally, the Russian media provide no forum for Russians infected with the self-incrimination
Uniform insignia of the armed forces of the Committee for
the Liberation of the Russian Peoples (KONR). Underneath: A soldier of the Infantry Regiment of the First
ROA Division in 1945. Next to that: Cavalry of the Intelligence Branch of the 1st ROA Division.
Beneath that: A First Lieutenant on the Staff of the First ROA Division.
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malaise, as do the German media. The printing of the pro- Vlassov book in 1998 is perhaps the most striking symbol of the irreversible advance of historical revisionism in Russia. It is obvious that in view of this extensive documentary work on the Russian Liberation Army (ROA), Germany's wartime Eastern policy must also be considered in a different light. After all, the development and deployment of the ROA were possible only with the support of the Wehrmacht. In the introduction, one reads:
"For fifty years, Soviet publications about World War II ignored the fundamental fact that more than a million of our countrymen fought on the German side. " It says that these official publications slandered the Vlassov soldiers as "traitors" and hid the fact that
"[...] they too were patriots who passionately undertook the noble attempt to liberate our country from its inner enemy, which in their opinion was much more vicious and dangerous than the external opponent. " The introduction states that from the beginning, German front line troops made every effort to win both prisoners and civil- ians over to the war against Bolshevism. According to Drob-
Upper left: Sergeant, 1s ROA Division, wearing German and Russian medals Upper right: A soldier of the ROA Tank Destroyer Unit Lower left: Lieutenant in the ROA Eastern Battalion. Lower right: ROA Rifleman, 1945
jasko the Wehrmacht was interested primarily in volunteers with clear political convictions — both men and women who saw themselves as victims of Bolshevik terror, collectiviza- tion, and the "Great Cleansing." In addition to personal rea- sons, national reasons were also important. From these de- veloped an explosive complex of motivations to seek venge- ance. After June 22, 1941 there were a great many reasons for Soviet citizens who had been robbed and humiliated to change over to the side of the Germans. The Wehrmacht real- ized this and began early to mobilize an armed opposition. They began organizing an ideological mass movement de- signed to overthrow the Stalinist regime. Its goal was to in- cite revolutionary upheaval within the Soviet Union. Drobjasko writes that the Germans soon realized that such a mass movement required a political center in the form of a counter-government in exile. This counter-government in turn required a charismatic leader at the head of the future na- tional government of Russia. The man chosen for this role was Lt. General Andreij Vlassov, Commander of the 2nd As- sault Army, who had been captured on July 12, 1942 after the defeat of his encircled troops. As early as September of that
Left: Soldier of the ROA Guard Brigade) Upper right: Commander of the Rifle Battalion of the ROA Guard Brigade, Captain Graf Lambsdorff Below: Noncoms and trainees of the Dabendorf Propaganda School. Far right: an ROA propagandist
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In addition to the ROA, there existed additional units of Slavic volunteers, such as the 1st National Russian Army (RNA), the volunteer regiment "Warjag" In the course of the war, most of these units joined with Vlassov's forces.
Left: Private Lance Corporal and machine gunner in the Rus- sian guard
Right: Lieutenant of Artillery in a guard regiment. Middle: Major General Holmston-Smyslowskij, Commander of
the 1st Russian National Army in 1945
year, Vlassov agreed to a proposal of the German Army Staff to create an army composed of Russian prisoners of war, which would fight against the Stalinist dictatorship. Vlassov signed the Declaration of the Russian Committee of Smolensk ". . .to all the soldiers and commanders of the Red Army, the Russian people and all peoples of the Soviet Union." (The depiction of these events is based on a nearly literal translation of the Drobiasko text in The Russian Liberation Army in World War II.)
Drobjasko explains that it was a very long march from the initial propaganda campaign with its buzzwords of a Russian Liberation Army to the realization of the political and mili- tary missions named in the Smolensk appeal. The reasons for the delay, he tells us, were the crassly differing and often diametrically opposed views of Third Reich leaders regarding their Eastern policy. Until the turning point in the fall of 1944, the ROA consisted almost solely of individual Russian units in the Wehrmacht. It was not until the catastrophic mili- tary situation on the Eastern Front had become clear to all, that the decision was finally made to create a politically
Above left: Tank driver of the Russian Peoples Liberation Army (RON A)
Above, middle: A soldier of the RONA Storm Brigade Above right: Colonel Sacharow, Deputy Commander of the Russian National Peoples Army (RNNA) Lower left: A first lieutenant of the RNNA, 1942 Lower right: Standard bearer of the 1st Russian National Bri- gade, 1943
autonomous Russian central command and organize powerful Russian combat units under Russian commanders. Drobjasko writes:
"The founding congress of the Committee for the Libera- tion of the Russian Peoples (KONR) took place in Prague on November 14, 1944. In this Committee all the Russian anti-Soviet forces on German territory joined together. This included immigrants, national committees and East European military units, all united in the goal of fighting for a free new Russia which would be free of Bolshevik exploiters. [...]At the Prague Congress it was decided to organize all the combat forces of the KONR under the command of General Vlassov. Regarding the activities of these combat forces, the ROA was given the status of army of an allied nation, subordinate to the Wehrmacht only in operational decisions. " The principal aims of the Russian liberation movement as proclaimed in Prague were the same as had been announced in Vlassov's appeals of September 1942: the overthrow of Stalin and his clique, the extermination of Bolshevism, the
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conclusion of an honorable peace with Germany, the creation of a new Russia without Bolsheviks or capitalists, and friend- ship with Germany and the other nations of Europe. Again, the Red Army and all other Russians were urged to defect to the Russian Liberation Army which was allied with Ger- many.
Drobjasko's terminology and argumentation clearly and con- sistently show his revisionist position. Throughout his book, the terms "Russian Liberation Movement" and "Russian Lib- eration Army" appear without limiting, relativizing, or oth- erwise discriminating quotation marks. In his introduction he emphasizes his objective attempts to depict the history of the Vlassov army without prejudice and without polemic. He is interested only in discovering why millions of Russians vol- untarily chose to take part in a nationalist and socialist war of liberation on the side of the Wehrmacht. Drobyasko is solely interested in finding the answer to this question. From his analysis it is clear that his sympathies lie with the ROA.
As a historical investigator, Drobyasko observes no ta- boos. He describes Hitler's decisions following the Pra- gue congress objectively and in great detail. Hitler ap- proved the appointment of Vlassov as commander in chief of all volunteer Russian units on January 28, 1945. This authorized Vlassov to create and appoint the offi- cers corps of the ROA ac- cording to his own judgment. And that was not the limit of his authority. General of Cavalry Ernst Kostring, in his capacity as Inspector General of German forces, transferred control of two complete divisions to the Russian commander on February 10. After passing in review, all the officers, noncommissioned officers, and soldiers swore an oath to fight against Bolshevism "to the last drop of blood, for the sake of the Russian people." Hitler's name was not mentioned in their oath.
Two assault brigades of the ROA, "Rossiya" and "Weichsel," received their baptism of fire near Kustrin and Frank- furt/Oder in early May during the battle of the Oder. Under the command of Colonel Galkin they were successful in smashing the Soviet bridgeheads on the west bank of the Oder. Himmler congratulated Vlassov personally on his suc- cess. After the 15th Cossack Cavalry had been attached to the combat forces of the KONR, Vlassov commanded more than 100,000 men.
Above: Lt. Gen. Vlassov with Russian volunteers in Army Group North, May 1943. Right: Lt. Gen. Shilenkov (on
the right) and Colonel Sak- harov, a close collaborator of Vlassov, during the formation
of the ROA in August 1942.
Drobyasko describes the ROA's heavy weapons in detail: heavy artillery, anti-aircraft artillery, as well as the training schools for officers and noncoms, the training camps, even press relations (there was no German censorship). Colonel Meandrov served as commander of the officers' school. When he was captured in August of 1941, interrogating offi- cer Herre of the German General Staff asked his opinion about whether Soviet resistance would soon collapse. Me- androw, Chief of Staff of an entire Soviet corps, replied:
"I have the highest regard for the Wehrmacht. Neverthe- less the German army will not be able to defeat the Soviet Union unless they are able to mobilize the Russian people against Stalin. " Mobilize the Russians against Stalin! At the end of 1944 it
was already too late. There was no longer any question of which side had superior manpower and materiel. On December 19, 1944 Goring agreed to the formation of an air force for the ROA. This was the Voyenno-vosdush- nikh sil, or VVS. On Febru- ary 4 it was placed under the command of Vlassov, who named Maj. Gen. Malitsev to head it. The 1st Airplane Regiment consisted of six squadrons (Me 109, Ju 88, He 111, Do 17) and one parachute battalion: 5,000 men altogether. Most of the ROA command- ers had served in the Red Army as staff officers or high-ranking troop com- manders, some among the very highest. Included were the highly decorated front commanders Turkyl, Baidak, Bunyachenko, Shilenkov, all former members of the Communist Party of the So- viet Union. In the early
Left: Col. Sakharov, Major Gen. Bunyachenko and Lt. Gen. Vlassov (left to right) in a collection camp of the ROA in Bohemia, May 4, 1945. The die has been cast: they will break through to the West. Only a handful survived the fi- nal act of the tragedy. Handed over to the Soviets by the Americans, Vlassov dies on a Soviet gallows in 1946.
stages of the war they had defected to the side of the con- queror for political and ideological reasons. This was because the external enemy, Germany, offered the only possibility of vanquishing the internal enemy, the greater enemy. An alli- ance between the Wehrmacht and a Russian army of national liberation offered hope of national salvation. Such was the dream during the stormy summer of 1941, as Guderian's and Hoth's tanks were rolling toward Moscow. The reality was that it was March 1945 before the Vlassovtsis received their first tanks and attack guns under the white blue and red flag of Peter's Russia, three tragic years after the Battle of Mos- cow.
At the beginning of 1945 Major General Trukhin, a former teacher at the Academy of the Soviet General Staff, served as
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Junkers built the first all metal, trimotor bomber of the Red Air
Force, shown here at a Russian airport in 1926.
chief of the general staff and deputy commander of the Rus- sian National Armed Forces. According to Drobyasko, he was a first-class war strategist. What course would the war have taken if an East European liberation army had been cre- ated, not in November 1944, but two years earlier, in the fall of 1942, when Vlassov called for his people to join in a war of national liberation on the side of the Wehrmacht? The Russian revisionist Drobyasko does not present this porten- tous question in so many words, but his study supports the conclusion that Stalin would have been the loser. This view is shared by author and former editor of the Deutsche Welle Botho Kirsch, a renowned German Slavicist and expert on Russia. "History must be rewritten," he de- clared at a presentation of the Society for Defense and Secu- rity Policy {Gesellschaft fur Wehr- und Sicherheitspolitik, GWS) in GieBen in February, 1999.
"Historical truth is clearing its path. [...] Young Russian historians have proven with Soviet documents that Stalin was planning to attack Germany as early as 1938. " This is the gist of Botho Kirsch' s speech as reported in the Giefiener Allgemeine Zeitung, February 4, 1999. Russian re- visionists report that Stalin was extremely anxious about the possibility that the Wehrmacht might smash the gathering Soviet assault before he could finish preparations for the coming war, which is precisely what happened on June 22, 1 94 1 . We now know that purges in the commanding staffs of the Red Army, combined with the unwillingness of the terror- ized soldiers and officers to sacrifice themselves for the hated Communist Party, had brought Stalin's regime to the verge of total collapse in the first months of the war. In a short time three and a half million members of the Red Army surren- dered or defected "just to get something to eat," reports the historian Kirsch. Today Russian authors confirm that the Russians who lived under German occupation were better off than those under Soviet rule. In the end, as Kirsch points out, the political and psychological blindness of the German lead- ership, combined with massive aid from America and Eng- land, were decisive for the defeat of Germany. Today even the German media realize that the fate of the So- viet Empire was balanced on the razor's edge in the summer and fall of 1941. A large part of the repressed population welcomed the Germans as liberators, and the advance of the foreign troops as salvation. This was particularly true in
Dornier Flying Boats were flying over the Soviet Arctic and the
Northwest Passage in the 20s and 30s.
White Russia, the Ukraine, and the Baltic nations, as well as western parts of central Russia. The most recent illustration of this phenomenon is provided by the motion picture Unternehmen Barbarossa Juni 1941 (Operation Barbarossa) which was broadcast February 28, 1999 by the ZDF (Second German Public Television.)
This film, directed by Stefan Brauburger, is anything but ob- jective, which is of course in keeping with the intention of the producer. The film ends with numerous interviews with German veterans of the campaign. Their recollections all support the views of German and Russian revisionists. Mil- lions of Slavs, Baits, Turkmens, Caucasians, Christians, and Muslims were hoping after June 22 for "Salvation" by the
World War II Trophies under the Red Star, from top to bot- tom: Focke Wulf 190, Messerschmitt Me 262, Heinkel He 162, Me 163B, Me 163S.
wi|MMh buhh bi
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Germans — a campaign to liberate them. "Better Hitler than Stalin!" was the watchword for millions of Soviet citizens in the summer of 1941, according to the eyewitnesses. None of those hoping for salvation by the Germans could have foreseen the consequences of Hitler's Eastern policy. In 1942, Hitler was simply not interested in Vlassov's pro- posal— not until the military catastrophe in the summer of 1944, i.e., the destruction of his entire Central Army Group. He did not consider playing the Russian card until January 28, 1945 when he sanctioned an alliance with the ROA. All German hopes for a political and military turning point sank in the mud between the Vistula and Oder in the decisive bat- tles of the spring of 1945. And yet, as Solzhenitsyn records, the struggle for freedom and desire for independence had not yet died among those repressed by Stalin's rule. Staring death in the face, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, White Russians, Ukrainians, and Russians continued fighting for the survival of their countries.
Today, Russian historical revisionism embraces every aspect of German-Russian relations since 1917, both in war and peace. The German Influence on the History of the Soviet Air Force is the title of the most recent publication of the revi- sionist publishing house RITS AVIANTIK in Moscow. Compiled by Dimitriy Sobolyev in cooperation with the German researcher Gerhard Wissmann and British specialist Steven Ransom, it contains 128 pages with numerous docu- mentary photographs. The book describes German-Soviet collaboration in aeronautical research between 1921 and 1930 (the first trimotor, all metal bomber was developed and built by Junkers in the Soviet Union) as well as the continu- ing development of the most advanced German rocket and jet airplanes (Me 262, Me 163, He 162, Ju 287). Photographs of German aircraft production teams in Odessa taken in 1946 as well as of the research facilities at Podberesie and Savelova, which were unknown in the West, appear here for the first
time, supplement this chapter of history. Sobolyev makes it clear that the modernization of the Soviet air force during the period 1945-1953 was due primarily to hijacked German de- velopmental teams.
We eagerly await the next disclosures by the Russian revi- sionists. Not all the formerly secret archives have been "cracked" yet!
For Further Reading
- Fritz Arlt, Polen-, Ukrainer-, Juden-Politik, Askania (Wissenschaftlicher Buchdienst Herbert Taege), Lindhorst 1995
- S. Drobyasko, The Russian Liberation Army (Russian), Moscow 1998
- Erwin Erich Dwinger, Die 12 Gesprdche 1939-1945, Verlbert und Kettwig, 1966
- Gregory Klimow, Berliner Kreml, Cologne/Berlin 1953
- Heinrich Jordis von Lohausen, Reiten fiir Rufiland: Ge- sprdche im Sattel, Graz 1998
- Ernst Nolte, Der europdische Biirgerkrieg 1919-1945, Munich 1997
- Dimitriy Sobolyev, The German Influence on the History of the Soviet Air Force (Russian), Moscow 1996
- Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Die russische Frage am Ende des 20. Jahrhunderts, Munich 1994
- Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Ostpreufiische Nachte, Darmstadt 1976
- Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Der Ar chip el GULag, Paris 1975
- Donald M. Thomas, Solzhenitsyn, Berlin 1998
- Jilrgen Thorwald, Wen sie verderben wollen: Bericht des grofien Verrats, Stuttgart 1952
First published in Vierieljahreshefte fiir freie Geschichtsforschung 3(3) (1999), pp. 250-256. Translated by James M. Damon
Was the Me262 the First Airplane to Break the Sound Barrier?
By Andre Chelain
Was the German jet interceptor Messerschmidt 262 the first airplane in the world to break the sound barrier? The answer to this question is shaking up the aeronautical world, because it could easily knock several shining heroes of the US Air Force from their pedestals.
As far as official historians are concerned, Charles Yeager was the first pilot to achieve the great feat of supersonic flight, on board a Bell X-l in 1947. In the future, the histori- ans may have to revise their teachings, however. Luftwaffe veterans are claiming that they broke the sound barrier in 1944.
The Americans are uncommonly proud of their pilots, whom they praise to high heaven whenever they set new records or
do anything exceptional. In American military legend, break- ing the sound barrier was as great a feat as the first space flights.
Historical revision is going to be painful for them, especially as it pertains to those Air Force pilots who were involved in the binge of record-breaking in the late '40s and early '50s, before the age of space exploration. Idolized and made into national heroes, they are spectacularly touted by Tom Wolfe in his dazzling film The Right Stuff.
And indeed, theirs was no small accomplishment. In October 1947 Chuck Yeager, at an altitude of 8,750 meters, ignited the rockets of his Bell X-l, which had been carried to that height beneath a B-29. He described the sensation as a feel-
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ing that his lungs were "as flat as pancakes." Within minutes the young flier had become the darling, blue-eyed boy of American journalism; and thanks to the immense power of the American media his story was broadcast around the globe.
Give the Germans the Credit They Deserve
Sooner or later, historians will have to acknowledge German discoveries and inventions made during the Third Reich, which American pretense and cover-ups have denied for half a century. It was German public health officials who initiated campaigns against tobacco smoking and cancer, German sci- entists and engineers who made the pioneering breakthroughs in modern air and space travel. In 1945 the results of their work were expropriated and taken to the USA, where they were placed at the disposal of the American military ma- chine. A similar fate befell French experts who were involved in the development of nuclear weapons. They were kept in the USA against their will, and, when they returned to France after World War II, were not allowed to take their personal records with them.
"The airspeed indicator was stuck in the red danger zone, which is over 1100 km/hr.
I noticed that rivets began popping out of the tops of the wings.
The airplane began vibrating and shaking wildly, banging my head against the sides of the cockpit. After diving about three miles I again regained control and was able to return to base.
On the runway the mechanics were very surprised by the appearance of the airplane, which looked as though it had been shaken by the hand of a giant. " Reports prepared by American test pilots in 1946, which have been preserved in military archives in Dayton, Ohio, describe in detail the performance of the German jet fighter and sup- port the claims of the German pilots. The Me 262 did indeed have the capacity to achieve Mach 1 . Additional arguments to confirm this have been submitted by Professor of Aeronautics Karl Doetsch, now ninety years old. In 1 944 he was assigned the task of discovering why several Me 262s had mysteri-
ously
■The Messerschmidt Me 262 -
arguably the most aesthetic ofall/_ airplanes ever built ^ ___ — fi
CO ■ -
r : : . ;
The Vanquished Speak Out
Nowadays in Germa- / £ > ny, however, voices are being heard which cast doubt on the official version according to which Chuck Yeager was the first to break the sound barrier. Anglo- American historians will be forced to take cognizance of their arguments. After more
than half a century of silence in which they k^;^^»'^l^'TS^ endured war, defeat, and captivity, German '■■ ./-' 1
pilots and engineers are determined to set the record straight and regain for the Luftwaffe the credit and recognition it deserves. In the ""-^s^^ final months of the war, completion of the Luftwaffe's program to develop jet interceptors, in particular the Me 262, brought its designers and pilots some unpleasant surprises. Nobody had realized the real potential of this superb airplane, which was indeed the tiger shark of the air. The pilots were the first to realize that it had achieved the speed of sound. The Germans are now claiming that the sound barrier was broken by an Me 262 during aerial combat against allied aircraft, when it went into a power dive. Former Luftwaffe pilot Hans Guido Mutke, now eighty years old, is certain that he surpassed Mach 1, which is the speed of sound. He was a member of a new Me 262 squadron which the Luftwaffe hastily put to- gether in hopes of creating a turning point in the air and thereby changing the course of the war.
crashed or disintegrated in the air. In the course of several experiments Prof. Doetsch soon established that difficulties set in at around Mach .85 He concluded that pilots who unknowingly broke the sound barrier . were likely to lose control of their >X aircraft and crash.
The Speed of Sound
v After more than half a "fy century it is difficult to confirm or deny the claims of the German pilots, especially since the speed of sound varies with altitude, air pressure and temperature. At sea level, Mach 1 corresponds to a speed of 1,193 km/hr, but this decreases with increasing altitude. At 12,000 meters it is 1,063 km/hr. Therefore it is difficult to determine whether an airplane has exceeded the speed of sound without bulky measuring devices. Chuck Yeager' s record will proba- bly stand for a long time to come, because it was scientifi- cally measured, documented, and authenticated. Hans Mutke 's record, on the other hand, was made in the heat of combat. He has nothing to support it except terrifying memo- ries of losing control of his airplane. An air speed of 1,100 km/hr at an altitude of 8,000 meters surpasses the speed of sound. If Mutke began his power dive at an altitude of 12,000 meters and leveled off at 8,750 meters, his Messerschmidt met these conditions. An airspeed of 1.100 km/hr at an alti- tude of 8,000 m clearly surpasses the speed of sound.
Shaken by a Giant
On April 9, 1945 Mutke was flying at an altitude of 12,000 meters when he received a distress call from a comrade who was being attacked by a British Spitfire. In response, he im- mediately put his jet fighter into a power dive. Here is his de- scription of what happened then:
How the Past Was Obscured by Terror
In the climate of intellectual terror which has reigned in Germany for the last thirty years it has been impossible to acknowledge German achievements made between 1933 and 1945. The irrational nature of this totalitarian attitude is evi- dent from a large number of examples. The swastika, symbol
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The Me 262, a one-man airplane, exhibited the ultimate design and performance of its day. It was powered by two Junker "Jumo"jet turbines, each having 900 kilograms of thrust, giving it a speed of 870 km/hr. Armament consisted of four 30mm cannon with 360 rounds of ammunition.
of National Socialism, may not be publicly displayed. This is an essentially religious measure which has no historical par- allel. Pioneering measures of the National Socialist leader- ship in introducing policies to protect the environment are likewise denied. Goring's legislation to forbid the vivisection and butchering of live animals; legislation prescribing hu- mane hunting practices; measures against the abuse of to- bacco; prophylactic measures against cancer; and laws for the
peaceful use of nuclear energy are all historical facts which have been repressed. The official historians continue to sweep under the rug everything which would contribute to a multifaceted or differentiated view of Hitler's government.
This article originally appeared in the magazine L 'Autre Histoire, 111(18), July 2001, S. 36f. (La Licorne bleue, 3 bis rue Jules Valles, F-75011 Paris); translated into English by James M. Damon.
The Unknown Famine Holocaust
About the Causes of Mass Starvation in Britain's Colony of India 1942-1945
By Wolfgang Pfitzner
Much is known about the hunger-holocaust in the Ukraine which was triggered by Stalin in the early thirties, to which about seven million people fell victim. It is rather less known that Britain enforced a similar policy in Ire- land, followed for centuries in order to break the will to independence of the Irish. Almost completely unknown are the consequences which British occupation policy had on the nutritional situation in India. Although the Indian subcontinent had always suffered from relatively severe famines, they were never as devastating as under British occupation.
Introduction
Hunger has been a steady companion of Indian history. In the Middle Ages, India suffered many famines, resulting mostly from periods of drought. A much more drastic deterioration of India's situation, however, came about with the beginning of the British colonial rule. The Indian M. Alamgir elabo- rated about this:1
"During colonial times, India suffered more frequently, more severely, and at larger extents under famines than at pre-colonial times. [...] is important to note that hunger and death occurred even when there was a uni-
form administrative structure and a far superior traffic system than at the time of pre-British India under the mo- guls. In addition to usual climatic factors it turns out that the bad situation got even worse as a result of price ma- nipulations by food merchants, inactivity of the govern- ment as well as export of food even at times of shortages, accompanied by a gradual deterioration of the income as well as the employment situations of the agricultural workers and small farmers. " The most appalling hunger catastrophe of all took place in Bengal, the grain center of India at that time, in 1770, when
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approximately one third of the total population died because of a drought — 10 million people! The British East India Company, which had occupied the country five years earlier, was completely unprepared for this situation. But it did not even once attempt to introduce any measures of aid worth mentioning. The responsible British colonialists evidently were interested only in maximizing their profit through trade and the export of food, which, though not causing the famine, certainly made it drastically worse.2
Until the end of British rule in 1947, some thirty more fam- ines occurred,3 some sources even mentioning about forty, depending on how a famine is defined.4 Consequently, In- dia's former corn center, Bengal, was transformed, within only two centuries, into the poorhouse of Asia. There are many reasons for this catastrophic colonial policy during the 182 years of the British raj, to which many more millions of Indians fell victim than would have died under normal circumstances. In the beginning was the dismantling of the traditional Indian social system, in which the local rul- ers and landowners (in Hindu zamindari) took care of their subjects in times of need, often supplying food rations neces- sary for survival. The British replaced this paternal social system with something that was decried later as Manchester capitalism: landowners had to pay a fixed tax to the colonial power. The questions of rent and lease income were left to the "free market." Delinquent taxpayers were simply dis- owned; leasers and renters who did not meet their obligations were evicted. In many cases, the paternal zamindar were transformed into greedy capitalists. The consequence was the destruction of the living foundations of many small farmers
Bengal (Eastern India, today's Bangladesh) was one of the earliest regions conquered by Great Britain in India — and today it continues to bear the heaviest burden of the conse- quences of British rule.
and agricultural workers. The rich became richer and more ruthless, the poor poorer and more helpless.5 According to the ideology of Manchester capitalism, interventions by the au- thorities into the economy were generally avoided. Despite frequent famines, effective interventions in the market — for example through price control, subsidies, social relief meas- ures, or government financed or supported food purchases and transports — did not take place.6
The situation worsened, especially after the turn of the twen- tieth century, due to accelerated population growth, which led to an increased number of penniless farmers, as well as to the rise of farmers, rents to up to fifty percent of the value of the harvest.7
The Causes of the Last Indian Colonial Tragedy
The last big famine in Bengal under British occupation oc- curred between 1942 and 1945 (Brahmaputra-Ganges-Delta, today partly India, partly Bangladesh). Besides the unfavor- able social conditions already described, additional factors triggered the catastrophe. The Indian Amartya Sen, who re- ceived the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1998, took the ec- centric view that this famine was man-made because there was essentially no food shortage,8 which earned him strong opposition, to put it mildly.9 The discussion resulting from Sen's warped theory strengthened the theory that food short- ages are the primary cause of famines.10 The literature listed the following individual causes for this catastrophe, during which about four to five million people lost their lives:11
1. Since 1940, all proposed constitutional reforms were de- ferred in order to place India fully into the service of the war efforts against Germany. Consequently, the Congress Party, India's largest national party (led by M. Gandhi) withdrew its cooperation with the government, which led to considerable internal political tensions. Due to the strained situation, violent conflicts arose repeatedly be- tween the colonial authorities and independence fighters. Because the Gulf of Bengal was viewed as a possible lo- cation for a Japanese invasion, a strong independence movement there was unacceptable to the British, who therefore executed a military police action in October 1942 during which 193 camps and buildings of the Con- gress Party were destroyed and countless persons ar- rested. Between August 1942 and February 1943, 43 per- sons were shot by the British occupation police. Addi- tionally, British troops were involved in an unknown number of rapes and thefts of food supplies, among other things.
2. In May 1942, the British colony of Burma, which had un- til then exported food to India, fell into Japanese hands.
3. In summer 1941, Great Britain lost control over the Gulf of Bengal for about one year, which led to the collapse of all non-military sea traffic. Export of Bengal's principal export product, jute, via the sea route became impossible, as did the import of food.
4. Bengal was overcrowded with refugees as well as with re- treating soldiers from various British colonies which had been occupied by the Japanese. In March 1942 alone,
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around 2,000 to 3,000 British soldiers and civilians ar- rived in Calcutta and Chittagong every day, and in the month of May, a total of 300,000 was ascertained. Be- cause these people could not all be accommodated in the cities, preliminary camps were built for them in the coun- tryside before they could be transported to the interior. In the meantime, thousands of them died of malaria and cholera. As a result of massive food purchases by the government, food prices in the countryside skyrocketed.
5. Expecting a Japanese landing in the Gulf of Bengal, the British occupation authorities enacted the so-called "Boat-Denial Scheme," leading to the confiscation of all boats and ships in the Gulf of Bengal which could carry more than 10 persons. This resulted in the confiscation of no fewer than 66,500 boats. Consequently, the inland navigation system collapsed completely. Fishing became practically impossible, and many rice and jute farmers could no longer ship their goods. Subsequently the econ- omy collapsed completely, especially in the lower Ganges-Delta.
6. The confiscations of land for military fortifications and constructions (airplane landing places, military and refu- gee camps) led to the expulsion of about 150,000 to 180,000 people from the land, rendering them homeless for all practical purposes.
7. Food deliveries to Bengal from other parts of the country were prohibited by the government, on the one hand in order to weaken the independence movement, on the other hand in order to make food artificially scarce. This was an especially cruel policy introduced in 1942 under the title "Rice Denial Scheme." The purpose of it was to deny an efficient food supply to the Japanese in the event of an invasion. As part of this policy, the government au- thorized merchants to purchase rice at any price and to sell it to the government for storage.
8. The government's blank check for rice dealers triggered inflation. As a result, some merchants did not deliver food to the government, but hoarded it, in hopes of higher profit margins when selling it later. This led to further food shortages on the market and to further price in- creases.
9. Out of military considerations the government empha- sized that the food supply for soldiers, government em- ployees, and workers in the defense industry had to be maintained under all circumstances. In addition to this in-
Re., price of rice in Calcutta 1939 to 1943
Victims of the British Hunger-Holocaust 1942-1945 in Bengal during their Cremation.
flationary thrust, the massive military activities in Bengal that were basically financed by the nonstop printing of the rupee led to a general inflation which hit the impover- ished population in the countryside especially hard.12
10. On October 16, 1942, a hurricane caused a five-meter- high wave to flood the entire lower Ganges delta. It de- stroyed the winter harvest, salted a gigantic area of land, and killed about 14,500 people and 10 percent of the cat- tle. Wood for the cremation of the bodies was not avail- able, so decaying corpses caused the contamination of drinking water and finally the outbreak of cholera and other infectious diseases.
1 1 . As part of the aid measures introduced after the flood in fall-winter 1942-1943, the government returned only one third of the food that had been previously withdrawn from Bengal. Further food supplies from other parts of India were purchased only during the following spring, when the famine in Bengal was at its height. This led to another general increase in food prices.
12. The government never considered enforced price controls of basic food supplies.
13. The capability of the Indian transport system to transport large quantities of food to Bengal was hindered by the ab- solute priority given to military transports.
14. Even though British law in India provided that emergency laws were to be applied in case of famines, the famine in Bengal was never officially recognized as such, an emer- gency was not declared, and therefore no drastic counter measures were taken for its amelioration. It was not until October 1943 that the British government took notice of the emergency situation, but it still refused to introduce any of the supportive measures that would have been nec- essary.
The British Responsibility
The statistical data for Bengal in the years 1942-1944 reveal that food availability was the lowest in at least fifteen years, and probably 11% lower than in 1941. 13 This food scarcity caused by war and catastrophic flood might not have sufficed to trigger so huge famine as to send four million people to their deaths from starvation, among them about one third of the entire landless population. It was in fact a combination of several factors that triggered the catastrophe, for which pri- marily the British occupation authorities have to take respon- sibility, namely:
a) British Manchester-Capitalism destroyed traditional social support systems and caused the impoverishment of broad sections of the population.
b) Suppression of the Indian independence movement and the
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lack of will of the British to help the suffering Indian re- bels.
c) A military policy ruthlessly executed on the backs of the socially weak sectors of the population, which partly re- sembled Stalin's policy of "scorched earth."
d) Unwillingness and incompetence of the colonial masters to acknowledge the famine catastrophe and to introduce proper countermeasures, especially food imports.
A European Parallel
The catastrophes which were caused by British imperialism are not limited to the Indian subcontinent. In many respects, the history of Ireland's suffering resembles that of India, al- though the Irish certainly suffered far longer and more terri- bly under the British than did the Indians. James Mullin wrote of this in the newspaper The Irish People:™
"[...] It seems that the British colonial civil servants in India brought on a similar famine, as they did in Ireland a century earlier. [...]" Moreover, an extraordinary characteristic of this horrible list of genocides and worldwide mass murders, triggered by Brit- ish imperialism (through war, epidemics, and famines), is the total absence of any public awareness in Britain. An analysis of writings on British history shows for example, that the Irish famine of the years 1845-1847 is usually covered by a few lines at most. And it can hardly surprise that the famine in Bengal is not mentioned at all, Mullin points out. Even though India imported about 1.8 million tons of grain before the war, Britain made sure that India had an export surplus of rice at record levels in the tax year 1942-43.
"The bad situation in Bengal was discussed in the British Parliament during a meeting at which only 10% of all members participated.
