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
Monday, May 14, 2007
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
South African Member of Parliament Under Fire for Support of Revisionism
by Mark Weber
Because he expressed public support for the revisionist cause of truth in history in a letter to the Institute for Historical Review, a South African lawmaker has come under attack from Zionist-Jewish organizations.
South African newspapers have reported on a letter in the November 1992 IHR Newsletter, by Louis F. Stofberg, a senior Conservative party member of the House of Assembly in Cape Town. In the letter he wrote:
I have just received the IHR Newsletter for October with the good news that Zündel has won in Canada's Supreme Court. Please convey my congratulations and good wishes to Ernst Zündel. Like the IHR itself, he is a hero of the truth unsurpassed in our times.
Our enemies have done everything, and their worst, to stop him. They have failed, and revisionism can go forward with greater confidence than ever before that victory will be ours.
A report on the letter in the Johannesburg Star, the country's largest-circulation daily paper, was headlined "CP MP defends letter about Holocaust" (May 14).
More
Because he expressed public support for the revisionist cause of truth in history in a letter to the Institute for Historical Review, a South African lawmaker has come under attack from Zionist-Jewish organizations.
South African newspapers have reported on a letter in the November 1992 IHR Newsletter, by Louis F. Stofberg, a senior Conservative party member of the House of Assembly in Cape Town. In the letter he wrote:
I have just received the IHR Newsletter for October with the good news that Zündel has won in Canada's Supreme Court. Please convey my congratulations and good wishes to Ernst Zündel. Like the IHR itself, he is a hero of the truth unsurpassed in our times.
Our enemies have done everything, and their worst, to stop him. They have failed, and revisionism can go forward with greater confidence than ever before that victory will be ours.
A report on the letter in the Johannesburg Star, the country's largest-circulation daily paper, was headlined "CP MP defends letter about Holocaust" (May 14).
More
Professor Responds to Revisionist Question By Calling Police
by Mark Weber
When Journal subscriber Karl Striedieck signed up in January for Professor Rose's three-credit "Holocaust History" course at Pennsylvania State University (University Park), he wasn't expecting a warm welcome for his skeptical views. Still, he wasn't quite prepared for the bigoted reception he did receive.
Striedieck, who served for 23 years as a U.S. military fighter pilot, says that he decided to sign up for course 297C "to broaden my knowledge of the subject in a university-level course, taught by an accredited specialist on the subject."
On the first day of the Spring term class, Dr. Paul Rose warned students that they should not read any of the writings of Robert Faurisson, Arthur Butz, Arno Mayer, David Irving, or Mark Weber, or any of the publications of the Institute for Historical Review. These revisionist historians are so clever, Rose explained, that students aren't able to see through their deceptive arguments. Thinking this a rather odd approach to take by someone supposedly dedicated to open-minded inquiry, Striedieck informed the teacher that he had, in fact, already read works by these individuals, and would appreciate a critique of their arguments. Rose responded by suggesting that the student immediately drop the course.
More
When Journal subscriber Karl Striedieck signed up in January for Professor Rose's three-credit "Holocaust History" course at Pennsylvania State University (University Park), he wasn't expecting a warm welcome for his skeptical views. Still, he wasn't quite prepared for the bigoted reception he did receive.
Striedieck, who served for 23 years as a U.S. military fighter pilot, says that he decided to sign up for course 297C "to broaden my knowledge of the subject in a university-level course, taught by an accredited specialist on the subject."
On the first day of the Spring term class, Dr. Paul Rose warned students that they should not read any of the writings of Robert Faurisson, Arthur Butz, Arno Mayer, David Irving, or Mark Weber, or any of the publications of the Institute for Historical Review. These revisionist historians are so clever, Rose explained, that students aren't able to see through their deceptive arguments. Thinking this a rather odd approach to take by someone supposedly dedicated to open-minded inquiry, Striedieck informed the teacher that he had, in fact, already read works by these individuals, and would appreciate a critique of their arguments. Rose responded by suggesting that the student immediately drop the course.
More
Gas Chamber Door Fraudulently Portrayed at U.S. Holocaust Museum
by Mark Weber
Visitors at the recently opened US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, will find on display a casting of a door of a supposed extermination gas chamber. This artifact is presented as graphic evidence of the chemical slaughterhouses supposedly used by the Germans to systematically exterminate masses of Jews during the Second World War.
