Monday, May 14, 2007

The Rudolf Report: Germany's 'Leuchter Report'

by Mark Weber

A German chemist's meticulous new technical-forensic examination of the alleged execution "gas chambers" of Auschwitz has been attracting a good bit of attention in Europe.
Printed on glossy paper in a large, magazine-size format, this 110-page report contains numerous photographs (several in color), charts, diagrams, and more than 200 reference notes. It is entitled Gutachten über die Bildung und Nachweisbarkeit von Cyanidverbindungen in den "Gaskammern" von Auschwitz ("Technical Report on the formation and detection of cyanide compounds in the 'gas chambers' of Auschwitz") Germar Rudolf, the author, is a certified chemist and doctoral candidate who has been working at the renowned Max Planck Institut research center in Stuttgart. The samples taken by Rudolf from the alleged execution "gas chambers" in Auschwitz were analyzed by the prestigious Institut Fresenius.

Rudolf's study provides further authoritative confirmation of the conclusions reached by American gas chamber specialist Fred Leuchter in his widely-distributed 1988 report, as well as of the similar findings of American chemist William B. Lindsey, Austrian engineer Walter Lüftl, the Institute of Forensic Research in Krakow (Poland), and German engineer Wolfgang Schuster. (For more on this, see the Winter 1992-93 Journal.).

More

Smith Steps Up CODOH Ad Campaign

by Mark Weber

Bradley Smith, intrepid chairman of the Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust (CODOH), attracted nationwide notoriety in late 1991 and early 1992 as a result of his success in placing advertisements calling for open debate on the Holocaust issue in student newspapers at several major universities. After something of a lapse, Smith has recently put new life his CODOH ad campaign. Some highlights:

More

IHR Activist Puts Cole Video on Local Television

by Mark Weber

In northern California, veteran IHR supporter Harvey Taylor recently arranged for the broadcast of David Cole's compelling video about Auschwitz on local cable access television, Continental Cablevision of Yuba City. To inform the public of the showing, Taylor also published an announcement (reproduced here) in the local daily Marysville Appeal-Democrat. Beginning October 5, it appeared in the paper for seven consecutive days. As a result of the broadcast, anonymous persons made telephone death threats against Fred Kirchubel, video production supervisor of Continental Cablevision (Sierra region), as well as other members of the station staff.

"Where are the gas chambers?," asks an American soldier at the "Liberation of Buchenwald." This cartoon by a prominent female artist who uses the pen name "Chard," is from the French paper Rivarol, July 2, 1993.

More

How an Influential Journalist Twists the Truth

by Mark Weber

With a syndicated column that appears in several hundred daily papers, regular appearances on ABC television's "This Week With David Brinkley," several successful books, and well-paid appearances on the lecture circuit, George F. Will has a deserved reputation as one of America's most influential commentators on social-political affairs.

So when his secretary phoned to ask me to meet with him for lunch, I was both hopeful and wary: Hopeful about the good that could possibly come from such a meeting; Wary because, given his well-known biases, he might distort whatever I say or do as part of a smear.
Still, I was optimistic, in part because his secretary had assured me that Will merely wanted to meet and talk. She indicated that this would not be an interview.

From the outset of our August 19 luncheon meeting, Will made clear that he was interested in revisionist motives (or what he believes them to be), not revisionist arguments. Indeed, at one point he said that it is not the truth or validity of what a revisionist says that determines whether it is evil, but rather his motive.

More

Bergen-Belsen Gassing Lies

by Mark Weber

Fraudulent Holocaust claims about magical gas chambers and miraculous survival in wartime German camps are all too familiar. Occasionally, though, we come across a claim so breathtaking in its mendacious effrontery that it deserves special notice.

In an article (reproduced here) in The Gazette of Montreal (Canada), August 5, 1993, and in a memoir, Moshe Peer recounts his wartime ordeal as an eleven-year-old in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Peer claims that he "was sent to the [Bergen-Belsen camp] gas chamber at least six times." The Gazette account goes on to relate: "Each time he survived, watching with horror as many of the women and children gassed with him collapsed and died. To this day, Peer doesn't know how he was able to survive." In an effort to explain the miracle, Peer muses: "Maybe children resist better, I don't know." (These days, not a single reputable historian claims that anyone was ever "gassed" in the Bergen-Belsen camp.)

How was such horror possible? In Peer's view, the "rest of the world stood by and let the Holocaust happen." The evil Germans, he says, "had the permission of the world" to kill Jews. Although Peer claims that "Bergen-Belsen was worse than Auschwitz," he acknowledges that he and his younger brother and sister, who were deported to the camp in 1944, all somehow survived internment there.

More

Hellmut Diwald, German Professor

by Mark Weber

One of Germany's best-known and most controversial historians, Hellmut Diwald, died on May 26, 1993. A skilled writer and an eloquent public speaker, he was not only one of his people's most widely read historians, he was unquestionably one of the most gifted and courageous. No ivory tower academic, he learned what it meant to come under fire for taking an unpopular stand.

He authored numerous acclaimed works of history, including important biographies of Martin Luther, Wallenstein, Heinrich the First and Wilhelm Dilthey. Probably his most important -- and certainly his most controversial -- work was Geschichte der Deutschen ("History of the Germans"), first issued in 1978 by the prestigious Propyläen publishing house. In the two pages of the book devoted to the "final solution," Professor Diwald pointed out that there were no extermination camps in Germany proper, that important claims about the camps have been revealed as lies, and that Jewish deaths in the German concentration camps were not the result of an extermination policy, but rather the consequence of chaotic and unavoidable wartime conditions. He described the postwar Holocaust campaign as one of distortion, deception and exaggeration -- one meant to morally degrade and totally disqualify the German people. Diwald concluded this section by pointing out that in spite of all the literature that has been written on this subject, the central questions about the fate of the Jews during the war are still not clear.

More

Fred Leuchter Arrested in Germany

by Mark Weber

Fred A. Leuchter, Jr., the American execution hardware specialist who insists that claims of wartime mass gassings at Auschwitz are not true, was arrested in Cologne, Germany, on October 28, half an hour before his scheduled appearance on a television show.

Leuchter was arrested without an arrest warrant or formal charges. He was then taken to Mannheim, leaving his wife, Carolyn, behind in Cologne. Neither speaks German.

Only the next day was Leuchter formally charged. Cited in the criminal charge were statements he had made during a speech at a meeting in Germany in November 1991, in which he spoke about his 1988 on-site forensic examination of the alleged execution gas chambers at Auschwitz, Birkenau and Maj-danek. These facilities were not used, and could not have been used, to kill people as alleged, said Leuchter, a recognized specialist of gas chambers used to execute convicted criminals in the United States.

Leuchter had been scheduled to appear on the show "Schreinemakers Live" of the private television network SAT-1. He was invited to appear as an execution expert, the show's host, Margarethe Schreinemakers, confirmed. His travel costs and hotel expenses had been paid in advance by the station.

More