Repeated requests for food imports to India (400 million people) lead to the delivery of approximately half a mil- lion tons of cereal in the years 1943 and 1944. In contrast to this was the net import to Great Britain (50 million people) of 10 million tons in the second half of the year 1943 alone. "
Churchill repeatedly denied all food exports to India, in spite of the fact that about 2.4 million Indians served in British units during the Second World War.
The Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen lived through the fam- ine in Bengal as a nine-year-old boy. He reported how, in- credibly, many starving, dying people appeared suddenly from nowhere. In Prof. Sen's view, it is always autocratic systems which are affected by starvation catastrophes, never democracies, because they have to pay more attention to the basic needs of the people. Considering, however, that democ- racy hasn't prevented India, Bangladesh, and other Third
Prof. Dr. Amartya Sen, Nobel Prize winner for Economics in 1998, dedi- cated most of his work to the fight against hunger in the Third World. His contribution to our understanding of famine is highly controversial, as it suggests measures which are highly counterproductive. Hence, his work is little appreciated in India.
World countries from suffering severe famines, Sen's view certainly is too simplistic.
In colonial India and Ireland, the British ruled autocratically. They had absolute power, which often corrupts absolutely, as is well known. But corrupt governments have little interest in halting a famine, whatever the reason for its occurrence. In Ireland as well as in India, food could have been made avail- able, if not by redistribution, then by massive imports or by a change from repressive policies, but there was no moral in- centive to such changes. All in all, British colonial policy was aimed at exploiting its colonies as far as the people living in them would tolerate without major rebellion.
Opposite Attentions
In recent years, the young German historian Christian Ger- lach has become known for his examination of the food pol- icy of the Third Reich during the Second World War. In two monographs he claims that the Third Reich, based on experi- ences gained during the First World War, did everything to ensure that the German population would not suffer from hunger during the war. To this purpose, the food resources of occupied territories were used to cover German needs, by conscious neglect of the nutritional needs of the local popula- tion. According to Gerlach, this was especially true for east- ern territories which were under temporary German occupa- tion during the Russian campaign. Consequently, Gerlach' s two books addressing this topic, which were published by the communist publisher Jan Philipp Reemtsma, have telling ti- tles: Krieg, Erndhrung, Volkermord (War, Nutrition and Genocide) and Kalkulierte Morde: Die Deutsche Wirtschafts- und Vernichtungspolitik in Weifirufiland 1941 bis 1944 (Cal- culated Murders: The German Economic and Extermination Policy in White Russia 1941 to 1944). 15 Gerlach is certainly correct in so far as the government of the Reich placed a higher priority on the nutrition of the fighting troops and its own people than on the nourishment of essentially non- participating population groups in occupied areas. In this re- spect the policy of Great Britain resembles that of Germany at this time, both forced by purely war-related issues. There is, however, a fine difference: while the nutritional situation in the German occupied zones of the Soviet Union was disas- trous in some areas, not due to German measures, but be- cause of Stalin 's policy of "scorched earth" during the Soviet retreat — a fact to which Gerlach hardly considers — the corre- sponding scarcity and inflation in India was essentially the consequence of British policy.
Unfortunately it also has to be stated here that, as always, ac- tual or alleged German atrocities receive one-sided and often distorted attention in the public mind, whereas balanced de- scriptions and comparative studies of similar events which occurred elsewhere in the world are generally avoided. That could put in doubt the alleged uniqueness of the German "evilness," and this is, as is generally known, politically in- correct and thus undesirable.
Notes
First published in German in Vierteljahreshefte fur freie Geschichtsfor- schung 3(3) (1999), pp. 274-278. Translated by Fabian Eschen.
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1 Mohiuddin Alamgir, Bangladesh, Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, Dacca 1978, pp. 48ff.
2 Mohiuddin Alamgir, Famine in South Asia, Oleschlager, Gunn & Han, Cambridge 1980, p. 59; retranslated from German.
3 C. Walford, "The Gamines of the World: Past and Present," in: Journal of the Statistical Society, 41(3) (1978), pp. 436-442.
4 A. Loveday, The History and Economics of Indian Famines, Bell & Sons, London 1914, pp. 135ff.
5 Cf. for this Paul R. Greenough, Prosperity and Misery in Modern Bengal, Oxford University Press, New York/Oxford 1982, pp. 42-61.
6 Regarding the disastrous effects of applying the pure theory of the free market in India cf. S. Ambirajan, Classical Political Economy and Brit- ish Policy in India, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1978, re- garding various famines especially pp. 59-100.
7 Cf. Paul R. Greenough, op. cit. (note 5), pp. 61-70.
8 Amartya Sen, Poverty and Famines, Oxford Univ. Press, New York/Oxford 1981, re. Bengal cf. pp. 52-85.
9 Cf. Peter Bowbrick, How Sen 's Theory Can Cause Famines, Quality Economics, Nottingham 1997; P. Bowbrick, A Refutation of Professor
Sen 's Theory of Famines. Institute of Agricultural Economics, Oxford. 1986.
10 For this, see the letter to the editor by Peter Bowbrick, "Tatsachen, Theo- rie und der Nobelpreis," Vierteljahreshefte fur freie Geschichtsforschung 4(3&4) (2000), S. 449-452; Engl.: "Fact, theory and the Nobel Prize," online: www. vho.org/VffG/1999/3/Bowbrick. html.
11 Best summarized by Paul R. Greenough, op. cit. (note 5), pp. 86-138, with more references there.
12 Cf. for this Sugata Bos, "Starvation amidst Plenty: The Making of Fam- ine in Bengal, Honan and Tonkin, 1942-1945," in: Modern Asia Studies 24(4) (1990), pp. 699-727, here pp. 715ff.
13 O. Goswami, O., "The Bengal Famine of 1943: Re-examining the Data" The Indian Economic and Social History Review, Vol. 27, no. 4, 1990.
14 "British greed, grain exports and callous indifference. The 1943 famine in Bengal, India", The Irish People (NY), Nov. 14, 1998, all following quotes from this. The quotes had to be retranslated since this newspaper's online access was recently restricted to subscribers, see http://www.inac.org/irishpeople.
15 Hamburger Edition, Hamburg 1998 and 1999.
The Moon Landing: Fact or Fiction
Analyzing the Mounting Controversy
By Germar Rudolf
I was barely four years old when, in the summer of 1969, the first men landed on the moon in the culmination of the Apollo Moon Project. I can recollect my elders' excitement in my vicinity as they sat in front of their television sets. Since five subsequent landings were to follow in the years to come, the fact that men landed on the moon seemed absolutely normal to me, the child. When further landings were cancelled in the mid-seventies, I began to wonder why. Political Science in school taught me a few years later that the gigantic lunar landing project was abandoned due to mounting criticism of its immense cost and of its sheer uselessness.
Over the years, a growing number of people in the United States began to argue that the entire NASA Moon Project was a hoax. Man never set foot on the moon; all evidence was either falsified or intentionally misinterpreted. The moon landings were nothing more than a massive conspiracy on the part of the US government along with thou- sands of scientists, for the sole purpose of bolstering up blemished American self-confidence following the Sput- nik-shock. The government was set on proving at all costs that economy and science in the USA were capable of achieving technological feats the Russians wouldn't even dream of thinking about. The following discussion deals with these conspiracy plots and invites critical analysis.
1. Mistrust of the authorities
Contrary to Germany, where the majority of the populace trusts its authorities on principle, the people of the United States are quite critical and mistrustful, at times paranoid, of their government and all its functionaries. There is practically no area of public life or of the historical past which is not subject to analysis by more or less obstreperous groups pur- porting or insinuating conspiracies against the people. One must not forget that the majority of Americans are descended from immigrants who left their native lands because of their distaste for the government or for the political or social struc- ture. In fact the United States owes its existence to a revolu- tion against the authorities of the time, the United Kingdom. Skepticism about the technical feasibility of a manned flight to the moon is older than the Apollo Lunar Project. That America would realize such a program from scratch, an America not even capable of constructing a dependable mis- sile system at the end of the fifties, seemed highly improb-
able. The lunar landing project itself was nothing more than a child of the Cold War. Had the United States not indulged in a technical competition with the Soviet Union, there would have been no such ambitious and, at first glance, seemingly ridiculous project. What sense did it make flying 380,000 kilometers (240,000 miles) just to land on some rock, kicking up dust?
It is no secret to most Americans today that their own gov- ernment resorted to callous tricks in its struggle against the Soviets during the Cold War. One of the most traumatic events at that time was no doubt the assassination of John F. Kennedy, which the majority of Americans believe was or- chestrated by their "system."
Another factor contributing to contemporary America's skep- ticism as to the credibility of the lunar landing was that nearly all the leading technicians and scientists of the Apollo Program were of German origin, brought to America by "Op- eration Paperclip" after the Second World War. In Ameri-
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Dr. Walter Haussermann was born on March 2, 1914 in Kunzelsau (Hohen- lohe/Germany). He studied technical engineering in Stuttgart, where he fin- ished his degree. Compulsory military service brought him to the missile- testing site in Peenemunde from October 1939 until the end of 1942. He then wrote his dissertation, which he completed in the autumn of 1 944, about an analogous device to test the navigation system of both V2 rockets and sub- marines. In the wake of "Operation Paperclip" he was brought to the USA as member of Wernher von Braun's team, where, as Director of the Astrionics Laboratory of the Marshall Space Flight Center, he was responsible for the development of the entire electrical system of the Saturn V lunar rocket. Germar Rudolf interviewed him in early August 2002.
Q
Q
In the modern USA, the controversy over the moon landing is increasing daily. A growing number of skeptics insinuate that the whole deal was a hoax inspired by the Cold War. How do you respond to such allegations? Well, I was present at all debriefings, making a detailed report every time. There was such a multitude of public employees that I cannot comprehend how such a hoax would be feasible. This is too preposterous even to discuss seriously.
I understand that this seems ridiculous to a veteran witness, but those skeptics not present at the time will not be pacified by such an answer. On the contrary: for them, it is just another piece of supporting evidence. Well, today's NASA personnel will know how to deal with it.
For instance, one argument of the moon skeptics is that films that show the lunar Rover driving simply seem to have been made in slow motion on earth.
The Rover would not have been able to drive on earth. The laminated tires were constructed in such a way that they functioned as springs or shock absorbers. They were much too weak for earth gravitation. Such a vehicle would have had, more or less, four flat tires on earth. You can still at marvel those tires in the museum, where the lunar Rover must be supported by a stand, otherwise it would collapse.
However, this is no proof that such a car with such tires ever drove on the moon.
Oh, come on now! Listen, we were surprised about what the astronauts reported on their experience with the vehicle on the lunar surface. It seems that they had to take great care so that the device would not overturn in curves, because of its meager weight and tenacity on the moon.
Another seemingly convincing argument for the laymen is the impossibility of bringing people through the Van Allen belt alive, albeit in a sound condition.
The radiation of the Van Allen belt is generally overestimated. A large percentage of it does not even get inside of a rocket. Furthermore, in the last forty years of expeditions into space, the highly sensitive electronic equipment has al- ways passed through the Belt. Without taking damage, you understand.
cans' perception, particularly that of the contemporary, "po- litically correct" younger generation, these German engineers and technicians were "Nazis" and "war criminals." This fact alone neither increased trust in the moral integrity of the U.S. Government, nor the credibility of the entire Apollo project.
2. Skeptics gain public attention
On Thursday, February 15, 2001 (replay on March 19th), the American news network Fox TV transmitted a program enti- tled "Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon?" Mi- chael Pileggi, better known for his part in the X-Files, moder- ated the piece. For the duration of one hour, several persons appeared to allege in interviews that the NASA Apollo lunar landings at the end of the sixties and beginning of the seven- ties were a fraud. Bill Kaysing, who claimed to possess every possible proof of the hoax, including pictures from the astro- nauts, technical details, physical evidence, even declarations from the astronauts themselves, received particular attention.
The report came to the conclusion that the entire Apollo land- ing program was faked in the desert of Nevada — naturally in the renowned "Area 51," a testing site of the American Air Force which, since the Second World War, has been at the core of UFO conspiracy theories.
Fox TV is not simply any television program; it's one of the most successful and largest news networks of the United States. This shows the magnitude of public acceptance which these theories have achieved, namely that the six Apollo Moon landings from 1969 until 1973 didn't take place at all. If the establishment has ridiculed or ignored these skeptics in the past, today their growing momentum has created a change of opinion. Astronomers, astronauts, NASA experts and mis- sile engineers are now forced, rather than simply to belittle the arguments of the skeptics, to respond openly, to take them seriously, and to refute them. 1
The greater part of the controversy between the two camps can be found on the Internet, where a growing number side either with the supporters or the opponents. The author of this
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article had his first contact with allegations of a lunar landing hoax when Jilrgen Graf asked him to consider a manuscript set for translation. Since I lived in Huntsville, Alabama, at that time — also known as Rocket City or Wernher von Braun City — nothing would have seemed easier than to scrutinize the arguments of these conspiracy theoreticians. Did not the German missile team with Wernher von Braun work right here in Huntsville? Was this not home of all NASA experi- mental sites and didn't veterans of the missile project live here as well? Isn't America's largest space and missile mu- seum located here too? A visit to this museum was not futile because it led to the discovery of a book dealing with the ar- guments for the lunar landing conspiracy.2 Meanwhile, a video clip on the subject exists as well.3
3. Interesting Parallels
One of the first scientists to engage himself with moon land- ing doubters was Michael Shermer in his book Why People Believe Weird Things.4 The same book also takes on Holo- caust revisionists in three of its chapters. It can come as no surprise that Shermer, who is well known to readers of the VffG,5 rebukes revisionism as well as forged moon landings as "lunatic" ideas. According to Shermer, the hidden cause for Holocaust revisionism and for moon landing skepticism lies in ideological fanaticism and ignorance of what he calls the "convergence of evidence."
As far as I'm concerned, the only thing Holocaust revision- ism and moon landing skepticism have in common is the fact that the majority (still) shake their heads in disbelief and re- gard them as crazy ideas. This is where all parallels end. Not one moon landing skeptic has ever been socially isolated or prosecuted, nor has one of the major television networks granted revisionism an hour-long debut of their arguments without contradiction.
Whereas it is the established side in the moon landing con- troversy that insists on the superiority of technical arguments, this situation is reversed when it comes to revisionism: here, the official side either ignores or refuses to acknowledge technical evidence, using legal and even illegal means to thwart it. Furthermore, anybody seeking or offering evidence supporting revisionism is ostracized and persecuted. That's why a comparison between revisionism and lunar landing criticism is far fetched; it's like comparing black and white.
Mockup of a German WWII V1 Rocket at the Space and Rocket Museum in Huntsville, AL. There is probably no other place on earth where German engineering is more adored and honored than here.
4. Theses and Antitheses
Thesis: One of the most popular and easily refuted arguments against moon landings is the correct observation that all pho- tos taken by the Apollo astronauts fail to show the stars, even though the universe is totally black due to lack of a lunar at- mosphere. This would prove that the background is not the universe but a studio forgery.
Antithesis: All pictures taken by the astronauts on the moon were shot during the daytime, in glaring sunlight. Because there is no atmosphere on the moon, sunlight is reflected here more intensely than on earth. Therefore, the astronaut's cam- eras had to be adjusted so that the objects photographed would not be totally overexposed. The aperture was at a minimum, the exposure time extremely short. There was not enough time for the dim light of the stars to leave a trace on the film. Should anybody take a photo on earth in the dark of night using the same camera settings as the astronauts, the re- sults would be the same: no stars.
Thesis: The descent engine from the lunar module should have removed all dust and debris in and around the landing site, creating a crater. However all pictures show no such cra- ter, indicating that the module didn't land on its own, but was put in place by a crane.
Antithesis: At the very beginning of the planning phase, American scientists were indeed concerned that the propul- sion from the lunar module might provoke a dust storm on the moon.6 This concern, however, proved groundless. For the sake of clarity, a few calculations are necessary. The lunar module of the Apollo Missions had a mass of about 14.5 tons.7 Because the moon's gravitational pull equals one- sixth of the earth's, a mass of 14.5 tons has a weight on the moon the equivalent of 2.4 tons on the earth's surface. Thus, to guarantee a soft landing on the moon's surface, the module must develop a thrust corresponding to the weight of 2.4 tons on earth (2,400 kp = 23,500 N). The diameter of the lunar module's nozzle was 137 cm,8 corresponding to an area of 1.47 m2. Thus, the pressure from the exhaust gases correlates to 160 g per cm2 (circa 1.6 N/cm2), corresponding to roughly 16% of the atmospheric pressure on the earth's surface (1 bar = 100,000 N/m2 = 10 N/cm2). This pressure is at most very weak.
Furthermore, one must consider that there is a vacuum on the moon's surface; gases from the propulsion would expand very rapidly in all directions. Hence, when the exhaust gas contacted the lunar surface, its pressure was well under ten percent of the atmospheric pressure on earth. This would suf- fice to blow up dust, but not to create a large crater from which all dust and debris would have been removed. Thesis: Right next to the lunar module, one can see the im- print of the astronaut's boots in the dust, further evidence that dust was not blown away by the descent engine, as one would expect from an actual lunar landing. The lunar module itself should have been covered with the dust it whirled up. Antithesis: Reference is made to the antithesis of the previ- ous question, which proves that the thrust of the lunar nozzle is overestimated. One must note that whirling up dust on the moon has a completely different effect than on earth. While dust on earth would be carried through the atmosphere to set-
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tie in some remote area, dust on the moon strictly adheres to Newton's law of gravity: it falls back to the surface in form of a parabolic curve. There is no whirling up of dust, as we know it on earth. Be- cause of the relatively low ex- haust gas pressure of the mod- ule's nozzle, the disturbed dust would actually fall back to the surface in the immediate vicin- ity of the nozzle. It is indeed plausible that the layer of dust close to the nozzle was indeed thicker than before the landing. Thus, there can be little doubt that pictures of the module must portray imprints from the astronaut's boots. Thesis: Another argument also refers to the pictures taken by the astronauts on the moon. If, as suggested, these photos originated from the moon, with no atmosphere to disperse the sunlight, why don't all objects cast a completely black shad- ows? If the sun is the only source of light, all shadows ought to be black.
Antithesis: Of course, the sun is not the only source of light on the moon! The lunar surface itself reflects an abundant amount of sunlight, as we can see on earth. As one notices on the photos taken by the astronauts on the moon, sunlight is reflected from the moon's surface, so the surface of the moon is itself a source of intense light which illuminates all shad- ows of all objects on the moon. Ian Goddard has proven these effects on his website in a convincing demonstration, see Fig. 1 to 3.
Thesis: Another argument refers to the shadows of the Apollo pictures. If the sun was the only light source, all shadows ought to have been parallel to each other. However, one can clearly see that not all of them are, which indicates falsification.
Antithesis: This argument is apparently void of all rational thought. Had there been more than one source, then the ob- jects would have had to throw more than one shadow. This does not seem to be the case here. Another possibility would be that the source is relatively close to its object, so that shadows tend to disperse into the distance. This is not always the case. The problem lies in the lack of understand- ing about perspective and the projection of three-dimensio-
(C 2QD1 IAN GOCJDAHD
Fig. 2 & 3: Ian Goddard's moon landing model with astro- naut figurine on gray (left), on black (right) background.9
nal objects on two-dimensio- nal planes. Distortions are un- avoidable. Shadows of objects will only appear parallel if the areas upon which the shadows are thrown are themselves even, and if these shadows are seen from a great distance, thereby minimizing distortions of perspective. See Figure 4 and 5.
Thesis: A few Apollo moon shots depict different fore- grounds with identical back- grounds. NASA explains that the photos were taken at differ- ent sites. Then the background should appear in a different perspective, which is not the case here. This shows that the photographs were not taken in front of a natural back- ground, but in front of a static studio background. (Compare figs. 6 & 7).
Antithesis: On earth, we are used to seeing mountain ranges disappear in the haze the farther away we get from them. A large part of human stereoscopic perception relies on this ef- fect. That is why distant objects seem particularly close on a clear day, in contrast to a misty day. The moon has no atmos- phere. To the human eye, a distant mountain range, actually kilometers away, seems therefore quite close. The skeptics have all succumbed to this optical illusion, because the mountain range in question is so distant that any perspective alterations are hard to recognize with the naked eye. Super- imposing the two pictures would prove a slight deviation.10 A film sequence of an Apollo moon landing illustrates the diffi- culties in judging distances and sizes of lunar objects. A piece of rock a few meters large at a distance "grew" to the size of a large boulder while closing in with the rover.11 Thesis: An Apollo 16 film sequence shows one astronaut on a hill, and another shows two astronauts on the same hill. When the film was published, NASA stated that the two hills were four kilometers apart. It's obvious that the two hills are identical and that NASA was lying.
Antithesis: The two sequences were actually taken three minutes apart at the same place. When the film was broad- casted, NASA simply made a mistake, as affirmed by Eric Jones, publisher of NASA's editorial: Apollo Lunar Surface Journal}2
Thesis: Because the astronauts moved about in the lunar module, thus continuously altering its center of gravity, it was impossible to steer, let alone land, the module on the moon.
Antithesis: Steering an object propelled by thrust, whether ascending or descending, is the equivalent of balancing a rod on one's fingertips. (Helicopter pilots are very familiar with this phenomenon). The thrust must always be trimmed, even if there is no alteration in the center of gravity. An unmanned missile also undergoes continuous gravitational changes due to its continuous fuel consumption. The missiles' success over the last few decades contradicts this argument com-
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pletely. Mobile astronauts (in a mod- ule) might aggravate the problem a bit, but balancing this is no problem, and is accomplished by a simple adjustment via the nozzles.
Thesis: A camera piloted by remote control, left behind on the lunar surface, filmed the end of the lunar mission. This sequence does not show exhaust gases from the nozzle of the module, therefore the film must be a fake. Antithesis: It is important to note that the motor of the lunar module was far smaller than those motors we're used to seeing during the dramatic Apollo and Space Shuttle blastoffs here on earth. In contrast to rockets that take off from earth, the lunar module was powered by type of fuel that produced no visible flame, smoke, or vapor.14 Furthermore, the gases from the nozzle expanded so quickly that any flame in vacuum gets dispersed so quickly that it never achieves the brightness or density it has on earth.
Thesis: Doubling the projection speed of a film showing astronauts driving their lunar rover gives the sequence an earth-bound character. Thus, these films must be fraudulent. Antithesis: The films of the driving lu- nar Rover prove that the pictures were indeed taken on the moon and no place
A
Aldrin
Pow! To the moon, Aldrin!
BEVERLY HILLS. Calif. - Detectives are investigating a complaint that retired astro- nauUEdMn Buzz" Aldrin punched ajian in, the face after beirifi aiiUM to gwearjna Bible tBat he'd been to the moon."
"Buzz ffidrin was forced to protect himself and his step- daughter when he was ag- gressively confronted outside a Beverly Hills hoteL" publi- cist Robert O'Brien said.
Authorities were investi- gating a report by Bart Si- brel, 37, who said the former Apollo 11 astronaut attacked him Mondav at the Luxe Ho- tel. Aldrin. 72, had left the hotel when police arrived around 4:30 p.m. and was not interviewed,
Sibrel. of Nashville, said he doesnt believe Aldrin or anyone else has walked on the moon. He said he was trying to confront Aldrin about his 1969 lunar mission when he was punched.
Aldrin bad just finished an interview with a Japanese television production crew, and the confrontation was videotaped.
Sibrel said he'd confronted Aldrin twice be- fore and was surprised that Aldrin reacted the way he did this third time.
"I was very surprised that he hit me," Sibrel said. "He has a good punch. It was quick too, I didn't see it coming."
Aldrin's publicist said the videotape shows Sibrel blocking the way as Aldrin and his stepdaughter were leaving the hotel.
Astronaut Edwin Aldrin was harassed so relentlessly by moon conspiracy buffs that he lost his self-control and attacked one of them. America is a land of reli- gious fanaticism and poor general edu- cation which leads to the cancerous pro- liferation of pseudo-scientific theories, like the holocaust cult, creationism, and moon landing skepticism. (Huntsville Times, September 9, 2002, D5).
else. One need only regard the charac- teristic behavior of the dust that was whirled up by the rover's laminated tires. Had this happened in an atmos- phere, dust would have been whirled up, just as every vehicle on earth that drives through a dusty area produces a large dust cloud in its wake.. Lunar dust, however, returns to the ground in a perfect parabolic curve, as did the dust whirled up by the moon rover. In order to falsify these photos over a large area, NASA would have had to build huge vacuum compounds. Such com- pounds have never existed, either yes- terday or today. Therefore counter- argument not only refutes the objection of the "moon landing deniers" (I couldn't resist), but it actually provides proof positive that the moon landings took place.
Thesis: When the astronauts raised the American flag, it waved. This is be- cause the photos were taken on earth; the flag came in contact with an air stream. Flags don't flutter in a vacuum. Further copies show a folding flag, evi- dence that there was wind in the stu- dios.
Antithesis: Flags do flutter in a vac- uum, especially after a flagpole is posi- tioned, which was the case here as the astronaut planted it. Since there is no
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friction in a vacuum to slow down the sway- ing, or waving, of a flag, a banner that been disturbed would have continued moving even longer than in a tranquil atmosphere. Just be- cause a banner folds up does not prove that it's moving; a folded or a hanging curtain doesn't prove that there has been a draft either. It is customary in Ame- rica to portray a banner
fluttering in the wind. Therefore, the astronauts would plant the flag so that it would produce folds, showing a picture dear to Americans. If it is claimed that the flag was stirred by wind, then one must ask why the extremely light dust wasn't moved too. That the dust was not moved proves that the pho- tographs were made in a tranquil area.15 Thesis: The lenses of the astronauts' cameras had optical cross wires. Some photos portray objects apparently in front of these wires, which is impossible if the wires were actually etched into the camera's lens. These photos must be forgeries (see fig. 8 & 9).
Abb. 6 & 7: The same background, but different foregrounds: at the left with the moon lander, at the right without it. However, if carefully analyzed, it turns out that the background is not identical, but has shifted slightly due to a different perspective (see position of a hilltop)9
Antithesis: This argument implies that NASA added the cross wires onto the photos after their development in a more or less sloppy manner. Because cameras with cross wires have existed for a long time, one would be inclined to ques- tion why NASA didn't use such a camera in one of its alleged forgery studios instead of resorting to sloppy retouching. In actual fact, the areas where the cross wires seem to be miss- ing are those where local overexposure had taken place, where glaring objects irradiated slight, dark objects in their immediate vicinity. This effect is fundamental knowledge in photography. See also Figure 10.
Thesis: One of the most fre- quent arguments against moon landings is that radia- tion from the Van Allen Belt and beyond in space would have killed the astronauts within a few minutes. Antithesis: The Van Allen Belt is a region surrounding earth whose magnetic field routes the electrically charged particles (electrons and pro- tons) of the solar wind. A frac- tion of the solar wind can en- ter the earth only at the poles, causing the so-called Northern lights (aurora borealis). An unprotected human being would indeed be killed by ra- diation within the Van Allen belt, should he be exposed for a given length of time. The Apollo rockets, however, passed through the Van Allen belt within one hour. Addi- tionally, only a comparatively small percentage of the solar wind's radioactive particles encountered are able to pene- trate the rocket's metal hull at
Abb. 8-10: Irradiation effect of glaring objects: Top: optical cross wires on the Apollo camera lenses disappear when overlaid by glaring white objects. Bottom: Shadow of a laundry line disappears on a white sheet of paper. 9
all. If the particle radiation
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of the solar wind did indeed have so lethal an effect, even after passing through steel of several millimeters, then one would have to assume that any kind of sensitive electronic equipment on board of any rocket would also have been destroyed by the Van Allen belt. However, none of the many American, Rus- sian, European, Japanese, or Chinese missions to the moon, to other planets, to comets, or into deeper space has ever failed due to damage to the highly sensitive electronic equipment on board caused by the Van Allen Belt.
5. Conclusions
The arguments advanced by skeptics of the moon landings are based entirely on an ignorance of technical and scientific facts and can be refuted quite easily. It is a pleasure to note that experts and amateur astronomers do not refrain from an- swering these arguments, but accept rather the challenge ea- gerly and discuss it publicly, and in most cases with the ob- jectivity that this matter deserves.
Although I myself had an intensive discussion with a leading German rocket engineer, Wernher von Braun's right hand (see inset), I have refrained from using him as witness, be- cause a scientist must not employ such weak proof at all. Should a few retired gentlemen reminiscing on their past be the only proof for the fact of the lunar landing missions, NASA's case would be weak indeed.
Research of scientific literature on astronomy will yield greater results. I found, for example, a fairly recent article which demonstrates how an exact measurement of the dis- tance between moon and earth can be made:17 three of the six Apollo missions to the moon left a laser mirror there exactly for this purpose as well as for the measurement of moon- quakes and other irregular movements of the moon's surface. How are scientists able to make such laser measurements to- day, if Apollo missions did not land on the moon?
Notes
First published in German in Vierteljahreshefte fur freie Geschichtsfor- schung 6(4) (2002), pp. 449-455. Translated by Dr. Harald Hortig.
1 Recently, NASA went through a real PR disaster when it cancelled an au- thor contract it had signed with an expert to refute all arguments against the moon landing. The author was so upset about this that he stated that the arrogant NASA deserved the skepticism it encounters: Siiddeutsche Zeitung, Nov. 12, 2002,
www.sueddeutsche.de/index.php?url=/wissenschaft/mehrwissen/56965& datei=index.php
2 Philip C. Plait, Bad Astronomy: Misconceptions and Misuses Revealed, from Astrology to the Moon Landing "Hoax, " 288 p., John Wiley & Sons; see also an interview with the author, USA Today, Feb. 16, 2001.
3 Aron Ranen, Moonhoax: Did we go? A documentary film; www.moonhoax.com)
4 Freeman, New York 1 997.
5 Cf. his article "Versuche der Widerlegung revisionistischer Thesen," in VffG 3(2) (1999), pp. 173-175.
6 Cf. www.astronautix.com/craft/lmdlsion.htm
7 www.astronautix.com/articles/apoaries.htm
8 www.friends-partners.org/mwade/craft/lmdlsion.htm
9 www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/iangoddard/moonO 1 .htm
10 www.hypnoide.com/moon
11 www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/al6/al6v.1673855.ram
12 Cf. www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/al6/al6.sta4.html; www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/al6/al6v.1444638.ram; www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/al6/al6v.1445240.ram
lj www.apollo-hoax.co.uk/strangeshadows.html
14 Hydrazine and di-nitrogen-tretroxide react forming nitrogen and hydro- gen; www.abc.net.au/science/moon/rocket.htm
15 www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/all/asll-40-5874.jpg; space- flight.nasa.gov/mars/reference/flag/flag.html
16 Particle radiation penetrates only a few micrometers into solid materials; regarding the radiation the astronauts were exposed to, cf. http://spider.ipac.caltech.edu/staff/waw/mad/madl9.html;
http ://lsda.j sc.nasa.gov/books/apollo/S2ch3 .htm
17 E. Samain et ai, "Millimetric Lunar Laser Ranging at OCA," Astron. As- trophys. Suppl. Ser. 130, pp. 235-244;
www.edpsciences.com/articles/astro/full/1998/ll/dsl427/dsl427.html
Swing Dancing "Verboten"
By Eberhard Wardin
Fifty years after the end of the Second World War, the fabri- cation of historical legends and the concealment of facts are assuming grotesque proportions, even where harmless amusements are concerned. The propaganda image of the German must be inflated to mammoth proportions to shore up the myth of German guilt; Germans generally are depicted as cultural barbarians.
One searches in vain today for any mention of the extensive variety of both light and serious entertainment available in Berlin almost until the end of the war. American films (for example, Police Car 881) were shown in cinemas all over Germany between 1935 and 1938. The Broadway Melody of 1938, starring Judy Garland, Eleanor Powell, Robert Taylor, and comic dancer Buddy Ebsen, was the biggest film hit in Germany, running in every cinema in Germany for weeks at
a time, ahead of the most popular German film, Der Sterne Schein ist mein und Dein (The stars' twinkle is mine and yours).
German dance bands played German, American, and British song hits, even "swinging" German dance tunes, such as "KM mich, bitte, bitte kiifi mich" (Kiss me, please, kiss me), or "Das Fraulein Gerda." Clarinetist Erhard Bauschke played swing at the Moka Efti in the Friedrichstrasse, Berlin, complete with tie and tails. The Parish-Mills jazz standard "Organ Grinder Swing" was particularly popular (the original lyrics — "Who's that coming down the street? With that good old organ grinder's beat," etc., being rendered into German as "Hof- konzert im Hinterhaus, Alle schaun zum Fenster raus," etc.). Later afternoon dance tunes included not only the well- known Guy Lombardo hit "Penny Serenade" (the original
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lyrics — "Once I strayed 'neath the window of a lovely senorita" — rendered into German as "Ich stand einst unterm Fenster einer Senorita"), not to mention the subsequent popu- larity of the "Lambeth-Walk" (a British dance tune and dance popularized in America by Arthur Murray in 1938, taken from the London play "Me and My Girl"; the dance is de- scribed as a "walking dance done in a jaunty, swaggering, strutting, knee slapping style"); nobody thought anything of it. John Abriani's Italian orchestra played "Musik fur Mizzi" in the Blumengarten Oberschoneweide, while Tullio Mo- biglia's Italian orchestra was quite popular in a number of Berlin bars.