According to the March 1990 issue of the Museum's official Newsletter, this is "a casting of the door that sealed one of the gas chambers at the Majdanek killing center in Poland." This door is also shown in The World Must Know: The History of the Holocaust as Told in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, a book by Museum official Michael Berenbaum. A photograph of it appears on page 138 (reproduced here) along with a caption describing it as "a casting of the door to the gas chamber at Majdanek ... from the outside, SS guards could observe the killing through a small peephole."
French anti-Revisionist researcher Jean-Claude Pressac reports on this door in his 563-page book, Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers (published in 1989 by "Nazi hunters" Serge and Beate Klarsfeld). He provides a photograph of the building in the Majdanek camp, including the door from which the Holocaust Museum casting was made.
More
Visitors at the recently opened US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, will find on display a casting of a door of a supposed extermination gas chamber. This artifact is presented as graphic evidence of the chemical slaughterhouses supposedly used by the Germans to systematically exterminate masses of Jews during the Second World War.
According to the March 1990 issue of the Museum's official Newsletter, this is "a casting of the door that sealed one of the gas chambers at the Majdanek killing center in Poland." This door is also shown in The World Must Know: The History of the Holocaust as Told in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, a book by Museum official Michael Berenbaum. A photograph of it appears on page 138 (reproduced here) along with a caption describing it as "a casting of the door to the gas chamber at Majdanek ... from the outside, SS guards could observe the killing through a small peephole."
French anti-Revisionist researcher Jean-Claude Pressac reports on this door in his 563-page book, Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers (published in 1989 by "Nazi hunters" Serge and Beate Klarsfeld). He provides a photograph of the building in the Majdanek camp, including the door from which the Holocaust Museum casting was made.
More
German University Professor Charged for Holocaust Remarks
By Mark Weber
German University Professor Charged for Holocaust Remarks
A respected German university professor has been charged with "popular incitement" because he told some colleagues six years ago that the Holocaust story is not true.
Rainer Ballreich, who teaches "biomechanics" at the sports institute of the University of Frankfurt, reportedly told a few colleagues at a 1987 meeting of the German Sports League that the story of six million murdered Jews is a lie, and that most concentration camp deaths were due to disease and malnutrition. The alleged remarks were first made public last March in an open letter by one of those present. (Frankfurter Neue Presse, March 26, 1993 p. 18.)
Ballreich, 62, has a respected name in his profession. From 1974 to 1988 he was a member of the scholarly commission of the Federal Committee for Sports Achievement of the German Sports League. Until 1988 he was chairman of the "Movement and Training" section of the Federal Institute for Sports Science, which is supervised jointly the German Interior Ministry and the German Sports League. Until last year Professor Ballreich was a member of the credentials committee of the Federal Institute for Sports Science.
More
German University Professor Charged for Holocaust Remarks
A respected German university professor has been charged with "popular incitement" because he told some colleagues six years ago that the Holocaust story is not true.
Rainer Ballreich, who teaches "biomechanics" at the sports institute of the University of Frankfurt, reportedly told a few colleagues at a 1987 meeting of the German Sports League that the story of six million murdered Jews is a lie, and that most concentration camp deaths were due to disease and malnutrition. The alleged remarks were first made public last March in an open letter by one of those present. (Frankfurter Neue Presse, March 26, 1993 p. 18.)
Ballreich, 62, has a respected name in his profession. From 1974 to 1988 he was a member of the scholarly commission of the Federal Committee for Sports Achievement of the German Sports League. Until 1988 he was chairman of the "Movement and Training" section of the Federal Institute for Sports Science, which is supervised jointly the German Interior Ministry and the German Sports League. Until last year Professor Ballreich was a member of the credentials committee of the Federal Institute for Sports Science.
More
Zionism and the Third Reich
by Mark Weber
Early in 1935, a passenger ship bound for Haifa in Palestine left the German port of Bremerhaven. Its stern bore the Hebrew letters for its name, "Tel Aviv," while a swastika banner fluttered from the mast. And although the ship was Zionist-owned, its captain was a National Socialist Party member. Many years later a traveler aboard the ship recalled this symbolic combination as a "metaphysical absurdity."1 Absurd or not, this is but one vignette from a little-known chapter of history: The wide-ranging collaboration between Zionism and Hitler's Third Reich.
Common Aims
Over the years, people in many different countries have wrestled with the "Jewish question": that is, what is the proper role of Jews in non-Jewish society? During the 1930s, Jewish Zionists and German National Socialists shared similar views on how to deal with this perplexing issue. They agreed that Jews and Germans were distinctly different nationalities, and that Jews did not belong in Germany. Jews living in the Reich were therefore to be regarded not as "Germans of the Jewish faith," but rather as members of a separate national community. Zionism (Jewish nationalism) also implied an obligation by Zionist Jews to resettle in Palestine, the "Jewish homeland." They could hardly regard themselves as sincere Zionists and simultaneously claim equal rights in Germany or any other "foreign" country.
More
Early in 1935, a passenger ship bound for Haifa in Palestine left the German port of Bremerhaven. Its stern bore the Hebrew letters for its name, "Tel Aviv," while a swastika banner fluttered from the mast. And although the ship was Zionist-owned, its captain was a National Socialist Party member. Many years later a traveler aboard the ship recalled this symbolic combination as a "metaphysical absurdity."1 Absurd or not, this is but one vignette from a little-known chapter of history: The wide-ranging collaboration between Zionism and Hitler's Third Reich.
Common Aims
Over the years, people in many different countries have wrestled with the "Jewish question": that is, what is the proper role of Jews in non-Jewish society? During the 1930s, Jewish Zionists and German National Socialists shared similar views on how to deal with this perplexing issue. They agreed that Jews and Germans were distinctly different nationalities, and that Jews did not belong in Germany. Jews living in the Reich were therefore to be regarded not as "Germans of the Jewish faith," but rather as members of a separate national community. Zionism (Jewish nationalism) also implied an obligation by Zionist Jews to resettle in Palestine, the "Jewish homeland." They could hardly regard themselves as sincere Zionists and simultaneously claim equal rights in Germany or any other "foreign" country.
More
Croatia's Leader Denounced as Holocaust Revisionist
by Mark Weber
In spite of strong criticism from prominent American Jewish leaders, the President of Croatia refuses to repudiate his revisionist views on the Holocaust issue. Franjo Tudjman, Croatia's democratically elected leader, and a respected European scholar, has aroused controversy for publicly rejecting the "Six Million" story.
At the invitation of the US government, Tudjman and other foreign leaders attended the formal ceremony on April 22 in Washington, DC, dedicating the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. Elie Wiesel, a Jewish survivor of Auschwitz and other German wartime camps, was not happy. "Tudjman's presence in the midst of survivors is a disgrace," said Wiesel, who also expressed concern that a 1988 book by the Croatian historian would, in the words of the New York Times (April 22), "fuel the arguments of historical revisionists who deny that the Holocaust occurred."
More
In spite of strong criticism from prominent American Jewish leaders, the President of Croatia refuses to repudiate his revisionist views on the Holocaust issue. Franjo Tudjman, Croatia's democratically elected leader, and a respected European scholar, has aroused controversy for publicly rejecting the "Six Million" story.
At the invitation of the US government, Tudjman and other foreign leaders attended the formal ceremony on April 22 in Washington, DC, dedicating the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. Elie Wiesel, a Jewish survivor of Auschwitz and other German wartime camps, was not happy. "Tudjman's presence in the midst of survivors is a disgrace," said Wiesel, who also expressed concern that a 1988 book by the Croatian historian would, in the words of the New York Times (April 22), "fuel the arguments of historical revisionists who deny that the Holocaust occurred."
More
Holocaust Revisionism is not 'Hate Speech,' Canadian Officials Affirm
by Mark Weber
On August 27, Canada's Supreme Court dismissed charges against Ernst Zündel of "publishing false news" because he had circulated a reprint edition of a booklet that disputes the generally accepted Holocaust extermination story. The Court struck down as unconstitutional the law under which the German-Canadian publisher and commercial artist had been convicted. (For more on this, see the IHR Newsletter, Oct. 1992, pp. 1-3.)
At a news conference immediately following the Court's ruling, Zündel defiantly repeated his view of the Holocaust story, provocatively calling it a "hoax" and a "racket."
Canadian Jewish groups promptly responded by demanding that Zündel be tried again for the same "crime," this time under Canada's "hate law" that bans willful incitement to hatred. Bernie Farber, national director of the Canadian Jewish Congress, filed a formal complaint against Zündel with the "Pornography/ Hate Literature Section" of the Ontario Provincial Police in Toronto.