Jean Omer's Belgian 15-piece orchestra with lady vocalist was still playing at the Delphi Palast as late as 1943; Jomny Rambell played the well-known big-band jazz standard "Moten Swing" (written by Kansas City musician Bennie Moten, whose big band was taken over by Count Basie), at the Efti,, both in Berlin. Somewhat later, at the Delphi, also in Berlin, trumpet player Giinter Herzog — enjoying a defer- ment from military service, even at that time — appeared with a 15-piece orchestra, described in neon lights on the roof as "a new star in the Delphi," the entire roof of the Delphi being designed to resemble a starry sky.
Kurt Widmann, an excellent trombonist, could still be heard with his orchestra in the Red Room of Imperator (a multi- story Berlin cafe and restaurant with dance hall) in 1943, playing a repertoire consisting entirely of swing. At least twelve top orchestras were already playing in Berlin as early as 1936, in Berlin's most expensive hotels (such as the Ad- Ion, Eden, and Esplanade) as well as in less expensive dance halls (for example, Bernhard Ette or Walter Lemke's Ger- man-American dance orchestra, or Pat Bonen and his Orches- tra, on the first floor of the Hochhaus am Alexanderplatz, which was still standing in 1999).
The house orchestra at the Delphi, conducted by band leader Heinz Wehner, repeatedly played at other hotels as well. Trumpeter Kurt Hohenberger and his Orchestra appeared at the Quartier Latin and the Femina; Barnabas von Gezy played at the Hotel Esplanade for many years. As late as late 1943, melodious recorded versions of "Deep Purple" and "I Promise You" were released on the Brunswik label, featuring Danish vocalist Fin Olsen. In Berlin, Brunswik recordings of English clarinetist Harry Roy were widely sold; particularly popular song hits included "Tulip Time" (an Andrews Sisters hit) and "Stop Beatin' 'Round the Mulberry Bush" (a smash hit chiefly associated with the Count Basie big band), and "Boo-Hoo" (a Carmen Lombardo hit resurrected by Little Richard in the 1950s). The orchestra of the English-language radio station in Sottens, Switzerland, played swing every evening, with listeners all over Germany. British pianists Ivor Moreton and Dave Kay played hits like "A Tisket, A Tasket" (an Ella Fitzgerald hit). A particularly popular new release in Germany itself was "Bei Dir war es immer so schon," re- corded with only trumpet and piano. Another extremely popular tune was the sentimental Harry Warren-Al Dubin Broadway standard "September in the Rain," recordings of "Amapola" by "Rumba King" Xavier Cugat (also a big Jimmy Dorsey hit) were available in a record store and music
shop located near the Jerusalemer Kirche, Berlin. I personally bought these records while on furlough from the Russian front. One of the most popular hits was the Jimmy Dorsey hit "Sweet and Lovely," known in Germany as "Wen ich liebe." Dancing was permitted in Berlin as late as 1942, and was prohibited in 1943 as a result of the danger of air raids and as a gesture of respect for German soldiers fighting on the East- ern Front; the same danger made the prohibition superfluous. Dance music continued to be played for listening, however; many of the listeners were soldiers on furlough. Overzealous Party officials naturally objected to overly grotesque or dis- torted "primitive" dance styles, especially when accompanied by gestures indicating opposition to the regime: a "political show" featuring jazz numbers in Hamburg. A jazz number known as "Two Left Feet," by Fun Candrix, was particularly disliked by overzealous Party officials, but the music itself was not prohibited.
The London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Sir Tho- mas Beecham, as well as Radio London's great dance orches- tra, featuring guitarist Eddy Peabody, played at the Berlin Wintergarten in 1938 with great success. Swing achieved its height of popularity in Berlin during guest appearances of or- chestras conducted by Teddy Stauffer, Fud Candrix, or Ernst van't Hoff (said to have played the "best swing in Europe," with "a slow drag") at the Wilmersdorf in Berlin as late as August 1944, as well as in the Cafe Leon on the Lehniner Platz (Berlin). Despite the horrendous losses through air raids, despite the collapse of the Heeresgruppe Mitte (Central Army Group), Hans Warner Kleve's 16-man orchestra still played dance music ("it was a very lively atmosphere"). Kleve said later:
"Every dance band had American tunes in its repertoire, people requested these tunes, and the bands played them. Nobody thought anything of it! " The Cafe Leon was used as the stage for small-scale artistic productions for the Jiidischen Kulturbund (Jewish Cultural Association) between 1935 and 1937, probably for an exclu- sively Jewish audience. Franz Thon, subsequently the leader of a "big band" on NDR [radio], Hamburg, "played 'private gigs' for an exclusively Jewish audience there in approxi- mately 1937"!
German dance orchestras even accompanied German troops to remote areas of distant occupied territories, playing swing for the Russian civilian population as soon as the combat situation permitted it, for example, in the City Theater of Bryansk. A similar event from my own experience was held in a building at the Potshinok airport, with a smaller band (featuring songs like "Wind weht weit iibers Meer," and oth- ers) to entertain pilots from Kampfgeschwader General Wever and Colonel Rudel's Stukageschwader Immelmann as well as Hungarian pilots fighting on the German side. An or- chestra conducted by a non-commissioned officer named Kistenmacher also played on the Soldatensender Minsk (Minsk Military Radio); this was in addition to the dance or- chestras of numerous other European radio stations, many of them, even in Italy, featuring a group of female vocalists called the Grasmiickentrio (The Three Warblers). Lutz Tem- plin's Orchestra — not to mention Charlie and His Orches-
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tra — played excellent swing music, transmitted night after night by the Kurzwellensender Berlin (Berlin Short Wave Transmitter) for the soldiers of the Ostheer (Army of the East), of which I was a member. The 35-piece orchestra of a mobile military transmitter containing many former Ameri- can POWs — musicians who joined voluntarily — was proba- bly unsurpassed, even by the American-British orchestras en- tertaining the troops. These broadcasts, which were also transmitted to North Africa, were a great annoyance to the Allies. The mobile military transmitter was often electroni- cally located and bombed soon after beginning its broadcasts, after which the broadcasts were interrupted and relocated; the broadcasting then resumed.
Programmes consisting of classical music, piano concerts, and song evenings were, of course, also available to German soldiers all over Europe, but German attitudes towards swing were really quite the opposite of what people today imagine. To musicians, as well as for the most non-musical listeners, swing represented the art of chorus playing and improvisa- tion, constituting the fascination of this style of music! It should be added that the legend of the guilt of the Reichsmusikkammer, represented by the slogan "Swing Dancing 'Verboten' " was nothing more than an advertising slogan for a record company!
The Big Band era, and the wild heyday of the Nat Gonella, Les Brown, and Woody Herman orchestras, is long gone, and with it, the sentimental memory of quiet melodies of German
orchestras on Berlin short-wave transmitters located in radio transmitter huts in the deep snows before Moscow. Very few people still remember listening to "So wird's nie wieder sein" or "I'm in the Mood for Love" over field trans- mitter headphones, played for Germany's best — our com- rades in the infantry — starting after the fading of the credits of the "Belgrader Jungen Wachtpostens" on the "Soldat- ensender Belgrad" every night at exactly 10 P.M., and clos- ing with "Lili Marleen" at 12 midnight, when the trumpeter for the military radio transmitter in Rome played a softly sen- timental rendering of "Arrivederci," signing off until the broadcasts started crackling again in the ether of the follow- ing gray morning.
Source: Knud Wolffram, Tanzdielen und Vergnugung- spaldste: Berliner Nachtieben in den dreifiiger und vierziger Jahren; von der Friedrichstrafie bis Berlin W, vom Moka Efti bis zum Delphi, Reihe deutsche Vergangenheit, Vol. 78: "Statten der Geschichte Berlins," Edition Hentrich, Berlin 1992, pp. 214-216, ISBN 3-89468-0-47-4.
Notes
First published in German in Vierteljahreshefte fur freie Geschichtsfor- schung 4(3&4) (2000), pp. 353f. Translated by Carlos W. Porter. 1 Translator's note: Original title unknown; a Hollywood B-movie about cops and robbers during the Prohibition era.
A Look Back at Revisionism
By Ernst Manon
For many years now, revisionist books and journal articles have continued to accumulate. Their scientific depth, their irrefutable evidence, and their rigorous argumentation should have been enough to effect a historiographic revolution. But nothing has happened. The spiraling blackout, together with the increased range of persecution around the world, silences more and more revisionists. Let us for once be realistic: as long as the present global power realities prevail, the breakthrough of historical revisionism cannot be expected to occur. For this, a world- wide political revolution of radical dimension would have to take place, and who, pray tell, would engineer it? The need for radical change internationally is especially true for Germany, where an isolated breakthrough for revision- ism could only lead to a foreign policy disaster. It is therefore time to look into the deeper reasons for the revision- ism's failure outside the realm of research. May the following contribution inaugurate a discussion of this problem that has been long overdue.
"The whole process of writing history is one single revi- sion. Not only because new facts and documents become known, but also because even known facts can be newly evaluated and interpreted. No generation looks at events through the same glasses as did another. " Thus wrote Chaim Bermant, chief-columnist of the Jewish Chronicle, London, who died on January 20, 1998.1 The concept "revisionism" exists in various areas, for in- stance in socialism, in communism, and in Zionism. In each of these ruthlessly contending factions wield the accusation of revisionism against one another as a powerful weapon.
Frequently, such infighting is more vehement than fights against actual ideological opponents. If one follows Peter Plichta, revisions also occur in the sciences, even in mathe- matics.2 To use the term revisionism as a reproach is to ac- cuse another of abandoning, if not betraying, doctrinal purity. Science and learning, on the other hand, must be free from ideological constraints, and the accusation of revisionism, no matter in which field, should actually be a compliment. This is not so, however, for, to cite one example, revisionism is criminalized by the German Bundesamt fur Verfassungss- chutz (Office for the Protection of the Constitution). Of
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course this concerns so-called historical revisionism, in par- ticular regarding the responsibility for the Second World War and the so-called Holocaust.
A realistic look at the development of this problem shows that, in spite of all objective exoneration based on historical and scientific research, things have only gotten worse. They say of us Germans that we can only think straightforwardly, that it is not our way to imitate others' deviousness. We only want to know how it really was (following Leopold von Ranke, the great nineteenth century German historian), and therefore we fight honestly, visor open to the truth, in the na- ive conception that in the end the truth will win and will make us free (John 8, 32). But this fight resembles more a tilting against wind mills, or to use a different metaphor, we find ourselves in a situation like that of Michael Kohlhaas. In 1979, a breakthrough seemed to be imminent in France, objectively speaking. Then followed the infamous declaration of P. Vidal-Naquet, Leon Poliakov, and 32 other "research- ers" in Le Monde-?
"One may not ask how, technically, such a mass murder was possible. It was technically possible since it took place. Such is the obligatory starting point required for any historical enquiry into this subject. This truth we sim- ply want to bring back into memory: there is not, and there may not be, any debate on the existence of the gas chambers. "
Vidal-Naquet acknowledged later that he cannot testify without hate and without lying.4 A Swiss court verdict read on Febru- ary 17, 1995, states, in consonance with this way of thinking:5
"The gas chambers existed, therefore they must also have been technically possible! It is therefore absurd to request evidences. "
It was left to for Gabriel Cohn-Bendit to demand:6
"Freedom of speech, of publication, of meeting and asso- ciation can not stand the slightest restriction. " If one really grasps the above quotation from Le Monde, one sees that it represents a confirmation of the revisionist posi- tion, for not to permit debate on anything means that some- thing then something is amiss. If the opinion of these 34 re- searchers coincided with the truth, then that would be con- firmed sooner or later in open debate, which should therefore really be desired by these researchers. Bertrand Russell al- ready reflected that "caution is called for when all experts are in agreement." But it means secondly that this so-called truth is something mythical, symbolic. This "truth" has not been re- searched, but brought "back into memory." One may think of the speech of Ezer Weizmann in the German parliament "Er- ratic and flighty am I when I follow the tracks of my fathers"7 "I was a slave in Egypt [...] With King David I moved into Jerusalem [...] I fought against the Romans [...]" Then at the end:
"Ladies and gentlemen, we are a people of memory and of prayer. We are a people of words and of hope. We did not create empires, did not build castles and palaces. We only added words together. We placed layers of ideas on top of each other, erected houses of memories and dreamed of towers of yearning — that Jerusalem may be rebuilt, and may peace be granted and done quickly in
our times, Amen. " An essayist living in Paris — evidently of Jewish origin — Benjamin Korn, wrote an angry commentary about this. Korn asked, what would have happened if the German chancellor had concluded: "I was a general in the Teutoburger Forest, at the head of the Germanic tribes, etc." He answered that they would have taken him to where all the others who think they are Napoleon or Moses are kept. The madness of both sen- tences is absolutely identical. But in one case it is called reli- gious inspiration, in the other ordinary madness.8 This phenomenon is generally known as "pseudologia phan- tastica." The psychiatrist Anton Delbriick, who coined this term at the end of the last century, stated:9
"Under this we understand the merging of fantasy and reality so intensively that the daydreamer himself is often unable to distinguish between reality and fiction. This condition can transitory, but it may also consolidate itself and dominate thinking over extended periods of time. One peculiarity of this pseudological syndrome is that an as- sumed role does not only satisfy the fantasy but can also overlap into reality, due to its vividness and subjective presence. "
Heinrich Heine experienced an episode of pseudologia phan- tastica when he was thirteen years old. His preoccupation with the diaries of a great-uncle who had passed away was so intense that he completely identified himself with this great- uncle for almost a year.
If this phenomenon is spread over an entire social group, it becomes clear what effect certain reports, diaries, or also bib- lical stories can have. Even the German Jiidische Lexicon (1927) mentioned
"the theological-legal dialectics which created worlds out of nothing by endlessly spinning interpretations, explana- tions, readings-into, according to the rules of a shrewd, sometimes subtly practiced hermeneutic art. "w (Emph. added.)
Let us remind ourselves that in 1960, the German historian Martin Broszat testified as a witness during a trial against Erwin Schonborn (afterwards confirmed on oath):11
"The six million is a symbolic number. " And Daniel J. Goldhagen has said in an interview:12
"The gas chambers are a symbol. " The director for government relations of the Canadian B'nai B'rith-Lodge, Ian J. Kagedan, said:13
"The Holocaust Dogma of Judaism is the Keystone of the
Arch of the New World Order - the Fundamental Princi- ple of the New Age Religion. " If, for once, we take all these quotations really seriously, then we see that they deal with a myth, a symbol, a (pseudo-)religion, and finally world domination! As impor- tant, as forthright, as honorable, as indispensable it has been — and still is — to investigate things objectively, scien- tifically, research of itself will bring us no farther . One can- not fight a myth by investigating a stone, by analyzing archi- tectural plans or procedures, or by performing statistical cal- culations.
We should also approach our Subject. No. 1, the Holocaust, from the standpoint of the history of ideas and psycho
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(-patho-)logy, even if we feel uncomfortable while so doing, because thinking logically is not always sufficient. Here we are dealing with a "different logic." For example, by our logic we would be happy to learn that loved ones whom we believed to have died were in fact still alive, that reports of a catastrophe had turned out to be false. We would rightfully distrust anyone unable to be elated by such "good news" — but not so with Subject No. 1. That we are dealing with a "new religion" becomes undoubtedly, conclusively clear when one consults, in the new Oxford Dictionary of the Jew- ish Religion,1* a separate article on "Holocaust theology." This entry does not give a definite theory about the so-called Holocaust, rather it lists the most diverse, and often contra- dictory, Jewish opinions on the question "How could God permit this?" Unlike the Roman Catholic Church, Judaism is not dogmatic.
Prof. Faurisson once wrote that he did not know how to fight a religion. That is the real problem! What binds the members of a religion is myth, not rational truth. The myth is — rationally considered — actually a "lie," irrational, and from the viewpoint of "depth psychology," it can become a means with which to transcend human yearning. A myth does not have to be true in a scientific sense, it shall bond, create a meaning, bestow identity on the individual as well as the group. Then it is "true" in the sense of depth psy- chology.
From the church father Tertullian (about 160 to 220) stems
this famous sentence:
"credo quia absurdum " (I believe, because it is absurd).
The philosopher Lutz Geldsetzer put the creation of the
Christian myth, with slight sarcasm, into verse:15
" 'Incredible! ' says Tertullian / - he was in love with Stoa - / 'a God who dies a criminal, / earns nevertheless fame because, / he is a God in human form, therefore I believe without reservation. / And that he was resurrected from death / one never saw this in our land - , / that is highly odd! / And therefore it convinces me. ' / And now what it- self was the belief / Which was clear since Plato: / Only belief and opinion are valid for the senses / and that what we can gain through them. / But knowingly we look at ideas, / which we can see with the inner eye. / [...] The Jew Philo did show it, / that behind the sense of the word must lie / a deeper 'sensus mysticus '. / In a book, in the Tor ah, /for Jews it was chronicled. [...]"
Jiirgen Graf wrote in his book Der Holocaust Schwindel:16 "The revisionists placed the fuse on the Holocaust-idol and it only needs someone to put a match to it. Once the fuse is lit, the collapse of the horrible idol is only a ques- tion of one or two years. Its collapse will shake the world. "
It would be nice, as far as the idol is concerned. But who wants the latter, which could mean perhaps the Third World War? Prof. Noam Chomsky writes in The Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel and the Palestinians, though in a different connection, that Israel could act like a "furious country," dangerous to its surroundings, abnormal, even ca- pable of igniting the Gulf or starting a nuclear war. And Jorg Bremer, the Israel correspondent of the Frankfurter Allge-
meine Zeitung, reports on extremists who believe "one must only bomb the Third Temple."17
It is precisely the trick to make the myth so all pervasive within world culture, to raise it to such gigantic proportions that its dismantling — that is, a loss of face for Israel or of Jewry — would have increasingly catastrophic consequences, since it's all about a political power play with a (pseudo-) re- ligious background. This gamble is played with primitive as well as sophisticated means, which reminds us of reports from the "Worker's Paradise." One should keep in mind the psychological mechanism which Gilnter Schabowski de- scribes in his ruthless analysis of his own communist en- gagement:18
"The heretic strengthens the belief of an indoctrinated group, he turns it into a fanatic group. Within the com- munist movement, the stigmatizing of free thinking in their own ranks satisfies the need for spiritual self-protection, which is unnaturally strong. " In the presently dominant system of the Holocaust religion, the Holocaust revisionist is the heretic. We know that. It is, how- ever, more important to realize that each revisionist comment, each scientifically based research result will influence the fol- lower of the system by strengthening his belief, yes, and by turning him into a fanatic. This sometimes leads to curious re- sults. In a free, 37-page informational brochure of the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior titled Revisionism (1996), or the (also free) 275-page brochure Verfassungsschutzbericht (Constitu- tional Protection Report, March 1998), the most important re- visionists are actually quite objectively portrayed as to their ac- tivities and theses. Included are literal quotations from, for ex- ample, the Leuchter Report, 19 the Rudolf Report or from a Ziindel newsletter. From the Staatsbriefe21 the sentence: "Here the scream from German throat: Enough!" Several quotations of "extreme right wing" content from the media of Dr. Gerhard Frey (DVU) are included. The government appears to be cer- tain about the "anti-revisionist" effects.
Timur Kuran describes the phenomenon of "preference falsi- fication," as he calls it, i.e., when someone says one thing publicly, but another thing privately. The following example is quoted here only to clarify this:22
"At the time of the Spanish inquisition the Maranos [Jews converted to Christianity] were inclined to distance them- selves from the non-converted Jews. They believed that whoever befriended practicing Jews could raise doubts about his own pretended conversion to Christianity. Many converts even went one step further and participated in the persecution of practicing Jews. Characteristically, the first Great Inquisitor, as well as his direct successor, was of Jewish background. When a convert persecutes a non- convert, he may do this out of aversion. But alternatively, he can also be motivated by the desire to let his publicly chosen preference appear to be genuine, i.e., to signal that his conversion is serious. " And regarding life under communism, he writes:23
"By falsifying their preferences and participating in the disciplining of others who think differently, the citizen preserved a system which many found repugnant. In [Va- clav] Havel's own words, the deciding 'line of conflict'
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did not run between the party and the people, but 'through every human being, ' because everybody was 'in his own way its victim and supporter. ' — Havel 's observa- tion found an impressive echo on a poster which, after the fall of the Berlin wall, was mounted over the altar in a [...] church: 1 am Cain and Abel' [...] For decades, therefore, hypocrisy and lies gave the communist system stability. If the phenomenon of preference falsification had not been omnipresent, the communist regime of the Soviet empire would have had to deal with a noticeable opposition, and all its power would not have been suffi- cient to reject its citizens ' demand for political and social reforms. "
Under the watchful eye of the American Civil Liberties Un- ion, the U.S. authorities permit the American NS-party to dis- tribute audaciously "racist" literature and to even defend its rallies against "upset citizens."24 The ADL (Anti- Defamation League) initiates "Nazi"- events in America with the theme "Hit- ler was right!" — and of course also or- ganizes the counter- demonstration.25 The Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles offers an archive containing anti-Semitic caricatures and cartoons on the Internet.26 Gertrud Hardtmann, spe- cialist in neurology and psychiatry, psy- choanalyst and professor of peda- gogy/social therapy, offers an especially interesting example. She was "viewed and treated by a Jew in a projectively distorted way," to which a friend who happened to be Jewish "drily com- mented: 'One could thus easily become an anti-Semite,' " a remark which hit her "unconscious emotional feelings on the head," to which she, "for reasons of a philo-Semitic anti-Semitism, could not have confessed to." Following Freud's concept, according to which the primary source of anti-Semitism would allegedly be an unconscious contempt for the fa- ther transferred onto the Jews, she con- siders this conscious epiphany as a "piece of obstetrical activ- ity - the birth of herself."27 In realizing her own "preference falsification, she gratefully accepts a Jewish theory in order to reinterpret this preference falsification into the alleged per- fection of her own personality, which she might even apply to others as therapy thereafter.
Henryk M. Broder concluded that Jews can frequently deal
with these problems more easily:28
"In my opinion, the best definition of anti-Semitism makes the round as a word game in the United States: Anti- Semitism is if you cannot stand the Jews more than is normal. ' This joke puts most academic definitions into the realm of fortune telling. It pronounces what matters: anti- Semitism is not a deviating behavior, no exception of the rule; it is the norm of social behavior towards the Jews,
\#3bt
Cartoon, reprinted in Response, Periodi- cal of the Simon-Wiesenthal-Center, Vol. 15, No. 2, Summer 1994, p. 10
the rule. This means that it is not those who do not like Jews who conduct themselves differently from the norm, but those who have nothing against the Jews. " And Chaim Weizmann claimed that:29
"We hate anti-Semitism as well as philo-Semitism. Both are a disgrace. " At the same time the following is true:30
"Public anti-Semitism may not exist in Germany, this is part of the unwritten law of the political culture in Ger- many after Auschwitz. Whoever breaks this taboo, loses office and reputation, at least in the immediate aftermath the respective incident. " The contradiction of these statements dissolves when one recognizes that this is exactly the way it is planned: Induced preference falsification with increasing internalization of the conflict line! — or simply: forced hypoc- risy with increasing, self-induced inter- nalization.
The constant pressure toward the "pref- erence falsification," or hypocrisy, leads in the end to a schizoid personality structure which is at the same time an extremely effective way to suppress the masses. Ludek Pachmann, a Czech ex- communist and chess great-master, ar- rives at this conclusion about his peo- ple:31
"For the soul of a nation there is ac- tually something even worse than mass murder and expulsion: It is the condition where a nation is system- atically led astray and educated to lie and disregard the law for more than half a century. " What Kuran calls "preference falsifica- tion," Czeslaw Milosz described as "the art of the inner reservation" in his book Verfuhrtes Denken (Misled Thinking) with reference to the life in the 'people's democracies':32
"Over there, one can describe rela- tions between individuals hardly any differently than by the word "dis- guise" or "play-acting"; the only difference is that their stage is not in the theater, but in the street, in the office, in the factory, in the meeting hall, yes even in one 's own room. Each spoken word has to be quickly checked in ad- vance for possible consequences. [...] After some time, an individual is so bonded with his role that it is no longer possible to distinguish between the learned and the in- nate. Even married couples talk among themselves in the jargon of the political meeting. The close bond with the enforced artificial role creates a certain relief, because the tension and the required attention can now be loos- ened somewhat. One knows that the proper reflexes will be there automatically in the given moment. [...] To say something is white and to think that it is black, to smile within and to show a solemn zeal outwardly; to hate and
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at the same time to feign proofs of love; to know and to fake ignorance: who deceives the opponent thus — who in turn does not act any differently — learns how to appreci- ate his own cunning. [...] Up to now, dissembling of such gigantic proportions has not often been observed in hu- man history. [...] If one encounters honesty in a conver- sational partner, then this is a bad sign. [...] Fifty or one hundred years of education according to such principles could create a human type for whom there is no return. The "new person " is not at all a hypothesis anymore, but on the point of becoming real. [...] Life under a continu- ous inner tension awakens talents which otherwise slum- ber hidden in man. One has no idea of the top range of cunning and the psychological brilliance which man is capable of when driven into a corner and having only the choice between cunning or death. Whoever adjusts best to these mental acrobatics will succeed, and so an otherwise little known type of man is formed in modern Europe. " A certain measure of "make-believe,", also called politeness, is indispensable for getting along smoothly with one another; just think of the hardly avoidable phrase "Sincerely," which is used even if one does not feel sincere. Who will not tell a life-saving white lie if one has reason to expect that a patient in intensive care may not survive some shocking news? In these cases the "liar is still in control of himself. Things will get bad when the line of conflict (according to Havel) is shifted within, and thus man's integrity is lost, indeed even his identity.
"In a time when men live without perspective, from hand to mouth, being a Jew seems to furnish an enviable justi- fication of existence. [...] In the meantime it is he who is rooted, and the philo-Semitic average citizen, the eter- nally wandering Goy, who experiences himself as a man without qualities, uprooted, homeless. " Thus Alain Finkielkraut places the mirror in front of us.33 And Michael Wolffsohn writes:34
"The majority of Israelis has a completely unbroken rela- tion to the nation and the national state. In Israel, nation- alism is a matter of course; in Germany it is intolerable to many, no, to most people. " Who dares describe the condition of the nations of the world, which were systematically led astray in this century to lie, to be hypocritical, and to show contempt for law, truth, and self- respect?
To return to historical revisionism, let us look at the situation in the light of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale of the emperor's new clothes: suppose the emperor's chancellery distributed information among its citizens which listed those who claimed that the emperor is naked, or who claimed that the tailors, who made the new garments, were swindlers. Even reports about them were prepared, stating the argu- ments of the heretics. The office even hired actual or alleged heretics, who were allowed to announce their "truths.". At the same time, the so-called 'emperor-is-naked-lie' is made a crime. But the chancellery can be certain that the belief in the emperor's new clothes and the aversion to the non-believers will be internalized and reinforced, because only the worthy can see the new clothes, and nobody likes to be considered
unworthy. Actually everyone knows the truth, but in order not to endanger his own situation, everyone plays the re- quired role, even trying to outdo the other, and at the same time watching for the others for the slightest sign of doubt. The self-deception, as Schabowski describes it, spreads epi- demically— until a small child suddenly shouts: "But he has nothing on!" One says to the other: "He has nothing on, a small child says he has nothing on!" — "He has nothing on!" finally shout all citizens — in the fairy tale! In 1996, a German author in compliance with the system, Markus Tiedemann, published a book with the provocative ti- tle No One Was Gassed in Auschwitz?5 The title picture showed a sympathetic Hitler surrounded by children. Imagine the paradox: The revisionist/heretic can be certain of auto- matic conviction for such a statement. Herr Tiedemann takes the statement as the title of his book in order to rebut it with flimsy arguments. Or in the framework of Andersen's fable: The emperor's chancellery issues a paper with the title: The emperor is naked! Not, of course, to reveal the truth, but to reinforce the belief of the fanatical adherents! Prof. Faurisson once quoted in an article "The Adventure of Revisionism" in the Journal of Historical Review two psy- chologically important statements. Celine: "La rage de mentir et de croire s'attrape comme la gale." (The desire to lie and to believe spreads like the scabies) and La Fontaine: "L'homme est de glace aux verites. II est de feu pour les mensonges." (Man shows truth the cold shoulder and is enthusiastic for the lie).
Ignatius Loyola also knew that believing followers are easier to bind to oneself with falsehood than with the truth. Thus one of his rules of spiritual exercise:36
"That we are certain in every regard, we always have to confirm: that, which appears to be white to our eyes, is black as soon as the hierarchical church decides thus. " The Protestant Novalis said about Loyola's program that no one has ever thought with more common reason about the implementation of a greater idea.37
As early as 1494 Sebastian Brant's Ship of Fools notes: "The world wants to be deceived." Later it was added: "therefore it shall be deceived!"
Untruth and truth are not opponents with equal rights! Unfor- tunately a social system based on truth won't pack a punch comparable to that of a system which is based on belief in a lie — until it breaks down as a result of its internal contradic- tions. Unfortunately, the truth lacks the same social disciplin- ing effect as a lie. Truth is in some measure inflexible, maybe even boring; the lie is flexible, slick; it permits an apparent security within the system of lies; it allows one to take refuge from reality in illusions.
We can therefore say that the above aphorisms by Celine and La Fontaine, as ridiculous as they may seem, describe effec- tively the ways to exercise and maintain power. They deal with a sort of "depth psychology" which is not taught at the universities. An allegation (a lie), frequently introduced into the world with great assertiveness, finally develops a self- dynamic impetus that resists every rational opposition, espe- cially if the ground for it has been prepared over centuries. The retired German historian Prof. Christian Meier:38
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"For some time now, it is clear that the murder of six mil- lion European Jews in always new waves must evoke a lasting horror. This inconceivable crime can be placed nowhere, one cannot live with it in peace. With all at- tempts to keep it conscious, it must sink within the mem- ory more and more — only to be remembered most sensi- tively not just once in a while, but again and again, and also by large parts of society. " And sometime later, the myth will be anchored so deeply within the soul that the idol in the foreground can be dis- pensed with.
Let us remember that various smaller idols have already been torn down: the gas chamber at Dachau, the gas chambers in the Altreich {i.e., the territory of Germany proper). After the fall of the four million number for Auschwitz, Waclaw Dlugoborski, curator for research questions at the State Mu- seum of Auschwitz said bluntly: "the inflated number of Auschwitz victims" had been a taboo "also for political rea- sons".39 The dismantling of the Katyn lie was treated at mid- night in a TV broadcast, and was never heard of again. Thus smaller Icons of the Left40 have been torn down without bene- fiting us. On the contrary! Additionally, the dismantling of idols and icons has always been performed by system con- formists, not by heretics. The latter may have helped to pre- pare the dismantling, but they cannot claim the successes for themselves. Revision "from above" is usually accepted with- out murmur. Finally, one must assume, unfortunately, that the German people, and others as well, have become so mentally lethargic that they have never once greeted the fall of the idols with either joy or regret. The psychological damage, however, will last for a long time, and an international court — which, according to Article lib of the "Convention on the prevention and punishment of genocide" of December 9, 1948, can try the infliction of psychological harm as geno- cide41— would hardly come to our assistance. Or would it? Andersen's child shouting the truth would have to be heard worldwide: "Everything is completely different!" And who could play such a role to break the taboo? Abbe Pierre, a French monk with a worldwide reputation, who revolted against the Holocaust propaganda for a short period of time, proved not to have the strength of character to play the role to the end.42 Unfortunately, Andersen does not give a hint to things might continue.
Jtirgen Graf refers in his book Todesursache Zeitge- schichtsforschung (Cause of Death: Historical Research)43 to a text by Claude Lanzmann, who is well-known for his nine- hour Shoah movie:44
"There was always a Christian jealousy, a jealousy of the Christians for the Jewish suffering.[. . .] When Auschwitz is something else than an horror of history, when it evades the "banality of evil, " then Christianity trembles in its foundation. Christ is the Son of God who went to the end of the humanly possible, where he had to endure the most horrible sufferings. [...] If Auschwitz is true, then a human suffering exists which cannot be placed on the same level as Christ. [...]/« this case, Christ is false, and no salvation will come from him. Fanaticism of suffering! If Auschwitz is far more extreme than the Apocalypse, far
more horrible than what John describes in his Apocalypse (because the Apocalypse can be described and even re- minds of a large Hollywood-like spectacle, while Ausch- witz is inexpressible and indescribable), then the Book of the Apocalypse is false, and the Gospels as well. Ausch- witz is the refutation of Christ. "
Instead of having a drink on this, one may quote George Ta-
bori:45
"The shortest German joke is Auschwitz. " (The German word for joke is Witz.) But only he can say this.
A single quotation does not say much, but it adds another piece to a mosaic which will become more and more com- plete and thus recognizable if we keep on researching. Let us now take a letter which Baruch Levy wrote to Karl Marx:46 "The Jewish people as a whole wants to be its own Mes- siah. It wants to obtain domination through the destruc- tion of other races, through abolishing borders, through destruction of the monarchies, which have always been the pillars of individualism, and through erection of a global republic in which the Jews have the privileges of the citizenry. The children of Israel, spread all over the world, wish to install compliant leaders in this new world order, and this will be even more the case after they have successfully brought the working masses under their con- trol. The governments of the various nations which repre- sent the will of the world republics will fall into the hands of the Jews without difficulties through the victory of the proletariat. It will then be possible for the Jewish rulers to abolish private property and to make use of govern- ment resources everywhere. Through this the theses of the Talmud will be fulfilled, in which is said that when the time of the Messiah comes, the Jews will have control over the entire world. "4? Marx understood the proletariat as a "messianic class."48 A namesake of the letter writer, the Jewish author Bernard- Henri Levy, wrote in the magazine Le Point of December 13, 1997, of a "reversed providence with the Jews as Christ.' 9 Those who believe that all of this is invalid, considering the alleged breakdown of communism and the alleged End of Il- lusions (Francois Furet, 1996), may actually succumb to the greatest illusion of all.
"What influential forces in both [Russian] chambers of parliament and together with the followers of the old-new Prime Minister Chernomyrdin planned to do as remedies for the threatening financial governmental bankruptcy, reminds us largely of ideas which were believed to have been buried once and for all with the fall of commu-
,,50
nism.
Prof. Konrad Low calls his latest requital of Marxism thoughtfully "Did the End Precede the Beginning?: 150 Years after the Communist Manifesto"51 And Kerstin Holm, journalist for Germany's most renowned daily newspaper, the Frankfurter Allgemeine, in her analysis "Russian Society in Regression" arrives at the surprising conclusion:52
"The Bolshevist spirit of the latest jump forward is unmis- takable. " This sounds like historical dialectics.
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If it was and is possible that the "new religion" could find a strong foothold at least in the Western world — there is now a Holocaust memorial in Moscow, too — then this is evidently so because the new myth of suffering has found eager accep- tance in a world which was defined by a Christian myth of suffering for more than one and a half millennia. In this con- text, the secularization or de-Christianization of the last 200 years has meant no real relief. Even if a certain faith itself disappears, a latent readiness for faith continues to exist and can be filled with new contents at any time. Benjamin Dis- raeli stated in 1 844 that Christianity is Judaism for non-Jews, and Oswald Spengler opines: "Christian theology is the grandmother of Bolshevism." According to Baruch Levy, Bolshevism is a means to establish the Jewish people as the Messiah. If we, in addition to this, consider the famous apho- rism of Moses Maimonides (1135-1204): "Jesus cleared the path for the Messiah,"53 then the circle closes, and it becomes clear what is meant when it is said that we must return to our common roots, namely the Jewish ones. That this is a matter of thinking across millennia — even after all the changes over time and beyond all temporary alliances or antagonisms — may by confirmed by a more recent quota- tion from a professor of Judaism:54
"It is striking that Israel has no king according to the To- rah. [...] But if the prophecies see a kingdom as culmina- tion point of the socio-political development of any ethnic unit, and if it takes fourteen generations after Avrahdm to have this prophecy fulfilled for Israel, then the Book seems to provoke a comparison with other nations and apparently wants to show how different Israel is, as if it wanted to say: You need a longer breath, yours is a world history and not an episodic interlude. " By so doing, the author assumes of course that the Torah was indeed written 3,000 years ago. When considering the age of human history, however, such a period of time is nothing but a brief interlude.
The trick is simple and clever: One projects a self-fabricated prophecy into a mythical past and deduces claims for the fu- ture from it. R. J. Zwi Werblowsky formulated it this way:55 "Yet the Jewish Messianism is more than hope. It is the great paradox of Jewish history: memories of the future. " (emphasis added) Arnold Toynbee was of the opinion that Judaism solidified into a fossil after the destruction of the temple. Prof. Radday, however, is convinced that it flourishes and bears rich fruit. The latter we experience daily. Besides, the Torah is suppos- edly the "Book of World Education."56
After our memories of our own past have been thoroughly ru- ined, we obviously have nothing left with which to effec- tively oppose this. We can least expect any defense from the representatives of our people, as the spontaneous, frantic ap- plause for Weizmann's above quoted speech indicates. At- tempts to revive national myths or to investigate Judeo- Christian falsifications of our early history and our national myths are criminalized, similarly to revisionism. At this point, one could assume that Jews are gifted in think- ing in terms of mystic millennia-long lasting epochs. Thus Armand Hammer, a friend of Lenin as well as a confident of
every American president of his time, believed that he could trace his family tree back to Judas Maccabee. Today we know that many, if not most Jews, did not descend from the biblical people of the Hebrews, as Arthur Koestler proved:57 "Many Polish, Bessarabian, and Ukrainian Jews de- scended from the Slavs or Tatars who at one time con- verted to Judaism under the military or political influence of the Khazars. The Khazars ruled over a huge empire at the Dnepr from the 6th to the 1 0th century, and they themselves were Turanides converted to Judaism. " Koestler' s book is out of print and it is said that the author did not voluntarily commit suicide. A book by the German author Soratroi which summarized Koestler' s thesis, is "ver- boten," i.e., prohibited in Germany.58 He who lives truthfully does not need to suppress books. It can, however, be inferred from the ban of a book that pieces of truth can be found in it. It is certainly more realistic to assume a profound lack of identity, which is compensated by means of a fantastic his- torical philosophy (pseudologia phantastica). In this way, a life with stories turns into a life within stories. Those stories become the exclusive frame of reference for any personal as well as collective orientation. The only alternative to this is the threat of total assimilation with the host nations and thus the end of Jewry.
As described in the flap text of the series Judentum und Um-
welt (Judaism and Environment):59
"If tensions [...] are missing, and if assimilation domi- nates in an environment free of problems, counter reac- tions will emerge within Jewry with the goal of gaining an ethnic and religious profile for the purpose of self- preservation. "
Avraham Burg, "the man, who taught the Swiss banks how to
fear," lets the cat out of the bag:60
"let us assume that one day there is peace; then the Jews and Israelis will have to ask themselves: Can we Jews survive without an enemy? Can we survive without a Hit- ler who defines for us who we are? "
Michael Wolffsohn takes the same line:61
"What turns non-religious Diaspora Jews into Jews? Nothing. [...] It is part of the tragic absurdity of Jewish existence in the Diaspora that only the Holocaust fills the Jewish nothingness of non-religious Diaspora Jews and is thus the only foundation of Jewish identity for them. The Holocaust memories of the non-religious Jews, i.e., of the majority of all Diaspora Jews, have far reaching conse- quences for their relationship to Germany: They still per- ceive the new Germany as the old National Socialist and structurally Jew-murdering country. That is no anti- Germanism or German-hate, but the desperate and un- derstandable search for Jewish identity." (emphasis added)
When Prof. Faurisson concluded with reference to the intro- duction holes for Zyklon B in the so-called gas chambers:
"No holes — no 'Holocaust'",62 one could conclude further:
"No Holocaust ' — no Jews. " Grandiose perspectives result when we follow Sonja Margo- lina's explanations about this "desperate Jewish search for
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identity":63
"The displacement of the bond to the community belongs to the process of the marginalization, is a prerequisite of the formation of identity, which seems never to be com- pleted for the Jews. Therefore those Jews who denied Trotsky his Judaism, do not know that his way of 'not be- ing Jewish ' was typically Jewish. 'Being Jewish ' results from a split identity, from the flight from Judaism. Isaac Deutscher wrote: 'The Jewish defector who succeeds in leaving Judaism stands within Jewish tradition. ' This tra- dition did not begin with Karl Marx, but with a renegade whose revelations changed the course of the world his- tory. His name was Jesus Christ. Foreign to the orthodox Jews, dangerous to the powerful, he disowned God from the Jews and distributed him (or himself) to all human be- ings, independent of race or blood. This internationaliza- tion of God was repeated by the most recent Jewish de- fectors in secularized form. In this very specific sense Marx was a modern Christ and Trotsky was his most faithful Apostle. Both, Christ and Marx, wanted to ban the money changers from the temple, and both could not do it. To say it differently, to be a Jew means to unite a split identity and ambivalence in one person without necessar-
ily realizing this. This dichotomy permits avoiding re- sponsibility and feeling oneself the eternal victim and persecuted, in particular if this attitude appears to be le- gitimated by historical experience. "
"The Jews are [...] the most fateful people on earth: In their repercussions they have twisted mankind to such an extent that even today a Christian can feel anti-Semitic without understanding himself as the final Jewish conse- quence. "64 (Emph. added.) This ambivalence has also produced strange results, which are usually kept secret today: In the late 1930s, the Jewish au- thor Gertrude Stein repeatedly demanded that Hitler should receive the Nobel Price for peace.65 In 1933, Arnold Schon- berg wrote a letter from his Paris exile to Wilhem Furt- wangler, who tried to mediate between the Jews on the one hand and Goebbels and evidently also Hitler on the other. Furtwangler suggested:66
"[l]f the German government could decide to step at the head of a movement which could give a historic meaning to the expulsion started by the German government, [...] such a decision would suddenly end all talk against the German culture and deprive its opponents of this valuable propaganda. Such an action of international conciliation
How Gertrude Stein Sought Nobel Prize for Hitler
By JONATHAN MAHLER pd»wmujitaw
committee to award its peace prize to Ado If HI tie This was disclosed by Gustav Hendrikksen, STEIN: . new YORK — Buried inside a recent issue of a professor emeritus of Btbie studies at Sweden's
. Ottail from right-wing Israeli magazine' is a nugget that may Uppsala University and a former member of the PaMo PICfJMO'a send some left-wine heads •pinning — Gertrude Nobe! committee, in Nativ, a political magazine 1906 portrait of Stein, queen of American expatriates in Paris, published in Israel. Mr.Jfendrikksen's article, tht Writer, spearheaded a 1938 campaign urging the Nobel Haas) turn to Page 4
METROrOtJTAN MUSEUM Of **T
FOUNDED APRIL 22. 18S7
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Published at New York dry
February 2, 1996
»** How Gertrude Stein Sought Nobel for Hitler
Continued from Page 1 "Don't Blame the Nations," argues that Israel committed a catastrophic mistake by negotiating with the Palestinians and deals harshly with the Nobel committee's decision to award the Peace Prize to Prime Min- ister Rabin, Foreign Minister Peres and the chairman of the Palestine Lib eration Organization, Yasser Arafat.
■ Even though Mr. Hendrikksen doesn't offer any written proof, ins assertions about Stein, are adding a new wrinkle to the understanding of this German- Jewish writer and art collector — not tomention the temper of the times in which she lived. Liter- ary historians who have studied Stein's life and career consider her idiosyncratic and even describe her
phy of Stein — " "Favored Strangers' Gertrude Stein and Her Family" — Fay and Stein often discussed "the Fiihrer's quail ties of greatness" in the years before World War n. Hitler later named Fay head of France's Bibliotheque Nationaie — the nation- al library that banned books by Jew- ish authors. After the war, Fay was convicted as a war criminal, but both
The Nobel committee rejected Stein s plea, citing Hitler's atti- tude toward the Jews.
ed quite a stir in Israel and that his office has been deluged with calls since its publication this fall. Only a couple of readers, however, made any mention of. Gertrude Stein — the great majority were reacting instead to Mr. Hen diikksen's ■arch-conserva- tive vi ew of the peace process.
Contradictory Evidence
Stein's own view of Hitler's rise to power was more ambiguous. Despite her ties to Fay, there is evidence she was active in the French Resistance, offering her home as a refuge for travelers during the German occupa- tion. Indeed, a statue in the south of France commemorating the resis- tance mentions her by name. More- over, the villain in her novel "Mrs.
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would prove the desire of the German people for peace, without preventing it to demand its claims. It would, how- ever, increase the inclination of the nations to concede to a peace-loving Germany its rightful claims. [...] A truly new world picture would develop [...]."
In a proclamation to the Jewish people, Juda erwache!
(Jewry Awake), published in Zurich 1938, Beri Chaim called
Hitler the "most just and most peaceloving of all men" (p.
78). Alain Finkielkraut is alleged to have said in a French TV
broadcast: 67
"Le nazisme a peche par un exces de bien. " (Nazism has sinned through an excess in good.) And more recently, Andre Glucksmann came to the conclu-
68
sion:
"Hitler am I. "
Walther Rathenau confessed in his reflections (Leipzig 1912, p. 238):
"The phenomenon of the soul of the Jewish people is reli- gious madness. " Approximately at the same time, the New York Jewish psy- chiatrist, Fr. William Hirsch, wrote:69
"It is something tremendously tragic to admit that man- kind, for thousands of years, has raised the symptoms of a couple of mentally deranged Jews to its highest ideals. This is a terribly tragic fate. More tragic than anything else that happened to mankind. " It remains a puzzle how these symptoms were transmitted from the Hebrews to the Khazars. Abba Evan enlightens us about "The Jewish Character of Christian Thinking":70
"Original Christianity stands closer to Judaism than the representatives of both religions want to admit in general. Christian theologians as well as orthodox Jews underes- timate the original Jewish-Christian relationship. Chris- tianity changed only slowly into a non-Jewish religion, separated from the Jewish community. [...] Christianity owes Judaism, besides Jesus, the One, the living God, a holy scripture — the Old Testament — which cleared the way for the New Testament, and a view on history which gives life a goal and history a sense. [. . .] No other people has created a myth of such an impact. [...] Never before had a people pictured the human fate so totally different from nature's cycle. [...]" And Martin Buber wrote in his famous work The Jew and His Judaism:11
"All ideas of great social constructing into the future de- rive from that fighting belief of Israel. [...] Even the Jew- ish Karl Marx is only a translator of the Jewish belief in the future and will for the future. " Today, 100 million victims of Communism say thank you. In their known standard work Die Unfahigkeit zu trauern (The Inability to Mourn) Alexander and Margarethe Mitscherlich wrote:72
"It cannot be ruled out that during the course of coming decades the extraordinary [number of] victims of the Rus- sian revolution will show to have been worthwhile. " The Book of Esther in the Old Testament (Chap. 3, 12-13) relates the story of Minister Haman, who informed his king Ahasuerus (Xerxes) about the mischief of the Jews in the
land. He therefore received full power to write letters order- ing all princes and administrators to exterminate the Jews of Persia. Prof. Jehuda T. Radday and Prof. Magdalena Schultz interpret the story this way:
"This is the first anti-Jewish pamphlet in the Jewish his- tory and was written by Jews as a parody/ One of the means used by Jews to cope with anti-Jewish hatred, which is so incomprehensible to them, is humor, which is used in this instance by ascribing this circular letter to Haman, the incarnation of anti-Semitism. It includes al- most everything that can be found in later similar de- crees: Accusation of godlessness, ungratefulness, greed, witchcraft, cruelty, and exploitation of fellow men, as well as the decision to finally solve the Jewish problem. "7S "The plan was foiled in the last moment. But even if it had been executed, Haman would not have escaped with im- punity. Ironically this arch enemy of the Jews was then hanged for a crime that he neither planned nor commit- ted: The king suspected that Haman wanted to rape the queen almost under her husband's eyes (see Est. 7.-5- 10). " — "The humor in the Book Ester is unmistakable. "74 (Emph. added.)
Haman and his ten sons were hanged, and the Jews of the land received the right to kill 75,800 Persians. In memory of this splendid story, the Jews celebrate the identity-reinforcing Purim festival, externally seen in analogy to our Carnival. Between Haman, if he ever existed, and Hitler lie 2,400 years.
As long as we (Germans) don't have "intellectual air control" over our own country, the Holocaust myth and the myth of German guilt can only be fought, if at all, if they are compre- hended as building blocks of the Jewish plan of (self)- redemption, wherein there is a continuity from the Old Tes- tament to Communism, which today finds its continuation in globalism.
"Besides the Christian church and socialist international- ism, a third internationalism of Jewish origin is men- tioned, the international high finance. This one, too, re- places the holistic nature of living humanity with an ab- straction, the economic value of the individual, numeri- cally expressed in money. [...] A straight line leads from Paul over Marx to Trotsky and his hostile brothers from the empire of the Jewish high finance. "7S Truth-loving historians or revisionists find themselves in a situation which resembles that of honest card players playing with cheats: the honest players point out, over and over, the small and large deceptions of the cheats, and appeal to them for honesty. That is, they appeal to a presumed agreement which does not exist, while in our game our opponents le- gitimize their cheating with their religion. Yet they can right- fully tell us that we, the honest players, have the same basic laws as their religion, the Old Testament, at home in our bookcases and revere it as Holy Writ.
Please read the following sections in this "Holy Scripture": 1. Moses 27, 29; 2. Moses 15, 3; 4. Moses 14, 8-9; 5. Moses 6, 10-11; 5. Moses 7, 1-7, 16; 5. Moses 12, 29-30; 5. Moses 20, 13-16; Joshua 1, 19; Psalms 2, 89, Psalms 79, 6; Isaiah 33, 10-13; Isaiah 60, 21; Isaiah 63, 6; Isaiah 66, 16; Micah 4, 13.
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Otto von Habsburg wrote of "Our Jewish Roots":
"If Judaism had nothing else produced than the Old Tes- tament, we already would have to pay tribute to them. This book does not only contain basic divine revelations like the creation story, it is also the first school of thought and the starting point of our development. "
Count Nikolous Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, the founder of
the Paneuropean Union, wrote in 1925:77
"A decisive step towards this goal formed Russian Bol- shevism, where a small group of communistic intellectual aristocrats governed the land, and consciously broke with plutocratic democracy, which today dominates the rest of the world. "
"Had Coudenhove-Kalergi lived during the time of the Old Testament, they would have called him a Prophet," so Otto von Habsburg, today's President of the Paneuropean Union, in a letter from Poking of Nov. 9, 1994.78 In an essay meant to expose the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion as "a fake record of an alleged secret Jewish meeting," Dr. Herbert Hillel Goldberg writes:
"The Messiah of the tribe of Judah will indeed rule from the throne of David, when Jerusalem will be the capital of
the world: 'At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the LORD; and all the nations shall be gathered unto it, to the name of the LORD, to Jerusalem: neither shall they walk any more after the imagination of their evil heart. ' (Jeremiah 3, 1 7). And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD 's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. ' (Isaiah 2, 2- 3). What the Highest in his healing plan for the world has provided will come, but not in the way the enemy is repre- senting it. "
So much for the "exposure" of Goldberg, of the "Friends of Zion, Inc." during a tour through Germany and Switzerland in May/June 1994 in Christian churches! The welcoming ad- dress on occasion of an "Israel-Conference '98" in Nurem- berg (3.-5. April 1998) included the following statement:79 "We are standing at the turning point of a new era! The nations rub themselves sore at this small country and force it into isolation (Zachariah 12,3). During these es- chatological events, we Christians are called to give com- fort to Israel in love and to prepare the way for the Mes- siah (Isaiah 40). " Not a word that this small nation, at which we rub ourselves sore, has probably the world's largest destructive power in nuclear weapons in relation to the number of its inhabitants.80 "You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities. " This sentence of the Prophet Amos (Chap. 3, 2) "testifies of the majestic self-confidence with which the Prophet is filled, who is at once Yahweh's most faithful servant and passionate patriot. In this relationship to his people lies the deepest root of the faith in the coming Messiah. [. . .]81 (emphasis added) In Dietrich Eckart's writing Der Bolschewismus von Moses bis Lenin (Bolshevism from Moses to Lenin) the last para- graph reads:82
"It is probably so: the Jew can only be understood if it is known what he strives for in the end. Beyond world domination to the destruction of the world. He believes that he has to subjugate all mankind in order to create paradise on earth, as he persuades himself. Only he is capable of this, so he makes himself believe, and it will certainly come to this. But already from the means he is using, one can see that he is secretly driven to some- thing else. While he persuades himself that he improves mankind, he torments it into despair, into insanity, into collapse. If he is not stopped, he will destroy it. He is prepared for this, he is driven to it; even if he vaguely forebodes that he will destroy himself by this as well. He cannot get out, he must do it. To me, this feeling for the absolute dependence of his own existence on the exis- tence of his victim seems to be the main reason for his hatred. To have to destroy someone with all the power, but at the same time to foreshadow that this will lead,
Volwne460 fl^^^^^F^R Wednesds)
No. 46 2fith Jan., 1949
r
PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES
(HANSARD)
HOUSE OF COMMONS OFFICIAL HE PORT
Mr. Churchill : but
I think the day will conic when it will be recognised without doubt, not only on one side of the House but throughout the civilised world, that the strangling of Bolshevism at its birth would have been an untold blessing to the human race.
Mr. Cocks (Broxtowc): If that had happened wc should have lost the last war.
Mr. Churchill ; No, it would have pre- vented the last war.
LONDON HIS MAJESTY'S STATIONFRY Oi FICF
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without salvation, to his own destruction, that is it: the tragedy of Lucifer. "
The same stance is expressed in early poems by Karl Marx,
for example in:83
"Prayer of the Despairing: Has God torn down every- thing from me, / rolled away in fateful curse and yoke. / His worlds - all - all amiss! / One was left, the revenge I still have, / 1 will proudly take revenge against myself, / against the creature that sits high up on the throne. / My power be patchwork of weakness alone, / and my good it- self not be rewarded! / 1 will build a throne for myself, / cold and huge shall be its summit. /Superhuman horror be its fortress, / And its marshal be its dark pain! / Who looks up with healthy eyes, / Returns pale as dead and mute, / Touched by the blind breath of death, / May his own for- tune dig his trap. / That the lightnings of the Highest bounce / Off the high, iron-made building, /If he breaks my walls, my halls, / Eternity rebuilds them in defiance. "
Or from
"Men 's Pride: Then I throw the glove scoffing / A world into its wide face, / And even if the giant lady dwarf top- ples moaning, / her ruins will not crush my fervor. / God- like may I promenade, / Victorious move through her do- main of ruins, / Each word is fire and action, / My chest resemble the Creator's bosom. "84 Winston Churchill thought, at least during a debate in the House of Commons on January 26, 1949, that: "I think the day will come when it will be recognized without doubt, not only on one side of the House but throughout the civilized world, that the strangling of Bolshevism at its birth would have been an untold blessing to the human race." To the objection that if that had happened, England should have lost the last war, Churchill replied:85 "No, it would have prevented the last war." Unfortunately we don't know whether he considered the birth of Bolshevism to have taken place in 1917, in 1848, or at the time of Moses.
According to the Old Testament, Moses was responsible for an early mass murder — not of a foreign people, however, but of the intellectual elite of his own people. In the fourth book of Moses (Numbers), Chapter 16, it is written that "Korah's gang" rebelled against Moses,
"and they rose up before Moses, with certain of the chil- dren of Israel, two hundred and fifty princes of the as- sembly, famous in the congregation, men of renown: and they gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron, and said unto them, Ye take too much upon you, seeing all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the LORD is among them: wherefore then lift ye up yourselves above the congregation of the LORD. " Instead of showing any respect for this "democratic" request, he announced a divine judgment on the next day:
"and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods. " About the explanation of the priesthood, Nietzsche stated:87 "The famous story at the beginning of the Bible, has it ac- tually been understood — about God's paralyzing fear of
science? ... The beginning of the Bible includes the com- plete psychology of the priests. — The priest knows only one danger: that is science, the healthy concept of cause and effect. " Science, however, is revisionism!
In this story, one may also recognize the basic principle of the Cheka as it was brought to perfection by the Bolsheviks thousands of years later. On September 6, 1919, Maxim Gor- ky wrote a letter to Lenin:88
"For me, the wealth of a country, the power of a people is measured according to the quantity and quality of its in- tellectual potential. The revolution makes only sense if it favors growth and development of this potential. Scien- tists must be treated with the highest measure of consid- eration and respect. However, by cutting off the head of the people while saving our own skin, we destroy our brain. " Lenin answered as follows:89
"It is incorrect to throw the 'intellectual power' of the people into the same pot as the 'power ' of the intellectual bourgeoisie. [...] The intellectual forces of the workers and the peasants grow and become strong through the fight for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and their help- ers, the intellectuals, the lackeys of the capital who think of themselves to be the brain of the nation. In reality they aren 't the brain, they are just dirt. " Another example of the Cheka principal was the Katyn mas- sacre, during which the military leadership of Poland was ex- terminated.
Since the destruction of the temple in the year 70 there have been, according to Rabbi Shmul Himelstein,90 only two im- portant events for Jewry: the Holocaust and the founding of the State of Israel. Rabbi Benjamin Blech recently gave the following explanation of the connection between the two events: In the thirdBook of Moses (Leviticus) 25, 10 it is written:
"And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim lib- erty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family. " These words are also engraved on the American liberty bell. The Hebrew expression for "you shall return" (TaShuVU), however, is slightly incorrect. Grammatically seen, one 'v' ("vav") is missing; it should have been: TaShUVU. This missing "va" stands for 6. TaShuVU without the missing let- ter is interpreted as the promise that the Jewish people finally will return to its homeland. Decoded into numbers, it yields 708 (400+300+2+6). The founding year of the State of Israel (1948) is 5708 according to the Hebrew calendar. The thou- sands are ignored. Therefore, the prophecy results in the founding year, where a "vav" = 6 (million) is missing. If the prophecy were not grammatically "incorrect," and thus writ- ten with the missing "vav," it would not contain Israel's cor- rect founding year, hence the prophecy would be false. How- ever, because God never errs, he spells the prophecy incor- rectly— without "vav" = 6 — in order to indicate that 6 (mil- lion) will be missing. (Else Israel would have to have been
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founded in 1954). Thus far Rabbi Benjamin Blech according to the explanations of a "revisionist" book.91 This book is not allowed to be imported to Germany; in any case the German ambassador in Washington got himself two copies. It is ed- ited by Dr. Robert Brock, the leader of a "Self-determination Committee" for American Negroes (pardon: 'Afro- Americans'), who also appears occasionally at events of the German rightwing splinter party DVU in Passau, and who has published a book with quotations exonerating Germany, Freispruch fur Deutschland (Acquittal for Germany),92 a fact which of course speaks neither against the one nor for the other.
It is generally known that for Jews each letter in the Torah is sacrosanct:
"A single wrong or illegible letter in the [Torah] roll makes it worthless and must be corrected. If this is dis- covered during the KHT [Keriat-ha-Tora = lecture from the Torah], it is immediately interrupted, the Torah is rolled up, put aside, and another roll is opened up at the same place — if the Jews there are lucky enough to own a second one! "
Since for cabbalists the Torah includes 600,000 different pos- sible interpretation (or are there perhaps 6,000,000?), it would not be surprising if the above version is not the only
94
one:
"All the puzzles of the scripture will be solved within the last sixty seconds before the beginning of Judgment Day, this the Jewish secret teaching guarantees. " A new reform of the civil calendar, as has repeatedly been suggested during this or that forum of the United Nations, would be a catastrophe for Jewry, but so far it has been pre- vented by Jewish authorities and organizations.95 These ex- amples may indicate how naive it is to assume that the six- million-myth can be fought with rational arguments. It is interesting to note that a term more and more intensively applied to what used to be called a "Holocaust victim" is "Holocaust survivor," as if survivors were also victims. By so doing, a so-called "Holocaust Survivor Syndrome" is created, and this is now already in the second and third generation, i.e., with the children and grand-children of the "real" survi- vors. The members of the following generations suffer from "survivor guilt," and "Holocaust survivors" from the areas of the former Soviet Union suffer additionally because their "souls were murdered." Should the myth of the six million gassed collapse one day, a growing substitute army of "Holo- caust survivors" is ready to be the future bearers of victim- hood.
The Christian reader may be horrified by some of the expla- nations made here. In their defense, we can only assume that they do not know their own Holy Scripture. Who knows, for example, that Leviticus 19 contains the following?:
"This is the ordinance of the law which the LORD hath commanded, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring thee a red heifer without spot, wherein is no blemish, and upon which never came yoke. And ye shall give her unto Ele-a'zar the priest, that he may bring her forth without the camp, and one shall slay her before his face: and Ele-a zar the priest shall take of her
blood with his finger, and sprinkle of her blood directly before the tabernacle of the congregation seven times. And one shall burn the heifer in his sight; her skin, and her flesh, and her blood, with her dung, shall he burn: [...]And a man that is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer, and lay them up without the camp in a clean place, and it shall be kept for the congregation of the children of Israel for a water of separation: it is a puri- fication for sin..[...] " Al last we are finally there! Just recently, such a red calf was born in Texas.96 Only the fortified roof of the temple has still to be liberated from the Muslims in order to be able to greet the Messiah from the proper place. That would mean war. At the turn of the twenty-first century, certain religious Jews and fundamentalist Christians made common cause, because for both the world must first go "through a deep valley," which means through war and fire, to achieve the redemption by the Messiah.97 And the poor heifer is threatened with her own Holocaust (sacrifice through total burning). The Israeli author Rachlevsky frightened his secular compa- triots with the bestseller Donkey of the Messiah?*
■ lawn
'•. T
TaShuVU
•op
YOU SHALL RETURN
In the days when slavery existed, the Torah decreed that there must come a time when every man goes free. Even those who resold themselves after six years of servitude, and had their ears pierced for voluntary enslavement, could not remain beyond the time of the Jubilee.
(Ve-kidashtem et shenat ha-hamishim shanah u-keratem deror ba-arez le-khol yoshveha yovel hi tihyeh lakhem)
"And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof."
[Leviticus 25:10]
These are the words chosen to be inscribed on the Liberty Bell. It is in the Jubilee year that "ye shall return every man unto his possession and ye shall return every man unto his family."
The Hebrew word for "ye shall return," in^ri (TaShuVU), seems to be spelled incorrectly. Grammatically it requires another i (vav). It ought to read w?tt>n (TaShUVU).
Why is it lacking the letter i (vav), which stands for 6? lat^n (without the "vav") is a prediction to the Jewish people of ultimate return to their national homeland, w^jj in numbers adds up to 708: n (tav) = 400, w(shin) = 300, a (vet) = 2, l (vav) = 6. When we write the year, we ignore the millennia. In 1948 on the secular calendar, we witnessed the miracle of Jewish return to Israel. On the Hebrew calendar it was the year 5708. That was the year pre- dicted by the incomplete word wii/ri (TaShuVU), you shall return. We did return, lacking 6— an all-important 6 million of our people who perished during the Holocaust.
Yet the fulfillment of the prediction of return in precisely that year implied by the gematria of lawn (TaShuVU) gives us firm hope that the words of the Prophets for Final Redemption will come true as well.
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"[He] refers to a typical, traditional Jewish suppression mechanism which runs like a red thread through Jewish history: The memory of disasters caused by periodically returning messianic movements has been repeatedly re- pressed, and the destructive part played by some rabbis kept secret. [... The Messianists feel strengthened] in their belief that the future of the Jewish people belongs to them alone. For them, this future is primarily connected with the final time of the approaching messiah. According to cabbalistic understanding, the people of Israel will lib- erate itself from the dominance of the 'unclean mixed people' at the beginning of this time. Those satanic forces, who among others appear as Jewish non- believers, will either be converted by the faithful, or they will simply have to be destroyed. [...] Through increas- ingly generous public subsidies, Netanyahu 's policy led to a literally explosion of the number of Torah students. By orthodox Jews, this is understood as a token from God, as is Israel's tactic of a massively delayed retreat of the Is- raeli army from the once biblical areas, which is long overdue. "
This article also discusses quite openly that according to the Jewish myth of the cabbala, "left" stands for satanic and "right" for the forces of good. According to Scholem, the cabbala calls evil the "left emanation" of God. 9 A. B. Yehoshua explains the difference between left and right as follows:100
"The difference lies in the belief, or in the capability to believe, that man and society do not only have the capa- bility for change, but also the desire for the true Tikkun, in fact despite and beyond the natural and eternal forces which define us, like those of origin and environment. This is the fundamental leftist orientation: the desire to change and the capability to transform. While the Right talks about necessity to be loyal to our ancestors, about the demand of the generations, about the fate which re- peats itself, and about national mentalities, the Left talks about freedom from the past, redefinition of the roots, and about the destruction of stereotypes. Zionism always os- cillated back and forth between Left and Right, revolution and conservatism. " (emphasis added) Is our (non- Jewish) Left aware of the fact that they actually serve cabbalistic goals, only to risk final destruction as the "Donkey of the Messiah"?
450 years ago, Martin Luther came to the late insight:101
"If God does not want to give me a different Messiah than the one the Jews desire and hope for, then I would rather be a pig than a human being. I will give you a good rea- son. The Jews do not ask more of their Messiah than to be a star and a secular king who kills us Christians and di- vides the world among the Jews and make them the rul- ers. [. . .] "
Prof. Dr. Werner Pfeifenberger, who was heavily persecuted in Germany and Austria for his revisionist views and who was finally driven to suicide, stated the following:102
"Besides the three usual brain functions: understanding, rationality, and the will, which together make up man 's spirit and serve his life's interests, a fourth category of
thinking evidently slumbers within man which, once started through deliberate re-routing of psychic functions, lets men act against their very own interest for the benefit of a foreign will. The better the mentors of such re- routing succeed in hypnotizing other people with a closed world view, the sooner they can be moved by isms, to sac- rifice themselves and others, so that their spiritual men- tors don 't lack for power and wealth. "m Let us hope that Prof. Pfeifenberger did not include revision- ism in his list of -isms, because the true revisionist always has to be ready to subject the knowledge gained through "re- vision to further revisions; by definition, therefore, he does not have a closed world view.