More
On August 27, Canada's Supreme Court dismissed charges against Ernst Zündel of "publishing false news" because he had circulated a reprint edition of a booklet that disputes the generally accepted Holocaust extermination story. The Court struck down as unconstitutional the law under which the German-Canadian publisher and commercial artist had been convicted. (For more on this, see the IHR Newsletter, Oct. 1992, pp. 1-3.)
At a news conference immediately following the Court's ruling, Zündel defiantly repeated his view of the Holocaust story, provocatively calling it a "hoax" and a "racket."
Canadian Jewish groups promptly responded by demanding that Zündel be tried again for the same "crime," this time under Canada's "hate law" that bans willful incitement to hatred. Bernie Farber, national director of the Canadian Jewish Congress, filed a formal complaint against Zündel with the "Pornography/ Hate Literature Section" of the Ontario Provincial Police in Toronto.
More
Thursday, April 26, 2007
The Sally Hemings Myth
by Mark Weber
Probably the most notorious accusation against Thomas Jefferson is the persistent allegation that he secretly took a mulatto slave named Sally Hemings (or Hemmings) as a mistress, and fathered several children by her.
The charge was first made in September 1802 (during Jefferson's first term as president) by a Scottish immigrant named James T. Caller, an embittered alcoholic and hypochondriac. Writing in a Richmond newspaper, Caller cited no evidence for his accusation, merely claiming that it was "well known." On later occasions he changed details about how the affair allegedly began and the number of children supposedly produced by it.
To those who knew Jefferson, his high moral standards and his deep devotion to his dead wife's memory, the entire story was absurd and contemptible. Nevertheless, it soon gained widespread circulation and many believers. Today it is occasionally given credence by black or leftist academics.
Jefferson never replied publicly to the charge. In a letter to a friend in June 1816, he wrote, "I should have fancied myself half guilty had I condescended to put pen to paper in refutation of their falsehoods, or drawn to them respect by any notice from myself." Years later his grandson, Thomas Jefferson Randolph, maintained that Sally's children were fathered by a nephew of Thomas Jefferson named Peter Carr, thus suggesting an additional reason for his silence. More
Probably the most notorious accusation against Thomas Jefferson is the persistent allegation that he secretly took a mulatto slave named Sally Hemings (or Hemmings) as a mistress, and fathered several children by her.
The charge was first made in September 1802 (during Jefferson's first term as president) by a Scottish immigrant named James T. Caller, an embittered alcoholic and hypochondriac. Writing in a Richmond newspaper, Caller cited no evidence for his accusation, merely claiming that it was "well known." On later occasions he changed details about how the affair allegedly began and the number of children supposedly produced by it.
To those who knew Jefferson, his high moral standards and his deep devotion to his dead wife's memory, the entire story was absurd and contemptible. Nevertheless, it soon gained widespread circulation and many believers. Today it is occasionally given credence by black or leftist academics.
Jefferson never replied publicly to the charge. In a letter to a friend in June 1816, he wrote, "I should have fancied myself half guilty had I condescended to put pen to paper in refutation of their falsehoods, or drawn to them respect by any notice from myself." Years later his grandson, Thomas Jefferson Randolph, maintained that Sally's children were fathered by a nephew of Thomas Jefferson named Peter Carr, thus suggesting an additional reason for his silence. More
Official US Holocaust Museum To Open in April in Washington, DC
by Mark Weber
After several delays, the largest and costliest Holocaust Museum anywhere is finally scheduled to open in Washington, DC, in April 1992. The "United States Holocaust Memorial Museum" will be formally dedicated on April 22, and will open to the public on April 26.
Major political figures will att the formal dedication ceremony. President Bill Clinton has been invited to speak. (As we go to press, he has not yet responded to the invitation.) Newspaper and television journalists from across the United States and many foreign countries will also be present.
The Museum is being built on federal government land by the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, a taxpayer-funded federal government agency created by Congress in 1980.
Museum construction costs are being covered by donations. So far more than $130 million has been pledged -- almost all of it from wealthy Jewish donors.
The US Holocaust Memorial Council and its friends in the media have been unable to generate widespread support for the Museum project. More
After several delays, the largest and costliest Holocaust Museum anywhere is finally scheduled to open in Washington, DC, in April 1992. The "United States Holocaust Memorial Museum" will be formally dedicated on April 22, and will open to the public on April 26.
Major political figures will att the formal dedication ceremony. President Bill Clinton has been invited to speak. (As we go to press, he has not yet responded to the invitation.) Newspaper and television journalists from across the United States and many foreign countries will also be present.