In closing, two quotations from the ingenious Otto Wein-
inger, who was crushed by his Judaism:104
"That almost all prominent people were anti-Semites (Tacitus, Pascal, Voltaire, Herder, Goethe, Kant, Jean Paul, Schopenhauer, Grillparzer, Wagner) goes back to the fact, that they, who have so much more in themselves than others, also understand Jewry better than others. " "And perhaps tentatively, the historic meaning and the enormous merit of Judaism is none other than to bring the Aryan always to the awareness of himself, to remind him of himself. The Aryan has to thank the Jew for this: through the Jew he knows what to avoid; he must avoid the possibility of internalizing Judaism. "
(To be continued)
Notes
First published in German in Vierteljahreshefte fur freie Geschichtsfor- schimg 3(1) (1999), pp. 27-38. Translated by Fabian Eschen.
1 Jewish Chronicle, May 10, 1996, p. 25.
2 Gottes geheime Formel - Die Entschliisselung des Weltratsels und der Primzahlencode, Langen Miiller, Munich 1995.
3 Le Monde, February 21, 1979.
4 Le Nouvel Observateur, October 23, 1997, p. 57.
5 Ref: 6S.199/1994/tbr.
6 In the communist newspaper La Liberation, March 5, 1979: "La liberie de parole, d'ecrit, de reunion, d'association doit etre totale et ne supporte pas la moindre restriction."
7 "Unstet und fluchtig bin ich, wenn ich den Spuren meiner Vater folge," Frankfurter AUgemeine Zeitung, January 17, 1996, p. 6.
8 Frankfurter AUgemeine Zeitung,May 22, 1998, p. 11.
9 J. Wilkes and R. Albert, "Der junge Heine. Die Kasuistik einer Pseudo- logia phantastica," in: Nervenarzt, vol. 69, May 1998, pp. 437-439.
10 "Religion, jiidische," Column 1335.
11 Before the Frankfurt Jury Court on May 3, 1979; Ref: 50 Js 12 828 / 79 919 Ls.
12 Profit, September 9, 1996, p. 75.
13 In Toronto Star, November 26, 1 99 1 .
14 R. J. Werblowsky, Geoffrey Wigoder (ed.), Oxford University Press, New York, N.Y. 1997.
15 Die Philosophenwelt in Versen vorgestellt, Reclam, Stuttgart 1995, pp. 46,48:
"'Unglaublich! ' sagt' Tertullian / - er war der Stoa zugetan - / 'ein Gott, der als Verbrecher stirbt, / schon dadurch sich den Ruf erwirbt, / er sei ein Gott in Menschsgestalt, drum glaub' ich's ohne Vorbehalt. / Und daB vom Tod er auferstanden / man sah das nie in unsern Landen -, / das ist so hochst absonderlich! / Und darum iiberzeugt es mich.' / Was nun der Glaube selber war, / das war ja schon seit Platon klar: / Nur Glaub' und Meinung gait den Sinnen / und dem, was wir durch sie gewinnen. / Doch wissend schaun wir die Ideen, / die wir mit geistgem Auge sehn. /[...] Der Jude Philon hat's gezeigt, / daB hinterm Wortsinn liegen muB / ein tiefer Sensus mysticus. / In einem Buch, in der Tora, / fur Juden er ver- zeichnet war. [...]"
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Guideo Burg, Basel 1993, p. 248.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, October 15, 1998, p. 47. "Selbstblendung - Uber den Realitatsverlust der Funktiondrselite" , in: Kursbuch No. 1 1 1, February 1993, p. 122.
Frederick A. Leuchter, An Engineering Report on the Alleged Execution Gas Chambers at Auschwitz, Birkenau and Majdanek, Poland, Samisdat Publishers Ltd., Toronto 1988; Ger.: Der erste Leuchter Report, ibid., 1988.
Germar Rudolf, The Rudolf Report, Theses and Dissertations Press, Chi- cago, IL, 2003; Ger.: Das Rudolf Gutachten, Castle Hill Publishers, Hast- ings 2001.
German right-wing political magazine, Castel del Monte, Postfach 14 06 28, D-80456 Munich.
Leben in Luge, Mohr Siebeck, Tubingen 1997, p. 73. Ibid., pp. 145f. Ibid, p. 101.
Editors of Executive Intelligence Review, The Ugly Truth About The Anti-defamation League, Executive Intelligence Review, Washington, D.C., 1992.
Response, Vol. 15, No. 2, Sommer 1994, p. 10.
In: Wolfgang Benz, (ed.), AntiSemitismus in Deutschland, dtv, Munich 1995, p. 193.
Der Ewige Antisemit, Fischer, Frankfurt a.M. 1986, p. 30.
Memoiren, Den Haag 1951, p. 242; Memoiren: Das Werden des Staates
Israel, loth, Hamburg 1951.
Wolfgang Benz (ed.), op. cit. (note 27), p. 7.
Letter to the Editor, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, August 6, 1998, p. 6.
Suhrkamp, Frankfurt/Main 1974, pp. 64ff.
Der eingebildete Jude, Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1984, p. 107.
In: Internationale Politik, Heft 8/1998, acc. to Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Oct. 29, 1998, p. 45.
In Auschwitz wurde niemand vergast, Verlag an der Ruhr, Miilheim 1 996; cf. the review in VffG 1 (2) ( 1 997), pp. 1 1 9- 1 2 1 . F. Weinhandl (ed.), Die geistlichen Ubungen, 1921, pp. 187f. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Oct. 6, 1998, p. L35. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Dec. 27, 1996, p. 23. "Sonderweg wider Willen - Polen: Die Enttabuisierung der Vergangen- heit," Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, May, 25, 1994, p. N5. Linke Ikonen, so the title of a book by 0. K. Werckmeister, Hanser, Mu- nich 1997.
Menschenrechte, C. H. Beck, Munich, 1992, p. 104.
Cf. R. Faurisson, "Bilanz der Affare Garaudy/Abbe Pierre," VffG 1(1)
(1997), pp. 9-18.
Todesursache Zeitgeschichtsforschung, Verlag Neue Visionen, Wiirenlos 1995.
In: Les Temps modernes, Dezember 1993, pp. 132f. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Sept. 1, 1998, p. 41. Printed in La Revue de Paris, June 1 , 1 928, as well as in Salluste, Les origines secretes du bolchevisme, Editions Jules Tallandier, Paris 1930, pp. 33f. The original: "Le peuple juifpris collectivement sera luimeme son Messie. Son regne sur I 'Univers s 'obtiendra pas I 'unification des au- tres races humaines, la suppression des frontieres et des monarchies, qui sont le rempart du particularisme, et I 'etablissement d 'une Republique Universelle qui reconnaitra partout les droits de citoyens aux Juifs. Dans cette organisation nouvelle de I 'Humanite, les fils d 'Israel repandus des maintenant sur toute la surface du globe, tous de meme race et de meme formation traditionelle sans former cependant une nationality distincte, deviendront sans opposition I 'element partout dirigeant, surtout s 'Us parviennent a imposer aux masses ouvrieres la direction stable de quel- ques-uns d'entre eux. Les gouvernements des Nations formant la Repu- blique Universelle passeront tous, sans effort, dans des mains Israelites, a la faveur de la victoire du proletariat. La propriete individuelle pourra alors etre supprimee par les gouvernants de race juda'ique qui admistre- ront partout la fortune publique. Ainsi se realisera la promesse du Tal- mud que, lorsque les Temps du Messie seront venus, les Juifs tiendront sous leurs clefs les Mens de tous les peuples du monde. " Retranslated from Ernest F. Elenhurd, The World Hoax, quoted acc. to Deutschland, vol 7/8-1998, pp. 23f.
Acc. to Jacob Taubes, Abendlandische Eschatologie, Francke, Bern
1947, p. 207; new edition: Matthes und Seitz, Munich 1991. Acc. to Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Dec. 20, 1997, p. 36. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, April 28, 1998, p. 1. Kolner Univ.-Verl., Koln 1998.
"Die russische Gesellschaft entwickelt sich zuriick," Frankfurter Allge- meine Zeitung, June 4, 1998, p. 41.
P. Lapide, Rom und die Juden, Herder, Freiburg 1967, p. 9.
Yehuda T. Radday, Auf den Spuren der Parascha, Diesterweg, Frankfurt
Main/Sauerlander, Aarau, vol. 6 "Welterziehung," 1997, p. 41.
'Anamnesis und Amnesie: Uber Erinnerung und Vergessen," in: Magie,
Mystik, Messianismus, Olms, Hildesheim 1997, p. 19.
Y.T. Radday, op. cit. (note 54), pp. 9ff.
Georges Friedmann, Das Ende des jiidischen Volkes?, Rowohlt, Reinbek 1968, p. 209; cf. Arthur Koestler, Der Dreizehnte Stamm, Pawlak, Herr- sching 1991 , and Erwin Soratroi, Attilas Erben auf Davids Thron, Gra- bert, Tubingen 1992.
With verdict of County Court Tubingen, ref. 4 Gs 445/95.
Johann Maier (ed.), Judentum und Umwelt, Peter Lang, Frankfurt am
Main.
Die Weltwoche, Nr. 5/30. January 1997, p. 3.
In: Internationale Politik, Heft 8/1998, acc. to Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Oct. 29, 1998, p. 45. VffG, 2(3) (1998), p. 226.
In: Das Ende der Liigen, Siedler, Berlin 1992, pp. lOOf. Friedrich Nietzsche, Der Antichrist, Leipzig 1930, Chap. 24. Forward, Feb. 2, 1996, p. 4.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Aug. 15, 1996, p. 30. Acc. to Roger Dommergue de Menasce, Auschwitz: le silence de Heideg- ger ou Points de details, publ. by author. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Nov. 3, 1997, p. 45. Religion und Civilisation, Munich 1910, p. 636; reprint: Faksimile- Verlag, Bremen, undated.
From: Dies ist mein Volk, Droemer, Zurich 1970, pp. 94f. Der Jude undsein Judentum, Melzer, Koln 1963, p. 547f. Piper, Munich 1967, p. 333.
Auf den Spuren der Parascha, op. cit. (note 54), Arbeitsmappe 1, 1989. Ibid., Arbeitsmappe 2, 1991.
From: Albrecht Hellmann, "Die Juden in der Weltpolitik," in the Zionist
monthly Der Jude, 3. year., 1918/19, issue 1, p. 11.
Die Reichsidee, Amalthea, Wien - Munich 1986, p. 250.
In: Praktischer Idealismus, Paneuropa-Verl., Wien 1925.
Archive of the Unabhdngigen Nachrichten (Postfach 101706, D-46017
Oberhausen, Germany).
Arbeitskreis "Suchet der Stadt Bestes," Postfach, Niirnberg.
See Seymour Hersh, Atommacht Israel - Das geheime Vernichtungspo-
tential im Nahen Osten, Droemer Knaur, Munich 1991.
Judisches Lexikon, Berlin 1927, column 1329.
Hoheneichen- Verlag, Munich, 1924.
"Des Verzweifelnden Gebet: Hat ein Gott mir alles hingerissen, / Fort- gewalzt in Schicksalsfluch und Joch. / Seine Welten - alles - alles mis- sen! / Eines blieb, die Rache blieb mir doch. / An mir selber will ich stolz mich rachen, / An dem Wesen, das da oben thront. / Meine Kraft sei Flickwerk nur von Schwachen, / Und mein Gutes selbst sei unbelohnt! / Einen Thron will ich mir auferbauen, / Kalt und riesig soil sein Gipfel sein. / Bollwerk sei ihm iibermenschlich Grauen, / Und sein Marschall sei die diist're Pein! / Wer hinaufschaut mit gesundem Auge, / Kehre todten- bleich und stumm zuriick, / Angepackt vom blinden Todteshauche, / Grabe selbst die Grube sich sein Gliick. / Und des Hochsten Blitze sollen prallen / Von dem hohem, eisernen Gebau, / Bricht er meine Mauern, meine Hallen, / Trotzend baut die Ewigkeit sie neu." "Menschenstolz: Dann werf ich den Handschuh hohnend / Einer Welt in's breite Angesicht, / Und die Riesenzwergin stiirze stohnend, / Meine Gluth erdruckt ihr Trammer nicht. / Gotterahnlich darf ich wandeln, / Siegreich ziehn durch ihr Ruinenreich, / Jedes Wort ist Gluth und Han- deln, / Meine Brust dem Schijpferbusen gleich."
Werke. Artikel. Literarische Versuche bis Mdrz 1843, Dietz, Berlin 1975. Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons, Official Report, vol. 460, No. 46, column 950.
See also "Platz fur die Rotte Korah" in: Staatsbriefe 1 1/1996, pp. 35-37. Der Antichrist, Kap. 48.
Quoted in: Arkadi Vaksberg, Le Mystere Gorki, Albin Michel, p. 111.
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Quoted acc. to Eva Kosinng, Edel Mirowa-Florin (ed.): Lenin und Gorki - Eine Freundschaft in Dokumenten, Berlin - Weimar 1974, pp. 201f.; both quotations from F. Courtois, Das Schwarzbuch des Kommunismus, Piper, Munich 1998, p. 805.
The Jewish primer: questions and answers on Jewish faith and culture, Facts on File, New York 1990.
The Secrets of Hebrew Words, Jason Aronson Inc., 1991, pp. 214f.; quoted in Ben Weintraub, The Holocaust Dogma of Judaism: Keystone of the New World Order— flow Prophecy Fulfillment Demands 6 Million, Cosmo Publ., P.O.Box 15248, Washington, DC, 20003, 1995, pp. 166f.; see illustration.
DFZ-Verlag, Munich, which is closely associated to the DVU. From: Auf den Spuren der Parascha, op. cit. (note 54), p. 18. Frank Schirrmacher, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Oct. 14, 1997, p. L23.
Acc. to Y. T. Radday: Israels Isochronie, in: Auf den Spuren der Para- scha, op. cit. (note 54), Arbeitsmappe 4, 1994, p. 100.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Oct. 15, 1998, p. 47.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Sept. 21, 1998, p. 14.
Joseph Croitoru, "Zeitplan fur den Messias," in: Frankfurter Allgemeine
Zeitung, Oct. 26, 1998, p. 52.
Scholem, Judaica, vol. 6, p. 23, und Encyclopaedia Judaica, Jerusalem, vol. 10: Kabbalah, col. 585. In Tikkun, vol. 1 1 , no. 1 .
Von den Juden und ihren Liigen, in: Ausgewdhlte Werke, supplemental series vol. 3, Chr. Kaiser, Munich 1936, p. 213. See for this: Rudi Zornig, "Zum Gedenken an Werner Pfeifenberger," VffG 4(2) 2000, pp. 127-130.
Werner Pfeifenberger, "Internationalismus gegen Nationalismus - eine unendliche Todfeindschaft," in: Freiheit und Verantwortung, Jahrbuch fur politische Erneuerung 1995, FPO, Wien 1995, p. 496. From: Geschlecht und Charakter, Neuausgabe: Matthes & Seitz, Munich 1980, pp. 406/409.
Book Reviews
Hitler's Jewish Soldiers
By Jorg Berger
Bryan Mark Rigg, Hitler's Jewish Soldiers: The Untold Story of Nazi Racial Laws and Men of Jewish Descent in the German Military, University Press of Kansas, ISBN: 070061 1789, 528 pp., $29.95
On December 2, 1996, The Daily Telegraph reported briefly on a research work by the American Bryan M. Rigg ("Jews in Wehrmacht Uniform;" a similar story ran in the London Times on Dec. 6, 1996). During the following four years, Rigg deepened this topic considerably during his doctoral dissertation which was published in May 2002. Bryan Rigg received his doctor title in history at the age of 3 1 from Cambridge University under Professor Jonathan Steinberg. Today, Rigg is history pro- fessor at the American Online Military University.
Rigg's book is primarily based upon approximately 430 interviews with former Wehrmacht soldiers who were at least partially Jewish, i.e., of "mixed- race" according to National Socialist terminology. Rigg's thesis belongs to the category of "history as experienced and reported," which means that it is based upon witnesses' accounts that have been evaluated by the author and brought into the context of the time. Rigg therefore belongs to the type of journalistic authors like John Sack, who in his book An Eye for an Eye did not
HITLER'S JEWISH LDIERS
THE UNTOLD STORY OF NAZI RACIAL LAWS AND MEN OF JEWISH DESCENT IN THE GERMAN MILITARY
research the history of the extermination camps in postwar Poland based on documentations and secondary literature, but through "oral history," i.e., a series of interviews with victims and perpetrators.
Based on statistical extrapolations, Riggs estimates that during the Second World War at least 100,000 soldiers of mixed Jew- ish background, as defined by the Nuremberg laws, served in the Wehrmacht. Most of them were descendants of non- Jewish Germans and assimilated or baptized German Jews. Rigg con- cludes that some of these soldiers served in order to escape the threat of persecu- tion, others simply because they felt like Germans and acted no differently from other Germans, namely, served their fa- therland faithfully.
Due to the aforementioned media arti- cles in late 1996, Rigg's study attracted attention from the outset, enabling him to get in touch with many witnesses, but it also drew an unusual amount of criticism and recognition of his disser- tation. The origins of Rigg's thesis, however, go back to the very beginning of his university studies, when he heard during a stay in Germany that a Protes- tant woman had Jewish ancestors, and when by chance he met an older man who talked about his experiences at the eastern front as a "quarter Jew." As could be expected, first in line to comment on Rigg's thesis was a parade of Holocaust scholars, whose comments
AN MARK RIGG
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were reported in the American magazine Chronicle of Higher Education (May 3, 2002). (http://chronicle.com/free/v48/i34 34a01401.htm). Rigg heard discouraging and critical words from various professors during his research, and also after his thesis was published. One voice is heard in public that posi- tively described Rigg's book is that of Michael Berenbaum, former director of the Holocaust Memorial Museum, as well as Christopher R. Browning, professor of history of the Uni- versity of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. Other Holocausters judge Rigg's work rather negatively, either because they think the subject is a waste of time ("Who would want to know that 100,000 mixed Jews were Hitler's willing sol- diers?"), or because his thesis is allegedly presented in a sen- sationalistic and distorted way ("This was already known and is totally irrelevant for the judgment of the Holocaust and the Third Reich"), as per David Cesarani, professor for Jewish history in Southampton, England, or Raul Hilberg, professor emeritus of the University of Vermont.
Some scholars resent that Rigg tried to gain public atten- tion— and succeeded — when his work was still in an early
stage. But it was his PhD supervisor who started the early press campaign in order to enable Rigg to find additional po- tential witnesses.
Other scholars, such as Richard J. Evans, history professor at Cambridge, and Omer Bartov, history professor at Brown University, consider the title of Rigg's book inappropriate, because the book does not in most cases deal with Jews, but rather with "mixed Jews" as defined by the "racist NS- ideology," not as defined by the (no less racist) Jewish view. The title of the book, however, was not chosen by Rigg, but by the publisher, for marketing reasons — obviously with suc- cess, as it turned out.
Rigg's supervisor was impressed by the effort with which his student collected documents, most of them originating from Hitler's Jewish soldiers themselves. In the meantime, Rigg's collection is located in the German Federal Military Archive.
First published in German in Vierteljahreshefte fiir freie Geschichtsfor- schung 6(2) (2002), pp. 223f. Translated by Fabian Eschen.
The Russians in Berlin in 1945
By Ernst Gauss
Antony Beevor, The Fall of Berlin 1945, Viking Penguin, London/New York, May 2002, 512 pp. hardcover, $29.95
With much hullabaloo, the publication of the latest book by the British military historian Anthony Beevor was announced at the beginning of April. For example, "Rapists of the Red Army Exposed" was the headline of a review by Chris Sum- mers, of the British government broadcasting company, on BBC News Online. Two million German women were raped during the advance of the Red Army into Germany toward the end of the Second World War, many of them several times. In Berlin alone, 130,000 women were raped, of whom 1,000 subsequently committed suicide. For the German pub- lic, this is hardly new information, nor would it have rated sensational headlines in the media there. Beevor' s book describes the advance of the Red Army into East Germany and the Battle for Berlin primarily from a mili- tary viewpoint; thus the cruel swath of looting, extortion, mass murder, forced expulsions, and rape is not Beevor' s central focus of interest. Nonetheless, he was shocked by what was turned up in the course of his investigation. Inevi- tably, anyone familiar with the history of that time must ask himself about the competency of a military historian of the Second World War to whom the events in East and Central Germany at the end of 1944 and beginning of 1945 were not known until the year 2000.
The crux of the book, however, is Beevor's assessment that what happened in Germany at the end of the war is both un- derstandable and excusable. First of all, he takes the view that any man would be susceptible to the temptation to loot
and rape in the extremities of wartime conditions. Second, he deems that, by the end of the war, the Germans had in fact only reaped what they had sown in three and a half years in Russia, for which reason the Soviet military leader- ship averted its eyes from what was taking place in Ger- many.
Beevor has thus fallen for the old Stalinist, "anti-fascist" war lies according to which German soldiers in Russia had mur- dered, looted, extorted, and raped at will. But as a military historian who claims to know the subject about which he writes, Beevor must know that in no sense was this true. Through all the horror of the Eastern campaign, the German soldiers conducted themselves, all in all, in an extraordinarily civilized manner, if one compares them to all other armies in world history. One might compare, for instance, the contribu- tion by Walter Post, "Die Wehrmacht im Zweiten Weltkrieg" (The Wehrmacht in the Second World War), in the anthology edited by Joachim Weber, Armee im Kreuzfeuer {Army in the Crossfire, Universitas, Munich 1997).
Yet even this degree of eager servility to the prevailing po- litical correctness still wasn't enough for the current Russian ambassador to England, Grigoriy Karasin. The ambassador maintained, in a letter to the editor of the Daily Telegraph, that Beevor's statements concerning the horrendous ram- pages of the Soviet soldiers in Germany are nothing but "lies and allegations" and that moreover, they have been "dis- proved" by a Russian historian:
"It is a shame to have to deal at all with this clear case of an insult to my people, who have freed the world from Nazism. "
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BERLIN 1945
Yes indeed, let's be grateful to the Devil, who has driven the rascal away! On the other hand, Beevor presents in- teresting findings that the Soviets not only raped German women during their advance into Germany, but later as well, when hundreds of thousands of women were carried off as slaves and were constantly further abused in im- prisonment, many of them in Soviet Army brothels. It also emerges from the Soviet documents examined by Beevor that many of the "repatriated" Russian and Ukrainian women who collaborated with the Germans during German occu- pation shared the fate of their German sisters in suffering. According to Beevor, the women were commonly degraded by becoming the war booty of Soviet soldiers.
In taking his position vis-a-vis the BBC, Professor Oleg Rzheshevsky, di- rector of the Department of Military History at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, maintained that Beevor' s charges were not supported by documents — although he had to admit that he had not read Beevor' s book nor examined the sources — and that they were merely based upon the non- credible testimony of German women. Actually, he claimed, the majority of the Soviet soldiers had behaved with good will toward the German population.
The only question is how, despite 55 years of unrelenting propaganda from the peace-loving Soviet Union and the total suppression of critical historiography in Central Germany, its populace can nevertheless still recall the Soviet atrocities so clearly and with such unanimity. Here, a collective memory exists contrary to and despite the propaganda, not, as in the Holocaust, where a collective memory was created parallel
ANTONY
to the propaganda and by it. Rzheshev- sky's thesis of the non-credibility of hundreds of thousands of German wit- nesses is, therefore, ridiculous. Professor Richard Overy, historian at King's College in London, believes the Russians have suppressed this episode of their history because they take the view that the retribution which fell upon Germany was only just, in light of the much worse German crimes in Rus- sia. I will not take the trouble to re- spond to this.
If one compares this book with Joachim Hoffmann's Stalin's War of Extermina- tion, 1939-1945 (Theses and Disserta- tions Press, Capshaw, AL, 2002, avail- able for $40.00 from Castle Hill Pub- lishers), Beevor's book has but one ad- vantage, which is that the Soviet swath of blood through Eastern Europe has been even better documented. Beevor, however, has not dealt with the context of the conflict, and thus the causes of the outrages by Soviet soldiers at the end of the war. This is also why the book is chiefly discussed out- side of Germany, and consequently will be a success: it does not contradict the image of the poor, invaded, raped, plun- dered, peace-loving Soviet Union, which saved the world from "Nazism." In this regard, Hoffmann's book is, of course, significantly better documented and its argumentation is accordingly more refined. For this reason, the English edi- tion of that book has been given the silent treatment by Eng- lish-language media.
First published in German in Vierteljahreshefte fur freie Geschichtsfor- schung 6(2) (2002), pp. 223 f. Translated by Regina Belser.
B E
l j i t
E V O B
Van Pelt's Plea against Sound Reasoning
By Robert H. Countess, Ph.D.
Robert Jan Van Pelt, The Case for Auschwitz: Evidence from the Irving Trial, Indiana University Press, Blooming- ton/Indianapolis, 2002, 464 pp., $45.-.
Introduction
I bought the Van Pelt book because of my interest in the drawings and details of the alleged triple-mesh columns axonometrically reconstructed on pages 194-208, planning to focus on these in order to fabricate an actual model for dis- play and practical analysis. But I found myself reading be- yond these vitally important and hypothesized homicidal gas- sing metal contraptions and I decided to start from the begin- ning and work through the whole book. I am glad that I did
because reading Van Pelt — the brightest star in the present Holocaust galaxy — has been truly an education and a chal- lenge to Holocaust revisionism. Since this large book ap- peared only in January, it has not yet been widely read or re- ported on and I believe that an introduction to it here today may help revisionists ("negationists" in Van Pelt's vocabu- lary) to avoid certain pitfalls in the future. The Case for Auschwitz is a thoroughly impressive book in its overall appearance, wide margins, typeface, photos, draw- ings, index, bibliography, binding and, most of all, its con- tent. Van Pelt is to be congratulated for presenting large sec- tions of revisionists' writings even though he, more often than not, distorts them or simply errs in his own theory's fa-
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vor. Accusing him of outright dishon- esty may even find solid justification. The Case for Auschwitz is an over- whelmingly compelling book in terms of its goal and its logical approach. The Case for Auschwitz is a devastating blow to Holocaust revisionism except for one "if and that "if is to be placed as follows: The Case for Auschwitz is a devastating blow to Holocaust revision- ism if the alleged eyewitnesses and their "confessions" are reliable and if they are consistent with the material sciences of physics, chemistry, architec- ture, hydrology, and construction engi- neering.
Van Pelt's book rests on the evidence of alleged eyewitnesses and their "con- fessions"! more than any other type of evidence. And it is Professor Van Pelt's "will-to-believe" certain alleged eyewitnesses that makes his book so powerfully convincing to the general readership, the media, politicians, judges, at- torneys and academicians, and the masses who comprise to- day's social consensus. His drawings are excellent and, again, impressively convincing to those listed above. I sug- gest that in the coming decade that this book will become the most quoted Holocaust volume and most discussions will tend to be settled with an ". . .as Van Pelt says. . ." asser- tion.
The Game of Tennis
Both players begin with I'oeuf (= zero) and move to 15, 30, 40, and then game. Since Van Pelt scores some points in his book against revisionists' data and arguments, he must be given credit, and contemporary revisionists must "go back to the drawing board," as it were, and revise any errors they find convincing. But, I believe the final score is somewhere in the neighborhood of Van Pelt 15, the "negationists" game, set, and match.
But he has played the game strongly, worked hard, read widely in the negationists' writings, even personally met one or two, conducted enormous research and travels on his own, thoughtfully weighed opposition arguments, and ap- plied his best talents to refuting them — all done, of course, for a handsome payment of hundreds of thousands of dol- lars or Euros and enormous, favorable publicity from the Holocaust industry that created the social consensus and keeps it thriving.
I conclude that Van Pelt shows himself a worthy opponent, ably prepared for most confrontations, as Irving found in the London trial, but Van Pelt will only find himself fully tested if and when he agrees to a full and open debate on his Auschwitz obsession — what I abbreviate as his "A™" (Auschwitz Trade Mark)2 — with prominent revisionist schol- ars at a conference or similarly open gathering "with no holds barred."
Van Pelt's Two Hats
No one normally writes a book on the history of Auschwitz or Miami or Paris while wearing his/her hat of objectivity, since there is no total detachment from one's value system possible. Objectivity is a goal one may strive for but one that is never reached with complete success by a mere mortal.
Van Pelt may believe he writes objec- tively, but his other hat — a really all conditioning hat — is the one that domi- nates this book. It is, I conclude, his Jewish mystical-religious hat and when he wears it, he displays a radical obses- sion with Jews and all things Jewish. And I wish that the typeface of The Case showed in color, say, yellow, when he wears that hat, and black when he merely supplies data and the words of outside sources. Or, when speaking in public that he would physically wear a black hat or a yel- low hat when moving so effortlessly, as he does, from one stance into the other.
But then, I recommend that I and all of us do that as well. His second chapter, "Marshalling the Evidence for Ausch- witz," is key to his personal mystical Jewish value system and how it colors the rest of the book. In fact, the early pages of this chapter may well be the most important content of The Case for Auschwitz since they demonstrate, I hold, that both his personal and professional life is inextricably bound to his religious philosophy of good and evil, with Auschwitz and "Nazis" as absolute evil and Jews representing ultimate good- ness.
Van Pelt makes clear that "evil" (p. 67) looms large in his historiography of the A™ and he states forthrightly that he was troubled to find that "evil" by the "Nazis" did not play its all-encompassing role in architectural studies as he found them in 1985.
The University of Virginia in Charlottesville
Van Pelt's honest expression of his mystical feelings can best
be expressed in his own words.
"My journey to Courtroom 73 of the Royal Courts of Jus- tice in London began in 1985 in the dean's conference room at the architecture school of the University of Vir- ginia. I had recently been appointed as visiting assistant professor of architectural History and attended a faculty meeting to discuss the 750 buildings which students of ar- chitectural history were to know for their comprehensive exam. My colleagues offered me an opportunity to review the existing list and suggest alterations. Having earned a doctorate with a dissertation on the cosmic speculations on the Temple of Solomon a year before, I proposed its inclusion in the University of Virginia canon. There were no objections. The Tabernacle of Moses and the Tower of Babel also proved acceptable. Then I nominated Crema- torium 2 of Auschwitz. A stunned silence followed, broken
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by one professor 's acid observation that obviously I was not serious. When I said I was, another academic sug- gested that perhaps I ought to consider an alternative ca- reer. " (p. 66)
One must remember that here was a Dutch Jew — whose doc- torate from Leiden in 1984 was in a field known as the His- tory of Ideas and not in Architecture — sitting among real ar- chitects, and professors of Architecture at that, and he pro- poses that an ugly but practical, concrete reinforced mortu- ary-crematorium (and eventual air-raid shelter and poison gas protection shelter, if Samuel Crowell and Carlo Mattogno are correct) be added to a list of significant structures for an ex- amination in the field of Architecture.
One also must remember that I had wrongly assumed — until the London trial — that Van Pelt was a real architect himself, in part due to his being called "Assistant Professor of Archi- tecture in the Architecture School at the University of Water- loo, Canada" (Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp, p. xiv) in this 1994 book.3 My erroneous assumption is hardly of importance, however, but of great importance in assessing the mental furniture of an author is the display of mystic non- sense with which Van Pelt began his Chapter 6 in the latter book, "A Site in Search of a Mission." (pp. 93-156) He began about the place name Auschwitz:
"Its name seems unassimilable. Before we have recovered from its harsh and repulsive beginning (Ausch), we are hit by its violent and sarcastic end (witz). " (p. 93)4 How utterly ridiculous! One might as well castigate the Pol- ish name mutatis mutandis by separating Os from wiecim and then hissing after each. Why not play the same game with Tel and A-vivl Or with my own city of Hunts and villel I did not realize in 1994 that I was confronting a mystic so obsessed with a place name locatable on a map with grid coordinates that he could dogmatize that its "...gas chambers changed the whole meaning of architecture." (Case, p. 67) Not only is this mystical, it is absurd to include in a book on serious histori- ography, although perfectly appropriate for a synagogue talk.
Van Pelt's "Cabbalistic" Metaphysics of Architecture
Continuing his UVA story wherein he had succeeded in get- ting three structures for which little, if any, verifiable re- mains, exist, Van Pelt writes:
"By the time I arrived in Virginia, I had become increas- ingly vexed by the way my colleagues circumvented the questions raised by the camps. [5] It seemed that most his- torians were embarrassed by the camps, preferring to consider these places as aberrations that belonged to a footnote. And architectural historians had ignored the camps altogether. Auschwitz did not appear in any archi- tectural history — not even in specialized studies of "Nazi " architecture. This troubled me because I had come to the conclusion that interpretations of history that ignore evil were doomed to remain shallow and ultimately meaning- less. I did not underestimate the historiographical pull away from systematic investigations of the presence of evil in history: as I wrote in my dissertation, I had be- come acutely aware of the extent to which historians pos- sess an artistic bent for building. They assemble isolated
pieces of historical evidence into a coherent story that fits the constructive ideology of causal thought. The practice of historiography makes it inevitable that historians are at ease when they describe the constructive efforts of past generations — be it in economics, politics, speculative thought, science, art, or architecture — and that they feel lost when confronted with evil, because in its negative and purely destructive character evil denies meaning and, as such, refuses to fit modes of historical narration that imply in form and causal structure the presence of mean- ing. Having studied narrations of the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem, I realized that manifestations of evil in some remoter past can be molded into an aesthetic form. But when the memory of victims has not yet died, this is more difficult. " (p. 67) When I read these lines, I realized that Van Pelt's mindset was not fundamentally that of a physical scientist. The sci- ence of architecture must be radically physical and material- istic and fixated on exactitude, because the beauty of a struc- ture must follow, not precede, its safety and durability and suitability of purpose.
Van Pelt's obsession with "evil" — and having given no method by which readers or judges or architects might arrive at what Van Pelt's "evil" is — I assessed to be a crippling de- fect against his ability to research and analyze and write in the modern World characterized by physical proofs and mathematical calculations. Plus, the modern scientific, eco- nomic, academic and political world does not overtly concern itself with a specialist's religious orientation, especially if he/she inserts a metaphysical principle of "evil" that is clearly beyond the practical observance of, for example, the evil caused by a flood or fire or earthquake or crime.6 How bizarre that he labeled Krema II Leichenkeller 1 "the holy of holies" at the London trial, thereby transforming a corpse cellar into a religious sanctuary on the level of the Mosaic Tabernacle wherein the God of all Creation dwelled in some symbolic fashion!
Without trying to sound unkind to Van Pelt, it seems neces- sary to state that in his case the so-called "Auschwitz dis- ease" is not dysentery but Holocaustomania. Robert Jan Van Pelt cannot possibly function normally in a modern, Western university, it seems, without polluting students and col- leagues with his own Jewish disease wherein he finds meta- physical "evil" in an ugly but functional reinforced concrete building built to save lives, when he can turn a blind eye to the ugly concrete wall of apartheid that his beloved Prime Minister Sharon is now constructing with U.S. taxpayer dol- lars to ghettoize the indigenous Palestinians. His sort of mindset may just as well reify (= make a thing out of a non- thing) the "Loch Ness Monster" and "Big Foot" and UFOs and use one or all to explain destructive weather patterns or the 9-11 catastrophe.
When he asserts that "evil denies meaning," he also lacks the epistemological self-consciousness of an expert philosopher who would at least inform his readers 1.) what "evil" means; and 2.) what "meaning" is in his own Weltanschauung. Van Pelt does neither and, thereby, renders his writing here to be cabbalistic.7
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Also, if Van Pelt had only studied his fellow Dutchman, Herman Dooyeweerd's A New Critique of Theoretical Thought* he would have learned that meaning is highly con- troversial and is a grand Voraussetzung (presupposition) of theoretical thought. What we find with Van Pelt is, rather, a feeble effort to smuggle a Jewish mystical understanding of religion into both the fields of history and of architecture. Van Pelt then writes that
"My proposal to include Crematorium 2 among the key buildings of architectural history was based on the as- sumption that its construction was an event of crucial sig- nificance in the history of architecture. The gas chambers changed the whole meaning of architecture, [emphasis added] Even before I finished my dissertation, I felt that temple and crematorium were united in a diptych, and that having studied one panel, I should not avert my gaze from the other. " (p. 67) We can now view Van Pelt's mental framework: the two- tablet (diptych) unity here of temple and crematorium com- prise his fundamental grasp of architecture as a science and thus the very place name "Auschwitz" now has this evilly hissing sound and the four holes must exist and the four tri- ple-mesh gassing contraptions must have been realities and the eyewitnesses Henryk Tauber and Michael Kula and Shlomo Dragon and Stanislaw Jankowski must have told the truth and the Polish Communist judge Jan Sehn must have been careful and fair and the Pery Broad and Johann Paul Kremer and Rudolf H6B confessions must have been true confessions of reality.
Van Pelt's A™ is not fundamentally a place in Poland or Up- per Silesia but rather a metaphysical concept wherein the evil of non-Jews (= anti-Semitism) wars eternally against "the Chosen People," who are good and decent and loving and creative.
And for David Irving to offer major criticisms of the A™ made him "a falsifier of history.'9
The "social consensus" and the Amniotic Fluid
Here I found Van Pelt to be completely reliable. He writes: "When I had accepted the invitation to join the defense team, I had assumed that in the courtroom Irving and I would engage the contentious issue of Auschwitz on a level playing field. I now realized that it would not be so, and that in choosing to challenge a social consensus which he paradoxically shared himself he would find it almost impossible to convince not only the judge and jury, but even himself that the evidence could be interpreted substantially differently from the way it had been done. In other words, he would engage the evidence epistemologi- cally divided against himself. The trial was to show that this was indeed the case. Every time that Justice Gray tried to establish Irving' s conclusion about the evidence under discussion, he received confused answers that in the end affirmed that the evidence stated that the alleged gas chambers were designed and used as gas chambers. Only by claiming that these had been rooms to gas corpses could Irving reach a compromise between his two sides, the one that had declared war on the consensus and
the other that, despite everything, had remained part of it. As I watched him struggle with the paradoxes he had summoned up, I sometimes felt sorry for him. But then, again, I remembered what he had said about Auschwitz — "I don 't see any reason to be tasteful about Auschwitz. It 's baloney. It 's a legend. "l0 Other than the fact that Irving spoke extravagantly and overly generalized about "Auschwitz" — which is triply a place name and a German camp site and a highly controversial "social consensus" created by people with a vested interest in per- petuating anti-German hatred and a Holocaust industry that has made rich many individuals and organizations and cre- ated special academic chairs for mediocre Jewish profes- sors— Irving may have finally become so fed up with the A™ or, as he has styled it, "the Holocaust™," that he allowed himself to vent his spleen — something very human but also something that can come back to haunt one later, this time, in Her Majesty's courtroom.
Van Pelt makes even more clear his accurate assessment of the social consensus of the sacred "Six Million" in homicidal gassing chambers when he wrote:
"[...] because neither judge nor jury would be able to separate themselves from our own culture and judge the inherited account of Auschwitz on the basis of documen- tary evidence. " (p. 104) The definite article "the" of "the inherited account" is not an accidental choice of a linguistic particle. Van Pelt's "our own culture" bespeaks the Jewish contextualized nature of WWII history as that of a war that centered on Jews, and of a war against the Jews.11 Van Pelt and Dawidowicz and Hilberg and Wiesel and Lipstadt and Berenbaum and all the stellar luminaries of the Holo-industry, I submit, really do believe what they write. And they have marvelously succeeded in creating the "social consensus" that influenced Judge Gray at the Irving versus Lipstadt trial of 2000. 1 have no doubt in my mind that Judge Gray really believed that he ruled correctly and that he was not giving himself over simplistically to a decision that would enhance his future in the British judiciary system.
By analogy, when the Roman Catholic Church insisted that the sun revolved around planet Earth, that Church really be- lieved its best scholars of that era. People, more often than not, act sincerely and base their actions on sincerely held be- liefs of their culture at the time.
Hence, as a baby develops within the amniotic fluid of the womb and knows nothing else but that particular physical context, Van Pelt is powerfully accurate about what I call the Holocaustian amniotic fluid of post- WWII social consensus. Little wonder that most or all newspapers in Canada came out against Ernst Ziindel over a twenty-plus-year era: they knew that he was wrong about the Holocaust because they were nurtured in the Holocaustian amniotic fluid. Thankfully, a baby comes forth at a certain time of final ges- tation and enters a new and different environment. One as- pect of that new environment is Holocaust revisionism and some — not many, as of 2002 — change their grasp of WW2 and revise their "social context." I know that I changed mine in the mid to late 1980's. When someone tells me that we re-
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visionists are fighting a hopeless cause — "No one will change his/her view" et cetera — I reply that I did, and that many people worldwide have changed.
Galileo's position was considered bizarre in the seventeenth century but today it is de rigueur. It is not the revisionists' primary concern to be part of the mainstream in 2002, but rather to be focused on exactitude in research and writing and speaking — not on politics or propaganda.
Van Pelt's Alleged Method: Convergence of Evidence
On page 83 of The Case, Van Pelt mentions the (notorious, to some of us!) Dr. Michael Shermer, editor of Skeptic and co- author of Denying History:. Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It?12 This writer, whose field is the history of science, offers "convergence of evi- dence" as bringing thoughtful readers inescapably to accept the A™, as it were.
For me, I have read both The Case and Denying History with great care and am not convinced that the evidence converges as these authors conclude. What I see is that there is still an enormous controversy because the problems with what is called "evidence" and its interpretation are not convincingly resolved by experts in the field.
When popular culture states that "All historians agree that the Holocaust happened," we have moved into the realm of poll- ing opinions. In Galileo's day, "All scientists agreed that the sun revolved around the Earth" except for the revisionist Galileo, of course.
Polls do not establish accurate historiography; polls establish what current opinion is, based on projections from a small sample and onto the general public. Useful? Indeed, but not convincing by itself as a method.
Revisionists, of course, agree with "convergence of evi- dence" as a method, but revisionists also must insist upon di- vergence of evidence as the other side of the coin. When "confessions" are found to have been tampered with, edited, revised, created, and coerced, such "confessions" diverge from the pursuit of exactitude and must not be accepted, as Van Pelt does, as supporting his A™. I found that what Van Pelt includes in his large book — that is, "confessions" — is quite helpful, but more so, I found that what he omitted by ignorance or nescience or intentionally, to be even more im- portant. This is especially true for Dr. Johann Paul Kremer, the physician who spent September to November 1942. Van Pelt omitted that Dr. Wilhelm Staglich placed a footnote revealing that Dr. Kremer had "retracted the statements he made in Poland."13 Now, if I had not searched the Staglich book — and Van Pelt is unrelenting in his vicious attack on Judge Staglich' s scholarship — I might have taken the Kremer "confession" as a powerful brick in the A™ Holocaust edi- fice's "convergence of evidence." Kremer may well prove that Van Pelt is grossly dishonest.
Conclusion
Revisionists may well want to focus some effort on listing Van Pelt's gaffes, a list I have begun. Examples are his naive (or, dishonest?) acceptance of "confessions" of Rudolf H6B, Pery Broad, Kremer, Filip Mueller, and other notables. An-
other might be his lack of investigation of the psychologist Dr. Gustave Gilbert, who spent much time with Rudolf H6I3 but did not make written notes until after a session was com- pleted. Still another might be Van Pelt's acceptance of tech- nical data offered by Michael Kula about the triple-mesh metal gassing columns on page 206, with drawings of these onpage208.14
These are excellent drawings, but in the absence of Baulei- tung documents, how can they be taken seriously? Especially if there are not the famous or infamous four holes? As Faurisson distilled this problem: "No holes? No Holo- caust!"; this four-word saying might qualify as its own dip- tych for revisionists!
Another line of pursuit for revisionists is to consider carefully that Van Pelt has scored points here and there against their own works — especially in Irving's. Revisionists must always be willing to admit errors of research data, writing, analysis, and logic.
As I began this lecture by saying that Van Pelt presented a se- rious challenge to revisionist thinking, let me conclude that he has not convinced me of the accuracy of his A™ theory. In fact, let me state this conclusion: If the A™ is someday in the future found to be the most convincing interpretation of the experience of some Six Million Jews within German con- trol, this interpretation will not result from the work of a su- perficial Holocaustian of the Robert Jan Van Pelt ilk. As a revisionist, I can embrace in good conscience that Ger- mans and Jews, Russians and Arabs, Blacks and Whites, could bring about the deaths of millions of people caught up in the maelstrom of a vast war, but whereas the destruction of Dresden and Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Darmstadt and Hamburg is clear from the convergence of evidence, the pur- poseful physical extermination of some Six Million Jews (and, as martyrs!) at the hands of Germans — whether SS or Wehrmacht or Einsatzgruppen or civilians — lacks the con- vergence of evidence that I must require from my histo- riographic perspective.
Notes
First published in German in Vierteljahreshefte fur freie Geschichtsfor- schimg 6(3) (2002), pp. 349-354.
1 I am convinced that one may speak only safely of these by placing quota- tion marks around confession and around eyewitness, and this rests upon numerous statements by victims such as Rudolf H6B and Dr. Johann Paul Kremer, who attempted to make retractions afterwards. Van Pelt's possi- bly dishonesty lies, in part, in his unwillingness to acknowledge fully the influence of torture on them, plus threats and arrests of victims' family members related to obtaining these "confessions."
2 A™ is not to be confused with ATM as in Automatic Teller Machine at a bank.
3 If I read that Dr. X was assistant professor of physiology in the X Uni- versity College of Medicine, would I not be justified in assuming that Dr. X was trained in and held the doctorate in physiology?
4 If the German word "Auschwitz " comes from Old High German au- wiesen, meaning "meadow," and if both components of the place name show some Slavic influence over the centuries — which is to be expected due to the closeness of Germans and Poles over the era — then there is nothing "unassimilable" or "harsh" or "repulsive" or "violent" or "sarcas- tic" in this proper noun except for a Jewish mystic's personal hatred for it.
5 Notice that he does not even employ quotation marks, thus assuming that "the camps" are univocal, that is, of single meaning and understood in his A™ framework of Holocaust dogma.
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6 Or even Prime Minister Sharon's "Berlin Wall" in Palestinian territory in June 2002.
7 Cabbalism was/is a rabbinical gnosticism wherein the esoteric knowledge of a text is restricted to a limited, initiated special group of knowers. In this light, I can well imagine some or most of the University of Virginia professors on that day in that unique meeting wondering if this new assis- tant professor (the lowest on the ladder of academia!) really belonged in a prestigious school of architecture of the university founded by Thomas Jefferson.
8 Dooyeweerd was professor of jurisprudence at Amsterdam's Free Uni- versity during the first half of the twentieth century and is known widely for insisting — out of his own Dutch Calvinistic philosophy — that "Sinn ist das Sein des Seiendes." [1,73] For Dooyeweerd, "Being" as such is as- cribable only to the Triune Christian Deity. All that God created "has" meaning, not "is" meaning, and all meaning derives from the purposeful
and creative work of God. Though most philosophers disagree with Dooyeweerd, at least he made clear his epistemological foundation for readers; Van Pelt has not been forthright in this regard.
9 The Case for Auschwitz, p. 106.
10 Ibid., pp. 104f.
11 See Lucy Dawidowicz's deliberately chosen title of her The War against the Jews, 1933-1945, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1975.
12 With Alex Grobman, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2000. Shermer wrote on the title page of his gift copy to me: "Robert: To the search for a true and meaningful past. I've enjoyed our correspondence," [signed].
lj Page 327 n. 166 of the English edition of The Auschwitz Myth. 14 Van Pelt adds about Kula that he was a "Roman Catholic" — as if this might make him more believable.
World War I Atrocity Propaganda and the Holocaust
By Paul Grubach
Dr. Robert Jan Van Pelt, a professor of architecture at the University of Waterloo (Canada), has undoubtedly written one of the most important anti-Holocaust revisionist tomes ever penned.1 Revisionist academic Samuel Crowell put his finger on the reasons as to why The Case for Auschwitz: Evi- dence from the Irving Trial is such an important work:2
"First, because this book represents the first serious at- tempt to discuss the arguments of revisionists, and sec- ond, because the arguments, while incomplete, are thor- ough, handled with civility, and touch upon the writings of a number of [revisionist] au- thors, including Faurisson, Butz, Staglich, Rudolf, and even [Crowell]. Indeed, the only sig- nificant omission is Carlo Mat- togno, perhaps due to the fact that Mattogno 's authoritative analyses of crematoria opera- tion are not easily refuted. " During the First World War, false anti-German atrocity propaganda was utilized by the Allied leaders to attain their goals, such as bolstering the morale of the rank and file of the Allied nations.3 One of the most notorious pieces of anti-German propaganda was the gruesome account of the "corpse exploitation establishment" oper- ated behind the front lines by a German company. The "evil Ger- mans" supposedly used the corpses of their own fallen soldiers for the manufacture of soap. Professor Van Pelt notes that the author of this piece of lying propaganda was the Chief of Intelligence of the British Army, Brigadier General J.V. Char-
Recruitment poster of the U.S. Army during World War I
teris. Apparently, one of his aims was to turn the Chinese,
who revere the dead, against the Germans.4
U.S. Army Recruitment Poster from World War I
A detailed account of the "corpse exploitation establishment" appeared in the respected British newspaper The Times on April 17, 1917. According to the story, trains full of corpses arrived at a large factory. The bodies were attached to hooks connected to an endless chain. The article states:4
"The bodies are transported on this endless chain into a long, narrow compartment, where they pass through a bath which disinfects them. They then go through a drying chamber, and finally are auto- matically carried into a digester or great cauldron, in which they are dropped by an apparatus which detaches them from the chain. In the digester they re- main from six to eight hours, and are treated by steam, which breaks them up while they are slowly stirred by the machin- ery. "
The article continues:
"From this treatment result sev- eral products. The fats are bro- ken up into stearin, a form of tallow, and oils, which require to be redistilled before they can be used. The process of distilla- tion is carried out by boiling the oil with carbonate of soda, and some of the by-products result- ing from this are used by Ger- man soap makers. The oil dis- tillery and refinery lie in the south-eastern corner of the works. The refined oil is sent
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out in small casks like those used for petroleum, and is of
yellowish brown color. " The reader should note the meticulous detail! Dr. Van Pelt emphasizes:4
"It was a lie, but it was plausible, and it was not possible to completely refute it during the [First World War]. " In the years following the First World War, there was an ex- pose of these false atrocity stories, and many of these legends were put to rest. Van Pelt claims:4
"The overall effect of the relentless exposure of the atroc- ity stories was a general resentment of the public against those who had roused its passion, inflamed its indigna- tion, exploited its patriotism, and desecrated its highest ideals by government-initiated concealment, subterfuge, fraud, falsehood, and trickery. " One of Van Pelt's key arguments in the first part of the book is as follows:3
"There is no historical justification for judging and dis- missing the accounts of German atrocities during the Sec- ond World War within the context of the atrocity propa- ganda of the First World War: the attitude of the public of 1939-1945 was radically different from that of twenty-five years earlier, and it is clear that any attempt to generate the kind of propaganda symbolized by the notorious [corpse exploitation establishment] would have merely generated mockery. " The intellectual from the University of Waterloo then con- cludes:5
"The long-term effect of stories that told [...] of human bodies used as raw material for the production of soap was that few were prepared to be fooled once again by such a fabrication. " In summary, Van Pelt is arguing that people of the Western democracies were very much aware of how they were fooled by anti-German propaganda in WWI, and thus, would not be fooled by it again. Ergo, the Allied powers of WWII had nothing to gain and everything to lose by attempting to use false atrocity stories to attain their ends. Any atrocity claims made by the Allies had to be based upon facts, because the masses retained a skeptical outlook.
In order to bolster his argument, Van Pelt quotes respected sources from the era of the Second World War that were in- deed skeptical of "Nazi" atrocity stories precisely for these reasons.6
Professor Van Pelt's whole viewpoint is undermined by the empirical facts. The Soviets, Zionists, Americans and British in the Second World War did use false propaganda claims to further their ends. In fact, some of the Allied atrocity propa- ganda from the First World War found its mirror image in anti-German atrocity propaganda promoted by Zionist groups and other Allied sources in the Second World War. In the August 21, 1944 issue of Time, there was the "first eyewitness description" of the "Nazi extermination camp" at Majdanek concentration camp in Poland. Professor Van Pelt claims that in spite of the climate of skepticism that sur- rounded these "Hitler gas chamber" stories, the editors of Time believed that they were indeed true. Here is his descrip- tion of the article:7
"The editors of Time showed less hesitance to accept facts for what they were. On August 21, they had provided a first hand account of the 'gigantic murder plant, ' [at Majdanek] largely taken from notes by Russian war cor- respondent Roman Karmen. " Dr. Van Pelt committed a sin of omission. He failed to men- tion the obvious false statements in the article, perhaps know- ing full well that to inform the reader of the contents of the entire article would have undermined his entire argument. Let us examine Time's and Karmen's claims. The article reads: "In the center of the camp stands a huge stone building with a factory chimney — the world's biggest crematorium. The Germans attempted to burn it but most of it still stands — a grim monument to the Third Reich. Groups of 100 people would be brought here to be burned almost alive. They already had been stripped and then chlorinated in special gas chambers adjoining. The gas chambers contained some 250 persons at one time. They were closely packed... so that after they suffocated they remained standing... The human cargoes were dumped into a roaring furnace heated to 1,500 [degrees] Centi- grade [...]." (emphasis added) Further on, "eyewitness" Karmen claims:8
"It is difficult to believe it myself but my eyes cannot de- ceive me. I see the human bones, lime barrels, chlorine pipes and furnace machinery [...]. " (emphasis added) The Holocaust lobby now claims that Majdanek inmates were murdered with Zyklon B/hydrogen cyanide and carbon mon- oxide, so the allegation that chlorine gas was the killing agent is false.9 Although the Majdanek camp did have a cremato- rium, it only had five incineration muffles with a maximum capacity of 100 corpses per day, which is anything else but "the world's biggest crematorium."10
But even more important, consider Time's and Karmen's de- scription of how the corpses of the "murdered ones" were put to use:8
"The victims ' charred bones and ashes were moved into an adjoining department where an incredible process went on. These human bones were mechanically pulver- ized, placed inside large tin cans and shipped back to Germany for fertilizing the fields. " This is false propaganda, as there is not one iota of credible evidence to support it. To be sure, the Holocaust lobby no longer claims that there was a "fertilizer factory/corpse ex- ploitation establishment" at Majdanek, where human remains were processed, canned, and then sent back to Germany to be used as fertilizer. Yet, the reader should note how strikingly similar the story is to the aforementioned "corpse exploitation establishment" story of the First World War that Van Pelt admits to be a lie. In the WWI version the corpses were util- ized to make soap; the WWII version claims the bodies were used for fertilizer.
Here we have an excellent example of Soviet-Communist propaganda that was simply accepted as fact and repeated by a very respected American news source. As I noted, Profes- sor Van Pelt failed to mention the false claim about the fertil- izer factory at Majdanek, probably because it would have un- dermined his line of argumentation.
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At the risk of sounding redundant, let us repeat and examine Professor Van Pelt's claims:5
"the long-term effect of stories [from the First World War] that told [...]of human bodies used as raw material for the production of soap was that few were prepared to be fooled once again by such a fabrication. " An important study by revisionist historian Mark Weber proves this claim false.11 He noted that the wartime rumor that the Germans were manufacturing soap from the corpses of slaughtered Jews was "spread so widely in 1941 and 1942 that by late 1942 German authorities in Poland and Slovakia were expressing official concern about their impact."12 Weber further pointed out that although a similar charge dur- ing the First World War that the Germans manufactured soap from corpses was exposed as a hoax, "it was nevertheless re- vived and widely believed during the Second. More impor- tant, this accusation was 'proven' at the main Nuremberg trial of 1945-1946, and has been authoritatively endorsed by nu- merous historians in the decades since."13 Weber went on to list Allied and Zionist sources that were promoting the propaganda lie during the Second World War that the Germans were manufacturing soap from the bodies of their victims.
A secret U.S. Army military intelligence report quoted a Pol- ish source that alleged the Germans were operating a "human soap factory" in 1941 in Turek, Poland.14 In November of 1942 Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, wartime head of both the World Jewish Congress and the American Jewish Congress, publicly asserted that the Germans were processing Jewish corpses into soap, fats and fertilizer.15 In late 1942, an American Jewish Congress publication, Con- gress Weekly, claimed the "Nazis" had two special factories in Germany that processed soap, glue and train oil from the bodies of Jewish deportees from France and Holland.16 The highly respected and influential American publication New Republic reported in 1943 that the Germans were "using the bodies of their Jewish victims to make soap and fertilizer in a factory at Siedlce."17
Finally, the myth the Germans manufactured soap from the bodies of their victims was "authoritatively proven" at the main Nuremberg Trial of 1945-1946. In their final judgment, the Nuremberg Tribunal stated:18
"attempts were made to utilize fat from the bodies of the victims in the commercial manufacture of soap. " Once again, we quote the key claim of Dr. Van Pelt:3
"There is no historical justification for judging and dis- missing the accounts of German atrocities during the Sec- ond World War within the context of the atrocity propa- ganda of the First World War: the attitude of the public of 1939-1945 was radically different from that of twenty-five years earlier, and it is clear that any attempt to generate the kind of propaganda symbolized by the notorious [corpse exploitation establishment] would have merely generated mockery. " In view of the evidence presented in this article alone (there is more to come), Van Pelt's conclusion must be rejected. The atrocity propaganda of the First World War served as a model for the Allied and Zionist atrocity propaganda of the
Second World War, and the attitude of the public was such that people were conditioned to accept these wartime propa- ganda lies as "the truth."
It is already wrong to claim that the masses in England, France, the USA, and other Western nations had been in- formed about the falsehood of WWI atrocity stories in gen- eral during the time between both wars. Such an educational campaign might have existed in Germany which had a vested interest in it. The discussion about the falsehood of these WWI atrocities stories in the western Allied nations, how- ever, was restricted to narrowly defined academic circles, and even there, the revelations about "our own" lies were not a popular topic. Important evidence in favor of this interpreta- tion is the fact that between the wars hardly any publication appeared in the Allied nations addressing this topic. A rare example is the frequently quoted book Falsehood in Wartime by A. Ponsonby,19 which, however, appeared only in small print runs published by a small publisher, and according to my knowledge was never a matter of discussion in the mass media.
The masses have a very short memory, and the lone voices that did reject these atrocity stories of the Second World War because they were very similar to the false atrocities stories of the First World War were few, and had little in- fluence.
In the years following WWII, dignitaries, journalists, writers, and influential groups promoted the canard that the Germans manufactured soap from the bodies of their victims.20 This propaganda did not generate mockery, as Van Pelt would have us believe. Quite the contrary — as historian Weber points out:21
"The 'human soap ' story demonstrates anew the tremen- dous impact that a wartime rumor, no matter how fantas- tic, can have once it has taken hold, particularly when it is disseminated as a propaganda lie by influential indi- viduals and powerful organizations. " It was only around the 1980s that the Holocaust lobby finally admitted that the Second World War "Jews-into-soap" story was a myth.22
The "mass electrocution" myth further illustrates the fact that Allied and Zionist sources did use wartime propaganda lies in the Second World War to attain their ends. Belzec was a "Nazi" concentration camp located in Eastern Poland. Holocaust historian Raul Hilberg claimed that the first killing agent used there was either bottled carbon mon- oxide or hydrogen cyanide. Later, the camp was equipped with Diesel motors, and the Jews were murdered in "gas chambers" that utilized the Diesel exhaust.23 Although The Case for Auschwitz deals mainly with Auschwitz concentra- tion camp, Van Pelt has some very important things to say about Belzec. He writes:3
"Fighting Hitler under the inspired leadership of men such as Churchill and Roosevelt, the Allies had no need for atrocity propaganda... Churchill was able to mobilize a nation without the need to engage in the very kind of all-too-easily dismissible atrocity propaganda that the weak leaders of the First World War found necessary to employ to bolster morale. "
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This is false. The Allies did in fact use false, unsubstantiated atrocity stories to attain their ends. At the beginning of 1944, the Allied governments even felt obligated to no longer con- ceal their secret activities. They requested the churches and media of their countries to publicly assist their campaign to spread anti-German atrocity propaganda in order to distract international attention from the atrocities which they ex- pected to be committed by the Red Army as soon as it in- vaded eastern and central Europe. By so doing, they even re- ferred to the lies of WWI! The British Ministry of Informa- tion, for example, sent a circular to the British Clergy and the BBC on Feb. 29, 1944, stating:24
"We know how the Red Army behaved in Poland in 1920 and in Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Galicia and Bessarabia only recently.
We must, therefore, take into account how the Red Army will certainly behave when it overruns Central Europe. [...]
Experience has shown that the best distraction is atrocity propaganda directed against the enemy. Unfortunately the public is no longer so susceptible as in the days of the 'Corpse Factory, ' and the 'Mutilated Belgian Babies, ' and the 'Crucified Canadians. '
Your cooperation is therefore earnestly sought to distract public attention from the doings of the Red Army by your wholehearted support of various charges against the Ger- mans and Japanese which have been and will be put into circulation by the Ministry. " Can it be expressed more clearly? By referring to the propa- ganda of WWI, which finally was refuted, one can of course claim that the British Ministry of Information intended to say between the lines that this time, only "true" propaganda is to be spread.25 But if the Ministry wanted to say this, why didn't they write it? After all, this letter went to the clergy, who cer- tainly didn't want to hear anything more eagerly than their government being truthful. But this letter does not contain the word truth. To the contrary: The Ministry regrets(!) that nowadays people cannot be deceived so easily anymore: "Unfortunately[!!!] the public is no longer so susceptible [...]". Hence, one obviously has to read between the lines: "Today one must lie better, louder, more brazenly." However, if one considers how successful the propaganda of World War II was in making most people believe in atrocity stories like the "corpse factory" in Majdanek or "soap made of Jewish fat," and to sell these stories as the truth right into the late 1980s, then it can easily be recognized that the claim made by the British Ministry of Information that in 1944 the masses were less susceptible for such nonsense than during WWI is simply false.
The letter even admits that the accusations "have been and will be put into circulation by the Ministry," (emphasis added) which means: they have their origin there, not in ac- counts of witnesses or organizations in the theatre of war. Furthermore, it admits that these propaganda accusations against Germany "have been" put into circulation already for quite a while, i.e., atrocity propaganda didn't start in early 1944. Finally, a huge amount of naivete is required to believe that allied propaganda did not resort to lies to further their
own goals during this most horrifying and threatening war ever experienced by the Allied powers. But now back to Belzec. In December of 1942, the Inter- Allied Information Committee (an agency of the govern- ments of Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, Czechoslova- kia, Great Britain, Greece, India, Luxembourg, the Nether- lands, New Zealand, Norway, the Philippines, Poland, South Africa, Yugoslavia, the Danish Legation in America, the French National Committee, and the United States) issued a statement in London in regard to the alleged fate of Jews in German-held Europe. It was then distributed in New York through the local office of the United Nations Information Committee. The document concluded:26
"The means employed in deporting from the ghetto all those who survive murders and shooting in the street ex- ceeds all imagination. In particular, children, old people and those too weak for work are murdered. Actual data concerning the fate of the deportees is not at hand, but the news is available — irrefutable news — that places of exe- cution have been organized at Chelmo and Belzec, where those who survive shootings are murdered en masse by means of electrocution and gas. " Here, these Allied sources claimed they had irrefutable evi- dence that Jews were murdered en masse by electrocution at Belzec. We now know that this is false, as the "mass- electrocution-of- Jews-story" is admitted by Van Pelt and the Holocaust lobby to be a myth.27
The Belzec electrocution myth further illustrates another flaw in Van Pelt's methodology and beliefs. As he points out, the Polish Fortnightly Review, an English-language newspaper published by the Polish government in exile during WWII, published a July 10, 1942 description of the alleged "electro- cution devices" whereby Jews "were murdered en masse at Belzec." It stated:28
"[T]he men go to a barracks on the right, the women to a barracks situated on the left, where they strip, ostensibly in readiness for a bath. After they have undressed both groups go to a third barracks where there is an electrified plate, where the executions are carried out. " In an attempt to get the reader to believe that these were just "honest errors" and not deliberate propaganda lies, Van Pelt resorts to this rationalization:28
"In the summer of 1942, when the report was written, no one who was part of the execution team had left Belzec alive, and thus the description of the method of killing was based largely on rumor. " In other words, since no one escaped these alleged mass kill- ings alive to precisely describe the technology of mass mur- der, false rumors developed as to the exact method of killing. Nevertheless, the central event — the mass killings of Jews — definitely took place.
According to a report that was printed in the February 12, 1944, issue of the New York Times, "eyewitnesses did in fact" escape these mass executions, and they lived to "precisely describe" the "actual method of mass murder":29
"A young Polish Jew who escaped from a mass execution in Poland [...] repeated a story [told to him by escapees who allegedly saw the electrocution machinery at Bel-
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zee...] Jews were forced naked onto a metal platform op- erated as a hydraulic elevator which lowered them into a huge vat filled with water. They were electrocuted by cur- rent through the water. " Dr. Van Pelt can't rationalize this one away. Contrary to what he claims, here we have "eyewitnesses" who "actually es- caped a mass electrocution" and lived to tell the story to an- other escapee of an alleged atrocity, who then in turn gave a "precise description" of the electrocution machinery at Bel- zec to the world. This shows that pro-Allied media sources in the US were in fact promoting invented atrocity lies. And there is more. Consider this "eyewitness" account of the "electrocution chambers" at Belzec, which was published in the "authoritative" The Black Book: The Nazi Crimes against the Jewish People'?0
"The Belzec camp is built underground. It is an electric crematorium. There are two halls in the underground buildings. People were taken out of the railway cars into the first hall. Then they were led naked into the second hall. Here the floor resembled an enormous plate. When the crowd of men stood on it, the floor sank deep into a pool of water. The moment the men sank up to their necks, a powerful electric current of millions of volts was passed through, killing them all at once. The floor then rose again, and a second electric current was passed through the bodies, burning them until nothing was left of the vic- tims save a few ashes. " Keep in mind this is based upon an "eyewitness" (or "eye- witnesses") who "saw these mass electrocutions with his (their) own two eyes."