The Museum is being built on federal government land by the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, a taxpayer-funded federal government agency created by Congress in 1980.
Museum construction costs are being covered by donations. So far more than $130 million has been pledged -- almost all of it from wealthy Jewish donors.
The US Holocaust Memorial Council and its friends in the media have been unable to generate widespread support for the Museum project. More
The Legacy of Rudolf Hess
by Mark Weber
On the evening of May 10, 1941, the Deputy Führer of the Third Reich set out on a secret mission that was to be his last and most important. Under cover of darkness, Rudolf Hess took off in an unarmed Messerschmidt 110 fighter-bomber from an Augsburg airfield and headed across the North Sea toward Britain. His plan was to negotiate peace between Germany and Britain.
Four hours later, after successfully evading British anti-aircraft fire and a pursuing Spitfire, Hess parachuted, for the first time in his life, and sprained his ankle landing in a Scottish farm field. An astonished farmer found the injured pilot and turned him over to the local Home Guard unit. [1]
Winston Churchill promptly rejected Hess' peace offer and jailed him as a prisoner of war, even though he had arrived unarmed and of his own free will. Rudolf Hess, ambassador of peace, was to remain a prisoner until his death in August 1987 at the age of 93.
For many, the passing of the one-time Deputy Führer and last surviving member of Hitler's inner circle simply marked the welcome end of a terrible era. But his true legacy is something far different. He spent 46 years -- half his life -- behind bars, a victim of a cruel victor's justice. More than any other man, Rudolf Hess symbolizes the vindictiveness and hypocrisy of the Nuremberg Tribunal. More
On the evening of May 10, 1941, the Deputy Führer of the Third Reich set out on a secret mission that was to be his last and most important. Under cover of darkness, Rudolf Hess took off in an unarmed Messerschmidt 110 fighter-bomber from an Augsburg airfield and headed across the North Sea toward Britain. His plan was to negotiate peace between Germany and Britain.
Four hours later, after successfully evading British anti-aircraft fire and a pursuing Spitfire, Hess parachuted, for the first time in his life, and sprained his ankle landing in a Scottish farm field. An astonished farmer found the injured pilot and turned him over to the local Home Guard unit. [1]
Winston Churchill promptly rejected Hess' peace offer and jailed him as a prisoner of war, even though he had arrived unarmed and of his own free will. Rudolf Hess, ambassador of peace, was to remain a prisoner until his death in August 1987 at the age of 93.
For many, the passing of the one-time Deputy Führer and last surviving member of Hitler's inner circle simply marked the welcome end of a terrible era. But his true legacy is something far different. He spent 46 years -- half his life -- behind bars, a victim of a cruel victor's justice. More than any other man, Rudolf Hess symbolizes the vindictiveness and hypocrisy of the Nuremberg Tribunal. More
Holocaust Survivor Finds 'Exterminated' Brother through Appearance with Revisionists on the Montel Williams Show
by Mark Weber
For fifty years, Holocaust survivors Ernest Hollander and his brother Alex thought that their older brother, Zoltan, had been executed by the Germans in 1944. And for half a century, Zoltan thought that both his two brothers had been killed by the Germans during the war. But thanks to Ernest Hollander's appearance with Revisionists Mark Weber and David Cole last April on the Montel Williams Show, the long-lost brothers were reunited in San Francisco in late October.
Along with Weber and Cole, Ernest Hollander, 67, appeared with his wife, Anna (a survivor of Auschwitz), and another Jewish Holocaust survivor, Dr. Michael Thaler, on the nationally syndicated Montel Williams Show, which was broadcast April 30 on about 60 television stations around the country. (For more on this broadcast, see the IHR Newsletter, May 1992, p. 3, and October 1992, p. 4.)
A few years after the war, Ernest had been told by a friend that he had personally witnessed Zoltan's execution in 1944 by German soldiers, who supposedly hanged him from a tree. But a migrant from Serbia who lives in Brooklyn, and who happened to be watching the broadcast, instantly recognized Ernest on the screen as the "spitting image" of a friend he had known in Serbia, Zoltan "Hershe" Hollander. More
For fifty years, Holocaust survivors Ernest Hollander and his brother Alex thought that their older brother, Zoltan, had been executed by the Germans in 1944. And for half a century, Zoltan thought that both his two brothers had been killed by the Germans during the war. But thanks to Ernest Hollander's appearance with Revisionists Mark Weber and David Cole last April on the Montel Williams Show, the long-lost brothers were reunited in San Francisco in late October.