In order to "prove" the existence of "gas chambers," throughout the entire book Van Pelt relies upon a convergence of evi- dence— an ensemble of evidence that supposedly points to only one conclusion, namely, that the gas chambers existed. Here, I have shown a convergence of evidence — one United Nations re- port and several eyewitness accounts — that points to the false conclusion that murders by electrocution occurred at Belzec. Dr. Van Pelt admits that the evidence to "prove" that Jews were murdered en masse with Diesel exhaust at Belzec is sparse at best:31
"The evidence [that Jews were murdered in gas chambers at Belzec] is much less abundant [than the evidence that Jews were murdered in gas chambers at Auschwitz]. There are few eyewitnesses, no confession that can com- pare to that given by [Auschwitz commandant Rudolf] Hofi, no significant remains, and few archival sources. " Since the "evidence" used to prove that Jews were murdered en masse by electrocution devices at Belzec is not really qualitatively different from the "evidence" used to "prove" that Jews were murdered in gas chambers at Belzec, and since the "evidence" for mass murder by electrocution leads to a false conclusion, isn't it also possible that the "evidence" for mass killings of Jews in gas chambers at Belzec also leads to a false conclusion?
Holocaust historian Van Pelt claims the "evidence" leads one to the "moral certainty" that Jews were murdered en masse in gas chambers at Belzec.31 In light of what was pointed out in this essay, this is a false conclusion.
Finally, in his book I can find no reference to the fact that "Nazi" atrocity stories (real and mythical) were used by Zi- onists during WWII to gain sympathy for the cause of creat- ing a Jewish state in Palestine. At a mass rally in Madison Square Garden in March 1943, the Zionist activist and first president of Israel, Chaim Weizmann, was quoted as say- ing:32
"Two million Jews have already been exterminated. [...] The democracies have a clear duty before them. [...] Let them negotiate with Germany through the neutral coun- tries concerning the possible release of the Jews in the occupied countries... Let the gates of Palestine be opened to all who can reach the shores of the Jewish homeland
[...]"
As Van Pelt probably realizes but would not dare publicly admit, the seeds of the current Middle East crisis were nour- ished by the endless repetition of these "Nazi" atrocity stories by pro-Zionist groups and governments. There is a lesson in all of this that we should consider. With war once again looming upon the horizon in the Middle East, we are justified in looking with skepticism upon the "official reasons" given by the US government and mass media that are used to "jus- tify" the current proposed war plans.
Notes
First published in German in Vierteljahreshefte fur freie Geschichtsfor- schung 6(3) (2002), pp. 349-354; a copy of this article was sent by the author to Dr. Van Pelt prior to its publication in The Revisionist.
1 Robert Jan Van Pelt, The Case For Auschwitz: Evidence From The Irving Trial, Indiana University Press, 2002.
2 Online: http://www.codoh.org/revisionist/review/trl2vanpelt.html
3 Robert Jan Van Pelt, p. 134.
4 Ibid, p. 130.
5 Ibid, p.m.
6 Ibid, pp. 132f.
7 Ibid, p. 156.
8 Time, August 21, 1944, p. 36. 1 am indebted to my good friend Terry Dumke for bringing this issue of Time to my attention.
9 Robert Jan Van Pelt, p. 157.
10 Cf. Jiirgen Graf, Carlo Mattogno, KL Majdanek. Eine historische und technische Studie, Castle Hill Publishers, Hastings 1998, pp. 95-118; soon available in English by Theses and Dissertations Press.
1 1 Mark Weber, "Jewish Soap," The Journal of Historical Review, Summer 1991, pp. 217-227. Online: www.ihr.org/jhr/vll/vllp217_Weber.html
12 Ibid., p. 217; Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews (New York: 1985), pp. 966-967; Walter Laquer, The Terrible Secret (Boston: 1980), pp. 54, 82, 145, 219; U.S. State Department document 740.001.16 (from 1943), facsimile in Encyclopedia Judaica (New York and Jerusa- lem: 1971), vol. 13, pp. 759-760; Bernard Wasserstein, Britain and the Jews of Europe (London: 1979), p. 169.
13 Weber, op. cit. (note 1 1), p. 217. Online: http://www.ihr.org/jhr/vl 1/vl lp217_Weber.html
14 Secret U.S. Army military intelligence report No. 50, April 27, 1945. Na- tional Archives, National Records Center (Suitland, Maryland), RG 153 (JAG Army), Box 497, Files 19-22, Books I and II, Entry 143.
15 "Wise Says Hitler Had Ordered 4,000, 000 Million Jews Slain in 1942," New York Herald-Tribune (Associated Press), Nov. 25, 1942. pp. 1, 5; "2 Million Jews Slain by Nazis, Dr. Wise Avers," Chicago Daily Tribune, Nov. 25, 1942.; New York Times, Nov. 26, 1942, p. 16.; See also: Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews (1985), p. 1118.
16 "The Spirit Will Triumph" (editorial), and "Corpses for Hitler," p.l 1, Congress Weekly (New York: American Jewish Congress), Dec. 4, 1942.
17 New Republic, Jan. 18, 1943, p. 65.
18 International Military Tribunal, Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal (IMT "blue series," Nuremberg: 1947-1949, vol. 1, p. 252. Facsimile reprint in: Carlos Porter, Made in
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Russia: The Holocaust (Historical Review Press, 1988), p. 159. London/New York 1928; newer in German: Absichtliche Lugen in Kriegszeiten, Buchkreis fur Gesinnung und Aufbau, Seeheim 1967. For the list of such people and groups with appropriate documentation, see Weber, pp. 219-222. Ibid, p. 223. Ibid, pp. 222f.
Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews: Student Edition Holmes and Meier, 1985, p. 229.
Extract from Edward J. Rozek, Allied Wartime Diplomacy, introduced into the first and second Ziindel trials, quoted acc. to B. Kulaszka (ed.),
Did Six Million Really Die? , Samisdat Publishers, Toronto 1992, p. 155. http://www.zundelsite.org/english/dsmrd/dsmrdl2browning.
25 So Ch. Browning during the second Ziindel trial, ibidem.
26 The New York Times, December 20, 1942, p. 23.
27 Robert Jan Van Pelt, p. 145.
28 Ibid, p. 145.
29 The New York Times, February 12, 1944, p.6.
30 The Black Book: The Nazi Crimes Against The Jewish People, Nexus Press, 1974, p. 313. This edition is a reprint of the 1946 edition.
31 Robert Jan Van Pelt, p. 5.
32 The New York Times, March 2, 1 943, pp. 1 , 4.
Why the USA Wages War in the Gulf Region
By Robert H. Countess, Ph.D.
Stephen Pelletiere, Iraq and the International Oil System: Why America Went to War in the Gulf, Praeger, Westport, CN, 2001, 241 pp. Hardcover, $72.95.
Stephen Pelletiere is Professor of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, PA, and is a special- ist in Middle East politics, having worked also for the U.S. CIA some fifteen years prior. He took the Ph.D. from Uni- versity of California, Berkeley. In December 2001, 1 saw him on the Fox News "O'Reilly Factor" TV show and immedi- ately observed that his interpretation was quite at variance from popular media and U.S. government spin on Iraq and its President Saddam Hussein. On May 1 1 , 2002, I visited him in his home and discussed briefly his views, then obtained the present book.
The Pelletiere Thesis
In spite of a quite tedious — but neces- sary— series of five chapters that the reader must work through, Professor Pel- letiere finally arrives at Chapter Six, "Iran-Contra and Iraq: The Media Cam- paign that Took America to War." His thesis is that U.S. Middle East policy fixes itself on Saudi Arabia as the chief supplier of oil and that the U.S. promotes, therefore, a "dual containment" strategy to restrict Iran and Iraq from replacing Saudi Arabia. Both Iran and Iraq have sufficient oil reserves to challenge Saudi leadership. U.S. policy sees such a suc- cessful challenge to be destabilizing in the region and thus works to support Saudi Arabia and its royal family, in spite of the Saudi type of social and political totalitar- ian control of its relatively small popula- tion (about seventeen million).
The obvious Saudi non-promotion of "democratic principles" does not appear to concern American presidents, Congress, academia, or media, whereas often one hears that Iran and Iraq are repressive regimes — with "regime" as a clear nega-
tive and, as such, not applied to the Saudi king and his thou- sands of family sub-rulers and government administrators. The United States, Pelletiere writes on page 223, refuses
"to confess to the public that it is acting for purely eco- nomic motives — Iraq and Iran must be held down if the oil price is to remain low. [...] As a consequence, Wash- ington is forced to keep up this monumental deception — that the present status, which it is expending enormous resources to perpetuate, is actually movement toward a better condition for all the peoples of the region, includ- ing— and especially — those who are being most oppressed by America 's policy, the Iraqis and Iranians. " Then he adds that American policy is to repress not only Iran and Iraq — high product consumption countries, whereas Saudi Arabia is a low product consump- tion country due to its small population — but also to repress Algeria, Venezuela, Indonesia, and Nigeria — all being high product consumption countries. The Pelletiere thesis is one of analyzing systems, and he concludes with this vital observation:
"The international oil system started out as a setup to control a commodity oil. Over the years and most recently under the direction of the United States, that has metamorphosed into a form of people control. [...] Ameri- cans evidently think that they can make Dual Containment work over time. The author [Pelletiere] doesn't believe it for a minute. " (p. 224) A final page focuses on "The African Pipeline Scheme" and describes briefly the 2001 American support for "a $3.7 billion oil pipeline to run from the King- dom of Chad to the Cameroons in Africa." This Clinton-supported scheme would enable the World Bank to finance a 659-mile pipeline from landlocked central African Chad and allow Exxon-Mobil and Chevron to de- velop these fields and guarantee these producers a cheap but
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dependable means of bringing oil out to the western shore of
Africa to waiting tankers.
"Washington wants to escrow the profits from the oil de- velopment that would accrue to the African regimes, stipulating how the money could be spent, supposedly just on worthwhile projects. [...] But a government that does not have control over revenue derived from its chief natu- ral resource is a protectorate!" (p. 224)
Thus:
"[W]hat better way for Washington to get its way than this — shift the center of gravity of the oil industry yet one more time, away from the troublesome Persian Gulf to presumably stable Central Africa? " Since the governments of Central Africa are about as devel- oped as Middle Eastern lands during the 1930s — when the last major oil center of gravity shift occurred — the Central African governments ought to be easy to manipulate, and this possible shift deserves careful scrutiny by outside observers.
No Simplistic Conspiracy Theory
Pelletiere does not offer simplistic views of a worldwide con- spiracy by "Big Oil" or Israel, but he does offer data that demonstrate an Israeli eagerness to support the repression of Iran and Iraq.
For example, after the conclusion of the Iran-Iraq war, which drained both countries of billions of dollars needed for inter- nal development, Iraq President Saddam Hussein sought to reschedule payments on money borrowed to finance the war — a war that the Kuwaitis refused to fight with him against a common Iranian enemy, but a war whose loss could have had drastic negative consequences for Kuwait. He writes:
"The scare headlines [in U.S. media], the critical op-ed pieces, the television pundits castigating Iraq's alleged irresponsibility — all this had the effect of intimidating the banks; in other words, no rescheduling. At this point Sad- dam, who was under tremendous pressure throughout this whole period, began to show signs of real paranoia. " (p. 215)
This paranoia must be placed in the context of Israel's an- nouncement that it would launch a spy satellite that would enable Israel to acquire important, timely intelligence data, with Israeli officials hinting that "Israel would go after Iraq's weapons plants. In other words, a repeat of Osirik." Saddam announced that if Israel were to attack Iraq again, he would incinerate half of Israel (p. 229, note 79). Pelletiere emphasizes that Saddam was perhaps justifiably paranoid after all, since the Reagan administration had agreed to a nine-point program which included that the Iraqi Presi- dent needed to be overthrown (p. 215). And in response to the American insistence that Saddam was himself responsible for enormous mortality to his own people after the Gulf War, Pelletiere writes:
"The claim of America 's leaders that this is Saddam 's fault is obscene. " (p. 223) President Clinton's Secretary of State, the Jewess Madeleine Albright, answered a question about Iraqi mortality during the U.S. imposed embargo with the declaration that 500,000
infant deaths were a statistic that Americans were willing to accept (p. 231, note 103).
The Homicidal Gassing Story
Of particular interest was the Professor's analysis of the claim by the U.S. government that Saddam Hussein had used poison gas "on his own people." I made a point in my per- sonal visit to ask about this and he said that at the War Col- lege in the early 1990s, a special conference was held to study this claim. Various specialists and some Iraqis were present. The conclusion was that Iraq had indeed used mus- tard gas on the mass waves of Iranian soldiers, with limited success. On the other hand, the claim of wholesale gassing of Iraqis and Kurds was without substance. The conclusion was that Iraq would not resort to poison gas on its own people unless the government regarded it as the only final resort to de- fense against attack — a position that would fairly describe most governments' contingency plans for government survival. Pelletiere writes:
"The first known and fairly well credited use of gas by the Iraqis was at Haj Umran in 1983. There, the Iranians, with the cooperation of the Barzani Kurds, had invaded the northern Kurdish territories, and the Iraqis, to dis- lodge them, used gas. The attempt was a fiasco, as the Iraqis dropped the gas on peaks held by the Kurds and the Iranians, only to have it drift down into the valleys, where the Iraqi forces were set up, which disoriented Iraq 's attack. " (p. 226, note 27) Then, in the next note:
"Iraq acknowledged use of gas on July 2, 1988, at which time Aziz said that every nation has the right to choose the means for its defense. 'Iraq Acknowledges Its Use of Gas, but Says Iran Introduced It in War, ' New York Times (July 1, 1998). " (dates as given by Pelletiere) In U.S. media and on radio shows such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Fox News TV's The O'Reilly Factor," where I first saw Pelletiere, the usual story is that Saddam Hussein gassed "a hundred thousand of his own people." On the other hand, when reporters were taken to Halabja, an Iraqi Kurdish city near Baghdad, in March of 1988, where both Iran and Iraq had used gas, the Iranians showed them scores, at most, hundreds, dead, but later, the claims rose toward the 10,000 level — a figure that Pelletiere regards as impossible (p. 206; 227, note 33).
Of enormous significance is Pelletiere 's expert opinion about
U.S. policy toward Iraq:
"Ten years after the end of the Gulf War, the U.S. State Department continues to devise policy toward Iraq as if it were a criminal society, which now we can see it is not. It is time for the United States, in effect, to put up. If it has evidence that Saddam Hussein gassed his own people, then it should present it to the world. If, as the author be- lieves, the famous gassing incident was all a hoax — or perhaps we should say a nonevent — then it should admit it and lift the sanctions, as there is no justification to keep on with this harsh punishment. " (p. 222)
His endnote to the above paragraph is remarkable for those
interested in Holocaust claims from World War Two:
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"The only satisfactory procedure for the United States would be either to say where the 100,000 alleged gassing victims repose (which it should be able to do with all of its satellite and infrared imaging equipment) or to give a convincing explanation of how the Iraqis could have gassed 100,000 people in a two-week period and disposed of them without a trace. " (p. 230, note 100) This, I suggest, is the indispensable attitude for an historian of real history. He does not merely accept a government's propaganda story about "the enemy" but seeks to find physi- cal evidence to back up the claim. In this case, it appears that the U.S. government has no evidence and thus continues to repeat the story endlessly in hope that the naive public will never ask the hard questions.
In view of the Jewish claims about homicidal gassing cham- bers in many German POW and detainee camps from 1941— 44, U.S. government and Israeli stories about Saddam Hus- sein gassing people are bound to attract widespread attention and create for a gullible public an idea that Hussein is a pre- sent-day Hitler ready to gas Kurds, Iraqis, and, of course, Jews. This story always sells well when promoted by Jewish dominated media and talk show hosts and most of their guests — probably none of whom have read the Pelletiere book but instead will continue to trust pro-Israel "think- tanks" in Washington and elsewhere.
Concluding Remarks
Professor Pelletiere demonstrates an in-depth grasp of the history of the Arab factions and internecine wars in Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait. His presentation of the develop- ment of oil in Pennsylvania from 1859 to the present day is more than adequate, though generally tedious and boring, but this is not his fault. Readers will do well to read the entire book rather than merely beginning with the final chapter which interests, perhaps, most readers. The first five chapters
enable one to understand better the modern oil system wherein profits take precedence over morality and over the proven needs of the countries where oil has been exploited by the producers.
The book's index is adequate but there is no bibliography, the sources being largely found in the chapter end notes. At $69.95 the book is terribly expensive but well worth the price for those seeking an expert analysis which is cogently at vari- ance with the media and government spin doctors. I found almost no typographical errors, but I did notice several un- usual terms that may send readers to a lexicon: "twigged," "stinted," "cadged," "chariness, and "vetted." A minor criti- cism is that Pelletiere regularly uses "Russians" when "Sovi- ets" would have been more appropriate. As for the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, and her important meeting with Saddam Hussein on July 31, 1990, wherein she has been interpreted as having given Iraq "a green light" to invade Kuwait, Pelletiere places this on pages 200-2 in a reasonable context and, as such, he does not give this meeting overly much emphasis.
The Gulf War was an American venture to control oil sup- plies. On the other hand, Israel had to have been a cheer- leader urging on President George Herbert Walker Bush and his coalition to invade and destroy the Iraqi president and his army and special guard units and infrastructure, perhaps dis- playing an Israeli paranoia, a "the Arabs are always against us" mentality. Hence, one errs in ascribing the Gulf War even largely to Israeli machinations. On the other hand, Pelletiere makes clear that the Iran-Contra scandal of the Reagan ad- ministration should have been the "Israeli-Iran-Contra" scan- dal since Israeli hands were at the beginning and in the mid- dle and at the end — except that the American media, largely in the hands of Jewish owners and promoters, succeeded in keeping Israel's skullduggery from the public's view.
Jewish Co-Responsibility for Jewish Persecution in 1941
By Germar Rudolf
Bogdan Musial, "Konterrevolutionare Elemente sind zu er- schiejien.": Die Brutalisierung des deutsch-sowjetischen Krieges im Sommer 1941 ("Counter Revolutionary Ele- ments are to be Shot.": The Brutalization of the German- Soviet War in the Summer 1941), Propylaen-Verlag, Ber- lin, 2000, 349 pp., € 20.-.
Since 1996, a photo exhibition organized by a communist or- ganization located in Hamburg, Germany, which featured al- leged war crimes of the German Wehrmacht during World War II, has been shown in many German and Austrian cities.1 Due to its one-sidedness and distorted, if not outright false, "anti-fascist," i.e., Stalinist, way of depicting events on the eastern front during WWII, this exhibition has caused mas-
sive criticism by various historians.2 Politicians and media in Germany, however, most of whom supported this propaganda exhibition, were totally silent about this criticism. This changed only in 1999, after the Polish historian Bogdan Mus- ial had demonstrated that numerous photos of this Wehr- macht exhibition as proof of the crimes of the German army in reality show victims of the Soviet NKVD.3 Though he was not the first who pointed this out, he was the first one to be heard by the media, because as a Pole he enjoyed the advan- tage of not being exposed to the immediate suspicion of wan- ting to whitewash Hitler, a suspicion every German national faces if uttering anything about WWII, the Wehrmacht, or the Third Reich that is not exclusively negative. The broad pub- licity of Musial's "discovery" finally led to an investigation
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into the veracity of said exhibition. Though this investigation was conducted by "experts" appointed by the organizers of the exhibition, i.e., by persons of a similar left-wing radical ideology, the results were still so devastating that the exhibi- tion was temporarily shut down. It reopened three years later after some minor changes.
The controversy about the anti-fascist propaganda exhibition goes like a red thread also through Musial's new book re- viewed here. Musial turns against the so-called German Ver- gangenheitsbewaltigung (coming to terms with the past), which is no longer motivated by moral intentions, but which is today used by (post-)communist and socialist falsifiers of history in order to ostracize their political competition in the political center and on the right. Even though the accusation of political abuse of history is justified, Musial is on slippery ground here, because this accusation, which is basically lev- eled against almost all German media, exposes him to suspi- cions of being generally hostile towards their leftist propa- ganda. In their zeal, the German media ignore that Musial re- jection of politically biased historical propaganda is not di- rected against them, but against all distorters of historical writing. Hence, Musial's new book with his broadside against political correctness in historiography will undoubtedly lead to him losing his status as a darling of the German media. The actual subject of his new book is the Soviet policy in the Polish territories that came temporarily under Soviet occupa- tion after the fourth division of Poland between Germany and Russia as a result of the so-called Hitler-Stalin pact in Sep- tember 1939, as well as the reaction of the local population and of German armed forces during the German occupation after June 1 94 1 . Musial describes in detail the cruelties committed by the Soviets, which characteristically consisted of denunciations, arrests, and mass deportations to Siberia; expropriations; and collectiviza- tions. Immediately after the German invasion into the Soviet Union, mass murder of inmates by the po- lice agents of the NKVD were added. Tens of thousands, especially Ukrainian and Polish nationals, fell victim to these Soviet mass murders of inmates who could not be evacu- ated to the east. In Lublin alone, the capital of East Galicia, at least 4000 men and women were massacred. Furthermore, Soviet units regularly murdered German POWs, most of whom were tortured and terribly mutilated.
After the retreat of the mass mur- derers, these crimes were immedi- ately blamed on the Jews, who al- legedly participated in leading posi- tions during the Soviet occupation and the NKVD massacres. In the first days of July 1941, pogroms
Bog dan Musial »Konterrevolutio- nare Elemente sind zu erschie|3en«
took place in almost all parts of East Poland, which lasted sometimes for days. Immediately afterwards, execution commandos of the German Sicherheitspolizei (Security Po- lice) and the SD (Sicherheitsdienst, security service) shot a great number of predominantly Jewish men, who had been accused of participating in the Soviet massacres. According to Musial, at least ten thousand people fell victim to these punishments for the Soviet crimes.
Bogdan Musial thoroughly analyzed the Soviet mass murders during the summer of 1941 and tried to reevaluate their sig- nificance within the anti-Jewish policy of the National So- cialists. Musial tried to "put himself into the place [...], in- stead of judging from a superior position." An important con- tribution of this study is his inclusion of a multitude of mostly Polish-language witness testimonies, diaries, and similar material which vividly described the atmosphere at that time from the viewpoint of the affected and the victims. Musial also includes testimonies and documentary evidence from recent Polish investigations into Stalinist crimes. These sources allow a deeper understanding of the Soviet occupa- tion between September 1939 and June 1941. Musial has demonstrated in an excellent way how the Stalin- ist mass murders and the campaign of revenge and punish- ment unleashed by the local population, which began during the Soviet retreat, gave an apparent credence to the abstract enemy image "Jewish Bolshevism" and furnished a legitima- tion to National Socialist propaganda, which Joseph Goeb- bels exploited exhaustively. Under the keyword "Lemberg" (Lviv), diffused hate feelings of many German soldiers and civilians solidified, namely against the Eastern Jews. Addi- tionally, these reactions made it possible to declare the war against the Soviet Union as a necessary campaign of the West against "bol- shevist barbarity."
Concerning the pogroms, Musial has three theses. First, not unsub- stantial parts of the Jewish popula- tion of Soviet Poland cooperated with the eastern regime, namely as members of the communist youth organization (Komsomol) as well as employees and collaborators of the NKVD. Therefore, the stereotype of "Jewish bolshevism" had a core of truth which supported the evolving of a conglomerate of anti-Semitism, anti-communism, and desire for re- venge long before the arrival of German troops. Therefore, sec- ondly, the escalation of pogroms during the summer of 1 94 1 can only be explained through the NKVD crimes, which seemed to confirm the enemy image of the "Jewish Commune." Finally, the Soviet mass murders were an essential pre- requisite for the "brutalization of the
Die Brutal) si* rung d« deutscrrsowjetlschen Krleqes Im Sommer 1941
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German-Soviet war," because Adolf Hitler gave orders to carry out extensive "retaliations" under the impression of the Lublin massacre, so writes Musial. This line of reasoning sees the Soviet crimes as the cause for the escalation of Ger- man violent measures and assigns a partial responsibility for this essential part to the Jewish inhabitants of Soviet- occupied Poland.
By so doing, Musial puts his finger in an open wound of es- tablished historiography, because ever since the "Holocaust" became self-evident, has been morally reprehensible to assign any kind of co-responsibility to Jews in connection with mis- fortune inflicted upon them.
Though Musial is correct with his thesis — one may only ar- gue about the extent of the Jewish co-responsibility — his newest book constitutes a form of academic suicide, because with his thesis, he catapulted himself out of the congregation of "socially accepted" historians and made himself vulner- able to the accusation of being an anti-Semite or at least to playing the anti-Semites' game . To nobody's surprise, this was exactly the reaction of the German media. Musial's book is a detailed study which seamlessly merges with the results of the investigations of Joachim Hoffmann, who meticulously described the terror of Stalin's Red Army and the German reaction to it. That the German soldiers had to reckon with "barbaric Asiatic fighting methods" as well as an "inhuman treatment of our [German] prisoners," as it was described in the so-called German Kommissarbefehl (Com- missar Order) two weeks before the beginning of the Ger- man-Soviet war, was obvious for a long time already as a re- sult of the experiences during the revolutionary years in Rus- sia between 1917 and 1921, and at the latest again since the Soviet invasion of Finland and the Soviet occupation of Po- land's eastern territories. Hence, in order to arrive at a con- clusion as given in the Kommissarbefehl, the German Su- preme Command did not have to wait for the actions of the Red Army at the beginning of war in 1941. It is also undisputed that during the first years of the Soviet Union, Jews were predominant in the leadership of the Soviet Union. To be sure, their percentage gradually declined there over the years and decades, especially under Stalin; however, this initial Jewish dominance repeated itself in practically each region which was occupied by the Soviet Union, be it in Galicia, the Baltics, or later at war's end in the "liberated" countries of Eastern Europe. Musial submits documentation for Galicia. There as well, the Jewish influence declined over the years, combined with a reduction of terror. It is therefore very well understandable that the people of Galicia and the Baltics considered the German invasion in 1941, which hap- pened only a few years or even only months after establish- ment of the red, Jewish dominated terror, as an act of libera- tion from the Jewish-bolshevist yoke. Unfortunately, some individuals took this as an occasion to relieve their under- standable anger and hatred by committing crimes against
both guilty and innocent. One may condemn or regret that the German troops and occupational administrations did not al- ways stop these activities, as would have been morally re- quired, or even encouraged them. However, if one can under- stand the anti-German cleansings in France after the Allied liberation in the year 1944, which were no less cruel — they, too, cannot be justified — one should also understand the anti- Jewish and anti-Soviet cleansings at the beginning of the German campaign. There should not be a double standard when judging both events.
What Musial does not address, however, is the question why it was the Jews who were so dominant during the early years of the Soviet revolution, who had such an important share in erecting a machinery of terrorism which is unparalleled in world history, and why it was always primarily Jews who joined the Soviet revolutionaries and tyrants en masse and of- fered them their services. One reason for this may be the op- pression which many Jews experienced for centuries in many eastern European societies, especially in Poland and Czarist Russia. Many Jews may simply have hoped for an emancipa- tion. Not a few of them even considered the early Soviet Un- ion to be primarily Jewish affair, as they rose from pariahs to rulers, from the ghetto to the top of the government. A deeper analysis, however, would call for researching the inflexible ideological position of Torah, Talmud, and Schul- chan Aruch, which defines the principal opposition of ortho- dox Jewry against their non- Jewish environment. The hostil- ity against non- Jews, as it is demanded by these Jewish law books, is probably the deeper reason for eastern European anti-Judaism, for the subsequent Jewish tyranny of early So- viet domination, as well as for the National Socialist anti- Judaism and anti-Bolshevism that developed as a result of this. But Musial perhaps neither wanted nor could bring him- self to such a far-reaching analysis.
Notes
First published in Vierteljahreshefte fur freie Geschichtsforschung 6(1) (2002), pp. lOOf. Translated by Fabian Eschen.
1 In printed form: Hamburger Institut fur Sozialforschung (ed.), Vernich- tungskrieg. Verbrechen der Wehrmacht 1941 bis 1944, Hamburger Edi- tion, Hamburg 1996: English: Hamburg Institute for Social Research (ed.), The German Army and Genocide: Crimes against War Prisoners, Jews, and Other Civilians, 1939-1944, The New Press, New York 1999.
2 E.g., Riidiger Proske, Wider den Mifibrauch der Geschichte deutscher Soldaten zu politischen Zwecken, Von Hase & Kohler, Mainz 1996; Proske, Vom Marsch durch die Institutionen zum Krieg gegen die Wehr- macht, ibid., 1997; Wolf Stoecker, "Falschung und Agitation. Kritische Bemerkungen zur Ausstellung 'Vernichtungskrieg, Verbrechen der Wehrmacht 1941 bis 1944."', in Joachim F. Weber (ed.), Armee im Kreuzfeuer, Universitas, Munich 1997.
3 Bogdan Musial, "Bilder einer Ausstellung. Kritische Anmerkungen zur Wanderausstellung 'Vernichtungskrieg. Verbrechen der Wehrmacht 1941- 1944"', Vierteljahrshefte fur Zeitgeschichte, 47(4) (1999), pp. 563-591.
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Research News
How the United States Started the Vietnam War
By Wolfgang Pfitzner
On August 4, 1964, network television was interrupted at 11:36 p.m. EDT so President Lyndon B. Johnson could tell the nation that the U.S. warship USS Maddox and its sister ship the USS C. Turner Joy had been attacked in a place called the Gulf of Tonkin by North Vietnamese PT boats. Two days earlier, according to Johnson, the USS Maddox, a destroyer conducting reconnaissance in the gulf, had been at- tacked by North Vietnamese, Russian-made Svatov gunboats, but this was not seen as a cause for action. In response to what he described as "open aggression on the open seas," Johnson ordered U.S. air strikes on North Viet- nam. The air strikes opened the door to a war that would be- come a traumatic experience for the USA. During its course, one million Vietnamese, most of them civilians, and 58,000 American soldiers would die. This war was also the origin of the anti- authority, leftwing flower power and hippie movement which in later years divided most western societies and over the decades led to radical leftwing trends, espe- cially in German society. Over the years, debate has swirled around whether U.S. ships were actually attacked that night, or whether, as some skeptics suggest, the Johnson administration staged or provoked the event to get con- gressional authority to act against North Vietnam.
Recently released tapes of White House phone conversations indicate that the attack probably never happened. The tapes, released by the LBJ Library at the University of Texas at Austin, include 51 phone conversations from Aug. 4 and 5, 1964, in which the Tonkin Gulf incident is mentioned. Although these tapes do not finally clarify what really hap- pened in the Gulf of Tonkin, they do at least indicate that the sailors on board of the US ships involved claimed to be- lieve— or actually did believe — that they had been attacked in this region of conflict. One of the radio messages from the Maddox reads:
"Under attack by three PT boats. Torpedoes in the water.
Engaging the enemy with my main battery. " Indeed, the destroyers fired 249 5-inch shells, 123 3-inch shells, and four or five depth charges, according to Navy re- cords.
Many of the taped conversations from that night are between Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and Adm. U.S. Grant "Oley" Sharp, commander of the U.S. Navy's Pacific Fleet.
The costs of the Vietnam War to the USA amounted to some 150 billion dollars. But in the early '70s, instead of ending this military madness, the US government decided instead to shut down the ambitious manned space program initiated by Wernher von Braun,
which was increasingly criticized because of its great costs, running into tens of billions of dollars. While the USA
is still profiting enormously from the basic research that was necessary to put the space program into operation (micro processors, robotics, light weight materials) today, no profits were ever made out of the Vietnam War, except, perhaps, for drug dealers...
During these conversations, McNamara was (actually or al- legedly) trying to verify what really happened so that he could brief LBJ for his TV bulletin.
Sharp was feeding McNamara "information" from the field while trying to get a strike force in the air to retaliate for the alleged attack even before the president went on television. He obviously tried to confront the nation with a fait accom- pli. On Aug. 4 about noon, Sharp said:
"If it 's open season on these boys, which I think it is, we '11 take it from there. " Later, in a 1:59 p.m. EDT conversation with Air Force Lt. Gen. David Burchinal of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Sharp was elusive, saying:
"many of the reported contacts and torpedoes fired appear doubtful. " He blamed the reports on "overea- ger sonarmen" and "freak weather effects on radar." Burchinal asked:
"You 're pretty sure there was a torpedo attack? " "No doubt about that, I think, " Sharp replied. At 8:39 p.m., with McNamara lay- ing plans for LBJ to go on TV, McNamara asked Sharp why the retaliatory strike had been delayed. Bad weather, Sharp said, and an agitated McNamara replied:
"The president has to make a statement to the people and I am holding him back from making it. " Thirty minutes later, at 9:09, Sharp said the launch still was 50 minutes off.
"Oh my God," McNamara said. This indicates how eager the secretary of "defense" was to push the country into a war and to confront the nation with a fait accompli. Shortly after 11 p.m., the counterstrike was under way and LBJ went on the air to tell the American people that the USA would do everything to "in support of freedom and in defense of peace in Southeast Asia."
But, says James Stockdale, a Navy aviator who responded to the "attacks" on the Maddox and the Turner Joy, it all was hogwash. Stockdale later was shot down and spent eight years in a North Vietnamese prisoner of war camp. In 1992, he was presidential candidate Ross Perot's running mate. Stockdale wrote in his 1984 book In Love and War (Harper & Row, New York):
"I had the best seat in the house to watch that event, and our destroyers were just shooting at phantom targets —
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there were no PT boats there. There was nothing but
black water and American firepower. " Congress, however, responded to LBJ's call to arms, giving him a veritable blank check to make war. While the U.S. response, as the tapes seem to bear out, was a mistake rather than a charade, there is ample evidence the United States was a provocateur in 1964, not an innocent by- stander. The Johnson administration had approved covert land and sea operations involving U.S. forces earlier in 1964, the so-called Op Plan 34-A.
On Monday, Aug. 3, 1964, the day after the alleged first Tonkin Gulf incident against the USS Maddox, Johnson, ac- cording to White House tape recordings, said:
"There have been some covert operations in that [Tonkin Gulf] area that we have been carrying on — blowing up some bridges and things of that kind, roads and so forth. So I imagine [the North Vietnamese] wanted to put a stop to it. "
Later that same day, LBJ, who ironically was about to ask Humphrey to be his running mate in the '64 election, com- plained to their mutual friend, James Rowe:
"Our friend Hubert is just destroying himself with his big
mouth. "
After an intelligence briefing, the Minnesota liberal Hubert Humphrey had told the media that U.S. boats were running covert operations in the gulf — "exactly what we have been doing," according to LBJ on a tape.
Two months before the Tonkin Gulf incident, Undersecretary of State George Ball, a member of Johnson's inner circle and a member of a committee that oversaw the 34-A operations, had drafted, but not submitted, a congressional resolution en- dorsing "all measures, including the commitment of force," to defend South Vietnam and Laos, should their governments seek help — in effect, the language in the subsequent Tonkin
Gulf Resolution of the US Congress of early August 1964. In a May 24 meeting, the National Security Council suggested the best time to submit such a resolution was after Congress had passed the landmark 1964 civil rights bill, which oc- curred in July 1964. Hence, the Tonkin-Resolution passed by Congress in August was anything but a reaction to the alleged Tonkin "incident."
Ball later is supposed to have said, according to McNamara in his 1995 mea culpa In Retrospect (Times Books, NY): "many of the people who were associated with the war [...] were looking for any excuse to initiate bombing. " However, another close LBJ aide, William Bundy, according to the same source, said the Tonkin Gulf incident was not en- gineered.
While the reasons for it were either unclear or false, the Tonkin Gulf Resolution cleared Congress on Aug. 7, 1964 — 414-0 in the House and 88-2 in the Senate. Professor Edwin Moise, a Vietnam War expert at Clemson University, claims that the "incident" was not a "put-up job," since the LBJ Library tapes indicate that the Navy was not ready to launch a retaliatory strike on Aug. 4 against North Vietnam. Professor David Crockett, a presidential scholar at Trinity University, calls the incident an accident. He says that the bigger problem was that Congress "rolled over" and gave LBJ a blank check for war without any resistance. It was therefore nothing but cynicism for LBJ to have painted his Republican competitor Barry Goldwater as a warmonger in the '64 presidential election campaign. During this cam- paign, LBJ campaigned with the slogan that he would not send American boys to die in Asian wars. But haven't we gotten used to such lies from our presidents?
Source: http://news.mysanantonio.com/story.cfm?xla=saen&xlb=190&xlc= 775859&xld=190
From the Records of the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial
By Germar Rudolf
How It Began...
On March 1, 1958, Adolf Rogner, an inmate in Bruchsal Prison in south-west Germany, filed charges with the Stutt- gart prosecutor against one Oberscharfuhrer Wilhelm Boger, whom he accused of mistreatment and mass murder of in- mates of the Auschwitz concentration camp. In his complaint he pointed out that he was not the only one who could pro- vide witnesses and other evidence:
"[...] at the same time the International Auschwitz Com- mittee, Vienna X, Weigandhof 5, and the Central Council of German Jews, Diisseldorf-Benrath, certainly have complete evidence on hand, and [unreadable] the Concen- tration Camp Auschwitz Museum has entire volumes and documents, director is the former Polish concentration camp comrade Franz Pargosch, of the Auschwitz Com- mittee Vienna, the principal officer Hermann Langbein is also a former concentration camp man. " (p. 2*)
In a note in the trial records dated May 13, 1958, State Attor- ney Weber, the prosecutor handling the case, characterized the accuser Rogner as a "glory-seeking psychopath." (p. 7) In his "Report on the Interrogation of the Prisoner Adolf Rogner" dated May 6, 1958, court examiner Wasserloos wrote:
"Report on the Interrogation of the Prisoner Adolf Rogner.
Rogner initially gave the impression of a quiet, reason- able man. That impression is quickly dispelled when his repeatedly expressed requests to be shown a photograph of the accused can not be accommodated. To the state- ment of the undersigned that at this stage of the investiga- tion the provision of a photograph of the accused was not necessary; that, nevertheless, Rogner should try to give the most exact description of the person of the accused, his activities and his criminal behavior, he seemed greatly
The Revisionist ■ 2003 ■ Volume 1 ■ No. 1
115
displeased. He reacted to this in a peculiar way: at first he remained stubborn and gave only short, partly incom- plete answers; when he was pressed further, he got more and more excited and changed the subject, mentioned un- bearable and degrading conditions in the [Bruchsal] prison, reviled the officials, particularly the medical per- sonnel, and accused them of mistreating him. This was al- legedly being done to silence him, that is allegedly why they let him waste away. He included the public prosecu- tion in his accusations; it allegedly treated him the same way they did in prison; it allegedly uses Gestapo and concentration camp methods and keeps him from protest- ing, because it allegedly sympathizes with those about whom he had something to say.
After these excesses, Rogner could be brought back to the subject only with difficulty. He responded grudgingly to the questions posed to him, and threatened numerous times that he would have the methods of officials of the Federal Republic denounced in the appropriate place. In connection with this he said he was a man who had been a member of the KPD (Communist Party of Germany) for a long time and would always be a member of it. His exact knowledge of particular events and localities, which he was able to describe in the minutest detail, was remarkable. Without hesitation he enumerated the mostly four- and five-digit camp numbers of the fellow inmates
16 Js 1273/58
Hohenasperg, den 6.5.1958
Bericht liber die Vernehmung dea Strafgefangenen Adolf Rogner
Rbgner machte zunachst den indruek eines ruhigen, aachlicb denken- den Mannes. Das iinderte sicii jedoch schlagartig, als seiner wieder- holt geauOerten Bitie, ihm Lichtbilder des Beschuldigten zu zeigen, nicht entaprochen werden konr.te. Auf die AuBerung des Unterzeichneten die Vorlage einea Liehtbildes werde im gegenwartigen Stadium dee Ermittlangsverfahrens noch nicht fiir erforderlich erachtett fiSgner mb*ge sich stattdessen bemiihen, eine mbglichst genaue Beschreibung der Person des Beschuldigten, seiner Tatigkeit und seinea atraf- baren Verhaltens zu geben, zeigte er sich starK gekrankt. Er reagiert darauf in einer eigenartigen Weise: zunachst blieb er veratockt, gab nur kurzef zum Teil unvol-standige Antworten; als dann weiter in ihn gedrungen wurde, .wechselte er in imnter starker weruender Erregung daa Thema, indent er plbtzlich von unhaltbaren und menschenunwurdigen Zustanden in den Straf anstalten sprach, die Beamten, .insbeaondere die Arzte, beschinpfte und sie bezichtigte, ihn zu miuhandeln. Das geschehe, urn ihn mundtot zu machen, deahalb lasse man inn dahinsiechen. In seine Beschuldigungen bezog er auch die Staatsanwaltachaf t eini bei ihr herrsche derselbe Geiat wie in den S'.rafanatalteni sie wende Gestapo- und Kz-Methoden an und laaae ihn nicht zu Wort* kommen, weil aie mit den Leuten sym- pathialere, uber die er eine Kenge zu sagen wisse. Nach dieaen Exceasen konnte Rogner nur muhsam zum Thema zuriick- gefUhrt warden. Er lies alch grollend auf die an ihr. gerichteten Pragen ein, wobel er mehrraals damit drohte, die 3ehandlungswei8e der 3ehtSrden in der Bundearepublik an eeeigneter i;telle anzupran^ern. In dlesen Zusatrjnenhang nannte er sich einer. Kann, der seit jeher der KPD angehbrt habe and ihr auch stets angehoren werde.
Bemerkenawert war seine genaue Ker.ntnis einzelner Vorgange und Ort- . lichkeiten, die er mit minutlbwer Genauigkeit zu beschreiben ver- mochte. Auf Anhieb nannte er die zumeist vier- und f iinf stelligen Lagernumnern der von ihm erwahnten i.itgel'anrenen. Die dem Frotokoli beigefligten skizzen fertigte er, ohne dab er hierzu einer L'berlegung bedurfte. Ganz im Gegenaatz dozu sleht^ein iiestreben, sich auf keine Zeit featzulegen. Die hlerauf bezoger.en Frnger. beantwortete er in fast alien Pallen negativ. Seine umfnngreicher und detaillierten ' Kenritnlaae ubor die Vorgttnge ir Konzent rt; t i or placer Auscnwitz erklaren sich mbgl icherwel tie uua der .:tir'.rhe, Jutf er - wie durch den AnataltsvoratBnd in trfattrung j:ebrachL werden konnte - hieruter erheblichea Yaterlal in iiande.n hat, mit dcrr. rr r.ich wiihrend seiner Strafhaft unabliiosig benchuf tigt . Kr trnor.te zur Vernchmunf mehrere ,Aktenbande ur.d zahlrelche Potogrrtficri, lie rich nuf daa ko::z.ntra- Itionslager Auachwitz bezoren, mit, ir. die jedocr. kein rlinblick genommen wurde, um die Verneh^unf nicht t.ber letuthr auszudehnen , lnebesoniere auch um utB Zeugen bei relnett ..utL-.'ir.er. tt.ot-1 i cr.3 1 auf dae zu verwelsen, was er nur et(-ener .> i i< rente:, uf 1 bcttun.ier. kann. :.(teh ^itteliunc der Ana tnl tttvorr Innac r r.t;.r-, .e.nrr tune ..nznhl fibcher titer K rl e*;tt ve rbre. herriroretjr e jn.i z.r 1 e I'tu r r e in .1ef Konzentrn-
tionulflgern tti t rich, (lie ihir. ret. 1 1 ri- 1 t eh Mel. I i';!lf-rr zur .'erfii-
he spoke about. He completed the drawing included with the transcript without having to think about it. This was quite a contrast to his efforts not to give exact dates. In almost all cases he was unable to answer questions to this purpose. His comprehensive and detailed knowledge of the operations of the concentration camp Auschwitz are perhaps partially due to the fact that he had considerable relevant data in his possession with which he occupied himself ceaselessly during his imprisonment — as can be verified by the prison administration. He brought several record packets and numerous photographs to the interro- gation which pertained to concentration camp Auschwitz, but which were not inspected in order not to draw out the interrogation inordinately, and especially also to have the witness base his statements as much as possible on his own direct knowledge. According to a communication from the prison administration, Rogner carried a number of books on war crimes trials and war crimes experiences with him, which he was no longer allowed to use because his accusations filed against members of the former SS piled up to such a degree that it became apparent that he was probably drawing his facts from his reading, but re- ported it to the prosecutors as his own knowledge. It was later determined that Rogner maintained a busy corre- spondence with the International Auschwitz Committee in Vienna. It is not certain that he received material from there regularly. In a recently written letter to the Federal Constitutional Court, Rogner complained that his corre- spondence with the Auschwitz Committee had been re- stricted.
The undersigned got the impression from Rogner 's behavior that his entire thinking and striving was directed to busying the prosecutor 's office as much as possible by means of his real or supposed knowledge. He seemed to find satisfaction in this pursuit. He repeatedly declared he would be the star witness in many future criminal trials. The Federal Criminal Office paid particular attention to him: the chief prosecutor
T
l gung gestellt mirden, uich Anzeigen Kbgners ge -en Anpehbrigi
»^H^em8nJCenD?S in !lne,n °°lcne" Ko£le hausten, daB angenommen werden muflte, Rogner beziehe sein Wissen r.ua seiner Lekture gebe 13 aber dann bei den St ru rverf olgungsbehbrden ols'eicene irkenntnisse an. Wie weiterhin in trfahrung gebracht wurde
........ ■■"-"■= -". >■< wenernin in trranrung gebracht wurde,
unterhalt Rogner einen regen Schri f tvorkehr mit dem Interna nalen Auschwitz-Komitee in .Vien. r.s kont te allerdings nicht
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Aus dem Verhaittn Hiigners j-.ewann aer Unterzeichnete den ^indruek. dau sein gbnzei Sinner, ur.d frachten darauf ausgeht, durch sein verneintlii-.nea uder wirkliches ..isaen die Jtraf verf olgungsbe.^ord r zu beschiil'ti^en. Bei jio^LTr. ::et;treben scheint er 3el"riedigu'r zu finden. Er erklarte wioderholt, cr oei Kronzeuf-e in zahlreiohen kiinftigen ^traf prozen.inr. . Das .'undet3krir.inala[r.t scnenke ihir. besonaere Seacr.tunci der v be- ratiiatsanwal t von ..aldshut ^ei selbst zu ihn rekomr.en , au er ir. nLc.<;ter Zeit als Kronzeu^e Bart in einem iiort ani:iine' :-"t-r. '■erl'--±ren rc-vr, r.ehrere ~.r.t e'r c re Hui'treten werde. :nsbe:'cr.jere w;;rt.n es ;itt: kj.arun;.en, ::e ,;ie .-.njicr. t rce.i chr.t
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116
The Revisionist • 2003 ■ Volume I • No. 1
of Waldshut had come to him in person since he was to appear as star witness in a trial there in the near future against several SS members. However, it was especially the following statement that is the foundation for the opin- ion of the undersigned: Rogner responded to the warning that he should concern himself with the truth, that he had no need of the warning. He was far too experienced in these things. He had worked successfully with the Ameri- can military police for six years as an 'informant. ' He said, word for word: 'You should believe me, it was through my testimony that many Nazis have been exe- cuted. '
The disposition of the witness, as shown from these state- ments, matches his character completely; it is not foreign to his personality. The numerous complaints and the vari- ous unsupported charges with which Rogner has busied the enforcement and prosecutorial offices recently show this clearly. " (p. 8f.) On May 9, 1958, the prosecutor in Stuttgart assigned to this case received a letter from the Comite International d'Au- schwitz in Vienna, signed by its president, Hermann Langbein, with the offer to provide evidence in the matter of the Boger case. Next to Langbein' s leading sentence, "We have been told that you are conducting a case against SS-Oberscharfuhrer Boger." one of the officials involved in the case noted, "Rogner!" (p. 22a). Apparently in Stuttgart it was known that Rogner had informed Langbein of the charges he had filed and of the consequent interrogation by Wasserloos. Langbein him- self later admitted this. (Der Auschwitz-Prozefi, Europaische Verlagsanstalt, Frankfurt/Main 1965, vol. 1, p. 2 If). Langbein wrote more letters — on May 29, 1958, July 9, 1958, and July 27, 1958 (pp. 31, 34, 36f)— in which he de- manded that Boger first be taken into custody before his committee would name witnesses and provide evidence. In a letter on May 8, 1958, the prison administration in Bruchsal notified the prosecutor in Stuttgart that a case was underway against Rogner for false testimony and perjury committed during a concentration camp trial in Munich (p. 23). In a letter on April 9, 1958, the prison administration in Bruchsal wrote the chief prosecutor for district I in Munich about the prisoner Rogner as follows (pp. 24-26):
a) Rogner had served a term of imprisonment for fraud and attempted fraud;
b) he had been sentenced to imprisonment during the Third Reich for criminal offenses and had spent part of his term in concentration camps;
c) he had filed "numerous, ungrounded complaints" against authorities, was "quarrelsome," "Eastern [i.e., Soviet-ed.] oriented" and would emigrate to Poland when released, sees himself as a "star witness in a series of great concen- tration camp trials";
d) he resists official rules, constantly demands exceptions for himself, attempts to use his knowledge of concentration camps to alleviate his punishment and pursues "obscure goals."
On August 14, 1958, prosecutor Schabel wrote to the Baden- Wurttemberg Minister of Justice concerning the transcript of the decision of the Land Court Munich: (p. 39)
"[...] which shows that Rogner as the prosecution witness in trials against concentration camp personnel has obvi- ously lied for reasons of hatred and revenge. Rogner was therefore sentenced to a prison term of 3 years and 6 months — although the sentence is not yet valid. [...] In addition, Rogner 's right to testify as a wit- ness or expert in a trial has been revoked permanently. "
About Rogner' s testimony
During his interrogation, Rogner answered most questions with "I don't know." He could neither describe the accused Boger nor give details as to dates or other circumstances of the allegedly witnessed crimes or proceedings. His exact in- formation on witnesses and other supposed criminals, includ- ing their prisoner numbers, can only be explained by his hav- ing been supplied with particulars. He reported on a "selec- tion" at Auschwitz as follows:
9972
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16 Ja mi/M Urt -i »»•«.•* . zlv'-.M .::j-.:U,\ C; .
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Stuttgart
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ceb. 19.12.19o6(
Eetr. 1 Anzeigen gegen I'llhelm Boger wohnhaft Hecmlngen Kre. Leonberg bleri Schreiben dee GeneralBelcretarlatB dec
Intarnat. Auaocbultz-KoBlteee vom 9.7.1958
Irlaaa vom 16.7.1958 14o2 E Vorberloht vom 28.7.1958
Anl.l 1 DrtallBabaohrlft i;
393/58 und
la Nachgang zu Balnea Bericht von 28.7.1958 lege icb. alna lnE»lachen hlor elngelangte AbBOhrlft doa Urtella der 5. Straf Icamiaer dae Landgerichte Munchen I von 15.7.58 vor, aue der Blot erglbt, daaa R 0 g n e r nlo Be- laetungazeuge In Verfohren gegen KZ-Peraonal orioiieicht- liche LUgen ;.ue Hobo und Rnchoucht vorgetragen hat. SBgner let deahalb -wenn nuch noch nloht rechtBkr^ftlg- vegen falachar Anschuldlgung, unoldllcher FnlBChituoaage und Melnelda zu elnor Zuohthauoatrafe von 3 Jnhron und 6 llonaten vorurtellt <rorden. Aua oelteren Vorrtrnfen
blldata daa Otrloht tint Gaeaatauohthauaatrafa top 5 J ah ran. Zuglaloh wurda BtJgner fUr &w£fM t: 41 a FaMgkalt abtrkannt* ala Zauga odar SaohYar- "(^andlgtr tldlioh vernomman au wardan.
■4.
gez . Schabel
Adolf Rogner, perjured liar, vengeful denouncer
The Revisionist ■ 2003 ■ Volume 1 ■ No. 1
117
Comit* International d'Aaschwit^C^
Wlen, dec 9. Mai X958
An die
Staafcsanwaltschaft i: S fc u t t c a r
SS-Oberc j'.arCUhrer ^orer
Tins wurde Mitteteii. , dass bei Ihnen ein Verfv-re-* Gegen SS-ubersc.'iari'iiiirsr Boger liiuffc. Soger war rc: (. • oLt bei der ,.>olitischen Abteilu:i- im Kon^e;:- ; . .la^cr Auschwifcz tiitiL- und hat cort eiae Fuil<. : i'^'jct Verbrec.;:en bega^en. Er ist von einen ?r jr-j von I>ac::au :iach P-jlen Eeflohen und hielt sioi: seitd^ v rsfceckt;.
'.7ir er-.-uche:: u:: "ichricht, ob die ans zugerLi.i. -er.e iattt:iXui4; 3-af. ^ichtiKkoit beruht. Wir sind in der
/i:id 3eweisnaterijl Sogers zur Verf '>unc
:eichnet nit den Aus- Slicher Hoehachtunn
as Internationale iwit^ - Konitee:
/?// si
"Q. : How did you recognize the Jews? Ans.: By the white badges they wore on their breasts. First, the smallest children were taken out of the goods cars. They were thrown onto a pile. Then they were taken away in two cargo trucks and gassed. Then they took the bigger children out and separated the boys from the girls. Then the women came out, who were divided into two groups. One group went into the camp, the other was taken to the crematories. Finally, they took the men out, and they were also di- vided into two groups like the women. " (p. 12) If the newly arrived Jews wore identification, however, it would have been yellow stars, certainly not white badges. Rogner's description of the selection he claims to have wit- nessed is pure nonsense as well: the incoming transports were always unloaded en masse — the unloading of certain age groups and sexes would have been a logistic nightmare. All prisoners were sorted at the same time, not one group af- ter the other. "[T]he smallest children [...] were thrown onto a pile": the world has never seen such humbug! This passage alone shows that professional liar Rogner lied here again!
Wise Insight
With only the statements of Bernd Naumann in his book Auschwitz (Athenaum, Frankfurt/Main 1968) and the self- testimony of Hermann Langbein to work with, Dr. Wilhelm Staglich wrote in his 1979 Auschwitz Mythos (Grabert, Tubingen, p. 297):
"The [...] Auschwitz trial developed from an episode which could almost be called banal: On March 1, 1958, a former Auschwitz prisoner named Adolf Rogner, at that time held in the Bruchsal prison, filed charges against former SS Oberscharfuhrer Wilhelm Boger for alleged crimes against humanity committed in concentration camp Auschwitz. [...] Langbein [...] merely noted that the Auschwitz trial had been 'initiated due to a fluke. ' [...] there are reasons for believing that certain background influences who for various reasons had a great interest in a continuing and expanding pursuit of so-called Nazi mass crimes had spurred Rogner to file charges. " Staglich also discusses passages in Rogner's charge sheet that he considers indicative that Rogner was used by Langbein' s
Adolf Rogner, "instructed" by the Communist-linked Auschwitz Committee
organization. As to any complaint today that Staglich had speculated wildly, the records of the interrogation show not only that he was correct, but that the matter was even worse: Rogner was a Communist, a professional denouncer, a glory- seeking psychopath, a perjurer, a swindler, a self-styled "Nazi hunter," who had been first supplied with literature and information, then encouraged to file charges, by the Ausch- witz Committee.
First published in Vierteljahreshefte fur freie Geschichtsforschung 6(3)
(2002), pp. 343-346. Translated by Michael Humphrey
* All page number refer to: Pubic Prosecution at the District Court Frankfurt
(Main), Strafsache beim Schwurgericht Frankfurt (Main) gegen Baer und
Andere wegen Mordes, ref. 4 Js 444/59, Vol. I
In Brief
Another MA Thesis from New Zealand Attacked
In 1994, Steven Eaton finished his MA thesis in history at the University of Canterbury (NZ) under the supervision of Prof. Vincent Orange. In his study of the International Military Tribunal of Nuremberg, Eaton concluded that the Allies showed no respect for international law, and that the tribunal was an arbitrary demonstration of power. Two years ago, Prof. Orange was attacked for having supervised a Holocaust revisionist MA thesis by Joel S. Hay ward, which had been
completed in 1993. In an acknowledgment, Eaton expressed his gratitude to Hayward for having introduced him to the problems of Nuremberg. (The Press, NZ, Oct. 24, 2002)
Canceling a Contract Equals Incitement to Hatred
On March 11, 2001, the Jewish organization "Keren Haye- sod" intended to hold a fund raising evening for Israel in the nightclub Y Julieta at the Beethovenplatz in Munich. How- ever, three days prior to the event, the owner of the nightclub
118
The Revisionist ■ 2003 ■ Volume 1 • No. 1
Rudolf Fischer, 55, cancelled the contract. He claimed that he did not want any political events taking place in his building. As a result, Fischer was insulted and threatened by the event's Jewish organizers, who also filed a criminal com- plaint against him for alleged anti-Semitic statements, such as: "I won't open my doors to you Jews." In September 2002, a court sentenced Fischer to pay a fine of €2,500, be- cause the statements he allegedly made could incite to ha- tred. Fischer denied having made the statements. (Siid- deutsche Zeitung, Sept. 4, 2002) Contrast the alleged state- ments with "I won't open my doors to right-wingers." Say- ing that sort of thing is almost obligatory for every restau- rant owner in Germany.
Prohibited Guest Book Entries
Two visitors to the former concentration camp Struthof (Al- sace, France) who wrote 'inappropriate' comments in the museum's guest book were arrested by the French police and charged for crimes against humanity (Dernieres Nouvelles d' Alsace, Sept. 24, 2002)
Zyklon Vacuum Cleaner
When the German electrical equipment companies Bosch and Siemens applied on July 25, 2001, to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to register the names "X Zyklon" and "Mixed Zyklon" as trademarks for their vacuum cleaners, they were forced to think again. First, the British sportswear company Umbro protested, because it had already registered the Zyklon name for sport shoes. But then the Jewish lobby learned about the dispute. All of a sudden it was big news at the BBC, which turned it into a pseudo-scandal: How dare German companies consider using the name Zyklon, which is synonymous for German horror? Thus, the Bosch-Siemens household appliance group quickly retracted its application and apologized. (Spiegel Online, Sept. 5, 2002)
Scandal over Hitler Statue
Between September and November 2002, a kneeling, life- sized Hitler statue, "He," looking upward and with its hands folded in prayers, caused some excitement at the Boijmans van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam (Netherlands). The sculpture was made by Italian sculptor Maurizio Cattelan, well known for his provocations. Rotterdam's representative for culture denounced this statue as a provocation for all those Rotterdammers who suffered from "Hitler's bombs" (AP, Sept. 5, 2002).
Ernest Hemingway Exposed As Mass Murderer
Because the southwest German town Triberg is briefly men- tioned in one of Hemingway's novels, the town used to hold so-called "Hemingway days" annually. But after learning that Hemingway had in his private letters reported in detail on how he brutally murdered 122 defenseless German prisoners of war, an activist from a German patriotic group (Deutsch- land-Bewegung) distributed a leaflet at this year's "Heming- way days" in Triberg that stated: "Triberg honors a mur- derer." Because the German public prosecutor refused to open a criminal investigation against this patriot, the town
council of Triberg finally decided to cancel the "Hemingway days" in the future (Schwarzwalder Bote, Sept. 29, 2002).
Revisionist Book Promotion In Estonia
In Dec. 2002, the well-known Holocaust revisionist Jiirgen Graf presented the Estonian translation of his most popular book, The Holocaust on the Test Stand, to some 350 people in Estonia's capital Tallin. For his dissent, Graf had been sentenced in his na- tive Switzerland to fifteen months imprisonment and now lives in exile in eastern Europe. Jewish organizations quickly issued a protest of the lecture. (JTA, December 5, 2002)
Latvia Unveils Holocaust Memorial
Latvia has unveiled its first Holocaust memorial in a forest near the capital Riga. During WWII, some 25,000 Jews from Riga's nearby Jewish ghetto are supposed to have been killed there. The memorial was funded by donations from Germany, Israel, Latvia, and the US. (BBC News, 11/29/2002, http://news.bbc.co.Uk/l/hi/world/europe/2529275.stm) Appa- rently, no traces of the alleged victims have ever been found.
Croatians Forced to Take Holocaust Lessons
Croatia has again been criticized for trying to give a some- what balanced view on WWII history in its school textbooks by not glorifying the Allies uncritically and by giving the German side its due. As a result, Croatia is now being moni- tored by four members — from the United States, Israel, France, and Argentina — of an international task force dedi- cated to propagating Holocaust education. Meanwhile, the Jewish community of Zagreb, which will receive funds from the Claims Conference to brainwash educators, reached an agreement with the Adam Institute in Jerusalem to organize a seminar on the topic. About sixteen instructors are planning to attend the seminar next month. Later, they will organize workshops and brainwash others so that they can teach the subject. (JTA, 12/17/2002;
www.jta.org/page_view_story.asp?intarticleid=12202&intcategoryid=2)
Jewish Groups Seek to Ban Book on Mideast Conflict
In November 2002, a translation of the Italian novel Sog- nanda Palestina (Dream of Palestine) by Randa Ghazi, 15, born in Italy to Egypt parents, was published in France by Flammarion. In his novel, Ghazi describes Arab extremists as well as moderates. Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and the French anti-racist group LICRA called on the French government to ban the book. (Reuters, 12/10/2002)
US Faces Uphill Battle to Counter Anti-Arab Prejudice
It has become more difficult for US authorities to buy air- time on Arab TV stations to screen ads that show Arab- Americans enthusing about their freedoms, job opportuni- ties, and the respect shown by U.S. society to Muslims. This has been especially true since December 2002, when U.S. Attorney-General John Ashcroft ordered that all males over the age of sixteen from Arab countries be required to "vol- untarily" present themselves to the INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) for fingerprinting, photographing,
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and questioning. (Gulf News, 12/24/2002, http://www.gulf- news.com/) This is reminiscent of the U.S. government in- terning Germans during WWI and again, together with Ital- ians and Japanese, during WWII.
Israeli Company Workers Were Warned of 911 Attack
The instant messaging service Odigo, located in NY and with offices in Israel, says that two of its workers received mes- sages two hours before the Twin Towers attack on September 11 predicting the attack would happen. The company has been cooperating with Israeli and US law enforcement, in- cluding the FBI, in trying to find the original sender of the message predicting the attack. (Ha'aretz Daily, 12/12/2002 www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=77 744&contrassID=/h)
Heavy Censorship in Jordan
As a result of increasing opposition against the official Jor- danian policy of suppressing the pro-Palestinian movement, the government of Jordan has suspended its parliament, has banned the Lebanese bimonthly opposition newspaper al Adab, and has jailed authors featured by this newspaper, for instance Dr. Hisham Bustani, a human rights activist who is a dentist by profession. After he had written about the use of poison gas by Jordan security forces to suppress pro- Palestinian demonstrations, Dr. Bustani was jailed in the al Jweideh prison on the outskirts of Amman. After his release, he reported on the horrendous conditions in the prisons, where inhuman treatment and torture prevail. For this, Dr. Bustani was again arrested, but released on bail after a few days. (Ibrahim Alloush; alloush43@hotmail.com 12/30/2002)
Internet Censorship to Hit USA in 2003?
Early this year, President Bush's Critical Infrastructure Pro- tection Board will release its report "The National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace." In a direct response to the events of September 11, 2001, it aims to safeguard national computer networks. The nation's largest Internet providers fear that they will be forced to give the authorities access to live feeds of network activity, which would be nothing but a wiretap without a judicial order. Tiffany Olson, deputy chief of staff of the Critical Infrastructure Protection Board, gave as a rea- son for this planned wiretapping: "We don't have anybody that is able to look at the entire picture [of the Internet]. When something is happening, we don't know it's happening until it's too late." (New York Times, 12/20/2002)
USA Revives Nuremberg Show Trials
Considering itself in a state of war (against terrorism), the USA intends to revive the procedural rules it applied during the post-WWII show trials against German and Japanese leaders in 1946. The new war crimes trials are directed against suspected terrorists and anybody who associates with them. These trials will be held under heavy secrecy and will apply streamlined rules of evidence. Secondhand and hearsay evidence will be allowed, contrary to U.S. criminal law. Also, the prosecution will be allowed to withhold certain informa- tion for security reasons, or allow only lawyers to see it. Pen-
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tagon lawyers are even considering declaring mere member- ship in an alleged terrorist organization a crime, following the example of the Nuremberg prosecutions, which classified the entire SS as a criminal organization. Al-Qaida may be de- fined the same way. U.S. authorities are also considering holding the 600 terrorist suspects currently in Guantanamo and hundreds held in or near Afghanistan as "enemy combat- ants" for an indefinite period of time. (Miami Herald www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/ local/48 17835.htm)
Holocaust Museum Honors Aborigines
The Australian Jewish Holocaust Museum and Research Centre dedicated two plaques honoring the Aboriginal com- munity. One plaque, placed inside the museum, commemo- rates the little-known 1938 protest by Aborigines against the persecution of Jews by NS-Germany. In December 1938, the Australian Aborigines' League (AAL) took a resolution to the doors of the German Consulate in Melbourne in the wake of Kristallnacht. Troy Austin, an official with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC), said he would not compare Aboriginal missions with NS concentra- tion camps, but spoke of the 1930s as a period when theories of "social Darwinism and the superiority of the white man" were rampant. (Australian Jewish News, 12/27/2002)
US Obsessed with WWII and "Nazi Hunting"
The Office of Special Investigations, the US Department of Justice's section for witch-hunting WWII veterans, has ac- cused the Ukrainian-born NY resident Jaroslaw Bilaniuk, 79, who immigrated to the U.S. in 1949, of having been a guard at the Trawniki labor camp in Poland during World War II. Eli Rosenbaum, Jewish director of the OSI, wants to revoke Bilaniuk's U.S. citizenship and deport him to Ukraine. In May 2002, a similar case was filed against Jakiw Palij, who resides in NY as well.
Since the OSI began its activities in 1979, 71 WWII veterans who served the Axis have been stripped of U.S. citizenship and 57 have been deported, (www.newsday.com/news/ na- tionworld/nation/ny-nazi 1 227,0,6 1 870 1 2.story?col) In 2002, the OSI set a single-year record by seeking to revoke the citizenship of, or deport, ten American citizens accused of collaborating with Axis forces during WWII. Investigators are using recently opened archives in former communist countries and computer databases to witch-hunt the war veterans. (http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Politics/ap20021226_1548.html)
Mass Grave Found in Belarus
An unsourced Chicago Tribune article of October 3 1 , 2002, p. 5, reports on a mass grave found at Slutsk, Belarus, 60 miles south of Minsk. So far, 50 bodies have been exhumed, but neither the identities of the victims nor of their murderers are known. Local residents believe that the victims might be Jews from Slutsk and prisoners from a nearby concentration camp who were supposedly shot by "Nazi troops." A full ex- cavation of the site is planned for spring 2003. Without giv- ing any particulars, the article claims that up to 12,000 vic- tims could be buried in this grave.
Update: Jan. 2, 2003
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