Along with Weber and Cole, Ernest Hollander, 67, appeared with his wife, Anna (a survivor of Auschwitz), and another Jewish Holocaust survivor, Dr. Michael Thaler, on the nationally syndicated Montel Williams Show, which was broadcast April 30 on about 60 television stations around the country. (For more on this broadcast, see the IHR Newsletter, May 1992, p. 3, and October 1992, p. 4.)
A few years after the war, Ernest had been told by a friend that he had personally witnessed Zoltan's execution in 1944 by German soldiers, who supposedly hanged him from a tree. But a migrant from Serbia who lives in Brooklyn, and who happened to be watching the broadcast, instantly recognized Ernest on the screen as the "spitting image" of a friend he had known in Serbia, Zoltan "Hershe" Hollander. More
David Irving: Intrepid Battler for Historical Truth
by Mark Weber
Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev might have had David Irving in mind when he once warned that historians are dangerous because they have the power to upset everything. German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck once said that the main thing is not to write history, but to make it. Irving is a man who has been able to do some of both.
He is also living proof that the life of an historian need not be dull. The leftist British daily The Guardian once commented, “If one can overlook his outrageously odious views, Irving-like Hitler-can be a funny man. The humor comes from a hint of self-mockery and an obvious delight in making liberal flesh creep.”
At the Eleventh IHR Conference in October 1992 – as he had in his presentations at the IHR Conferences of 1983, 1989 and 1990 – this good friend of the Institute for Historical Review not only shed new light on important chapters of twentieth-century history, he delighted attendees with humorous updates on some of the new ways he had found to make liberal flesh creep.
In the three decades since he published his first book, Irving has firmly established himself as not only one of the most successful and widely-read historians of our time, but also as one of the most courageous. More
Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev might have had David Irving in mind when he once warned that historians are dangerous because they have the power to upset everything. German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck once said that the main thing is not to write history, but to make it. Irving is a man who has been able to do some of both.
He is also living proof that the life of an historian need not be dull. The leftist British daily The Guardian once commented, “If one can overlook his outrageously odious views, Irving-like Hitler-can be a funny man. The humor comes from a hint of self-mockery and an obvious delight in making liberal flesh creep.”
At the Eleventh IHR Conference in October 1992 – as he had in his presentations at the IHR Conferences of 1983, 1989 and 1990 – this good friend of the Institute for Historical Review not only shed new light on important chapters of twentieth-century history, he delighted attendees with humorous updates on some of the new ways he had found to make liberal flesh creep.
In the three decades since he published his first book, Irving has firmly established himself as not only one of the most successful and widely-read historians of our time, but also as one of the most courageous. More
California Court Rejects Mermelstein's Appeal
by Mark Weber
In the latest round in the long-standing effort by Holocaust personality Mel Mermelstein to shut down the Institute for Historical Review, the California Court of Appeal (Second Appellate District, Division Two) ruled on October 28, 1992, decisively in favor of the IHR and co-defendants.
The three judges -- Nott, Gates and Fukuto -- unanimously rejected Mermelstein's appeal of the dismissal, on September 19, 1991, by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Steven Lachs, of Mermelstein's complaint of malicious prosecution against IHR and its fellow defendants. (For more on the IHR's 1991 legal victory, see the IHR Newsletter, October 1991.)
Five days before its recent ruling, Mermelstein's lawyer had argued before the appeal court that Judge Lachs had erred in finding that the IHR and co-defant Willis Carto had probable cause to sue Mermelstein for libel.
However, IHR attorney William Hulsy's persuasive brief and oral arguments, as well as Judge Lachs' careful attention to the facts and the law in his decision to grant Hulsy's motions of non-suit and to dismiss Mermelstein's complaint, proved decisive. The ruling of the three appeals court judges was both unanimous and categorical. More
In the latest round in the long-standing effort by Holocaust personality Mel Mermelstein to shut down the Institute for Historical Review, the California Court of Appeal (Second Appellate District, Division Two) ruled on October 28, 1992, decisively in favor of the IHR and co-defendants.
The three judges -- Nott, Gates and Fukuto -- unanimously rejected Mermelstein's appeal of the dismissal, on September 19, 1991, by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Steven Lachs, of Mermelstein's complaint of malicious prosecution against IHR and its fellow defendants. (For more on the IHR's 1991 legal victory, see the IHR Newsletter, October 1991.)
Five days before its recent ruling, Mermelstein's lawyer had argued before the appeal court that Judge Lachs had erred in finding that the IHR and co-defant Willis Carto had probable cause to sue Mermelstein for libel.
However, IHR attorney William Hulsy's persuasive brief and oral arguments, as well as Judge Lachs' careful attention to the facts and the law in his decision to grant Hulsy's motions of non-suit and to dismiss Mermelstein's complaint, proved decisive. The ruling of the three appeals court judges was both unanimous and categorical. More
Growing Impact of the Leuchter Report in Germany
Munich's Institute of Contemporary History Seeks to Discredit Leuchter's Findings
by Mark Weber
Editor's introduction
Nowhere has the impact of the 1988 Leuchter Report been greater than in Germany, and understandably so. As one young German recently noted, if Holocaust revisionism wins widespread acceptance there, the impact will be felt not merely in the intellectual world; many people who currently hold positions of influence and power in German politics will be out of work, and those replacing them will have dramatically different views about the most fundamental social-political issues.
With stakes this high, the game is bound to get rough. When the first German-language edition of the Leuchter Report was published in late 1988 by Udo Walendy (as No. 36 in his series of magazine-format "Historical Facts" booklets), German authorities lost no time in suppressing it. Interestingly, though, the reason was not the Report itself, but rather the somewhat provocative commentary that accompanied Leuchter's text. Under German law, "scientific" writings are exempt from the ban that applies generally to otherwise politically incorrect works.
In fact, Germany's Ministry of Justice has in effect declared that the Leuchter Report cannot be prohibited because it is constitutionally protected as a "scholarly" work. In a letter dated March 13, 1990, a Ministry official wrote: More
by Mark Weber
Editor's introduction
Nowhere has the impact of the 1988 Leuchter Report been greater than in Germany, and understandably so. As one young German recently noted, if Holocaust revisionism wins widespread acceptance there, the impact will be felt not merely in the intellectual world; many people who currently hold positions of influence and power in German politics will be out of work, and those replacing them will have dramatically different views about the most fundamental social-political issues.
With stakes this high, the game is bound to get rough. When the first German-language edition of the Leuchter Report was published in late 1988 by Udo Walendy (as No. 36 in his series of magazine-format "Historical Facts" booklets), German authorities lost no time in suppressing it. Interestingly, though, the reason was not the Report itself, but rather the somewhat provocative commentary that accompanied Leuchter's text. Under German law, "scientific" writings are exempt from the ban that applies generally to otherwise politically incorrect works.
In fact, Germany's Ministry of Justice has in effect declared that the Leuchter Report cannot be prohibited because it is constitutionally protected as a "scholarly" work. In a letter dated March 13, 1990, a Ministry official wrote: More
About the Leuchter Special Issue
by Mark Weber
In 1988, when Fred Leuchter carried out the first forensic examination of the alleged wartime extermination gas chambers at Auschwitz, Birkenau and Majdanek, and then testified on his findings in a Toronto court, the American execution hardware specialist did not realize that by doing so he was condemning himself to years of insults, threats and severe financial hardship.
For the crime of daring to question the Holocaust idol, the powerful international Holocaust lobby resolved to punish this dangerous heretic. Charging that he is a pretentious and incompetent fraud, and that his 1988 forensic report is a mendacious affront to truth, his hateful adversaries have sought to discredit Leuchter and destroy his livelihood.
Sadly, this malicious campaign has been effective. For the time being, anyway, they have destroyed Fred Leuchter's ability to make a living at his chosen career.
In this Leuchter "theme" issue of the Journal, we respond to this campaign with a detailed defense of Leuchter's character, and of his history-making forensic report.
We begin this special issue with the publication -- for the first time in English -- of a report by a leading Austrian engineer that authoritatively discredits a central pillar of the Holocaust extermination story. Citing critical technical and organizational data, and the inviolable laws of nature, Vienna engineer Walter Lüftl persuasively establishes that the familiar stories of mass killings of Jews in gas chambers cannot have taken place as described. The 'Lüftl Report' also provides expert confirmation of the essential validity of Leuchter's findings. More
In 1988, when Fred Leuchter carried out the first forensic examination of the alleged wartime extermination gas chambers at Auschwitz, Birkenau and Majdanek, and then testified on his findings in a Toronto court, the American execution hardware specialist did not realize that by doing so he was condemning himself to years of insults, threats and severe financial hardship.
For the crime of daring to question the Holocaust idol, the powerful international Holocaust lobby resolved to punish this dangerous heretic. Charging that he is a pretentious and incompetent fraud, and that his 1988 forensic report is a mendacious affront to truth, his hateful adversaries have sought to discredit Leuchter and destroy his livelihood.
Sadly, this malicious campaign has been effective. For the time being, anyway, they have destroyed Fred Leuchter's ability to make a living at his chosen career.
In this Leuchter "theme" issue of the Journal, we respond to this campaign with a detailed defense of Leuchter's character, and of his history-making forensic report.
We begin this special issue with the publication -- for the first time in English -- of a report by a leading Austrian engineer that authoritatively discredits a central pillar of the Holocaust extermination story. Citing critical technical and organizational data, and the inviolable laws of nature, Vienna engineer Walter Lüftl persuasively establishes that the familiar stories of mass killings of Jews in gas chambers cannot have taken place as described. The 'Lüftl Report' also provides expert confirmation of the essential validity of Leuchter's findings. More
Fred Leuchter: Courageous Defender of Historical Truth
by Mark Weber
Until early 1988, Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. -- like most Americans -- basically accepted the Holocaust extermination story. In itself that is not at all remarkable, except that this man also just happened to be the foremost American expert on gassing and gas chamber technology.
As readers of this Journal know, Fred Leuchter was commissioned in early 1988 by German-Canadian publisher Ernst Zündel to conduct a thorough forensic investigation of the alleged wartime gassing facilities in Poland for his defense case in the Toronto "Holocaust Trial."
Zündel was so sure that the Holocaust gassing story would not stand up to expert examination that he sent Leuchter to Europe at considerable expense, completely confident that an independent investigation would confirm the Revisionist view.
In early 1988, Leuchter and his team carefully investigated the so-called gas chambers at, first, the Auschwitz main camp, second, the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, which is supposed to have been the most terrible Nazi extermination center, and, third, the Majdanek camp near Lublin, where the Allies claimed at Nuremberg that a million and a half people were killed. As an expert witness testifying under oath in April 1988 in the second Zündel trial, and in his published report of his on-site investigation, Fred Leuchter explained in detail that the supposed gas chambers at Auschwitz, Birkenau and Majdanek could not possibly have been used to gas people as alleged.
More
Until early 1988, Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. -- like most Americans -- basically accepted the Holocaust extermination story. In itself that is not at all remarkable, except that this man also just happened to be the foremost American expert on gassing and gas chamber technology.
As readers of this Journal know, Fred Leuchter was commissioned in early 1988 by German-Canadian publisher Ernst Zündel to conduct a thorough forensic investigation of the alleged wartime gassing facilities in Poland for his defense case in the Toronto "Holocaust Trial."
Zündel was so sure that the Holocaust gassing story would not stand up to expert examination that he sent Leuchter to Europe at considerable expense, completely confident that an independent investigation would confirm the Revisionist view.
In early 1988, Leuchter and his team carefully investigated the so-called gas chambers at, first, the Auschwitz main camp, second, the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, which is supposed to have been the most terrible Nazi extermination center, and, third, the Majdanek camp near Lublin, where the Allies claimed at Nuremberg that a million and a half people were killed. As an expert witness testifying under oath in April 1988 in the second Zündel trial, and in his published report of his on-site investigation, Fred Leuchter explained in detail that the supposed gas chambers at Auschwitz, Birkenau and Majdanek could not possibly have been used to gas people as alleged.
More
Pages From The Auschwitz Death Registry Volumes
Long-Hidden Death Certificates Discredit Extermination Claims
by Mark Weber
Over the years, Holocaust historians and standard Holocaust studies have consistently maintained that Jewish prisoners who arrived at Auschwitz between the spring of 1942 and the fall of 1944, and who were not able to work, were immediately put to death. Consistent with the alleged German program to exterminate Europe's Jews, only able-bodied Jews who could be "worked to death" were temporarily spared from the gas chambers. Holocaust historians also agree that no records were kept of the deaths of the Jews who were summarily killed in the camp's gas chambers because they were too old, too young or otherwise unable to work. [1]
However, Auschwitz camp death records — which were hidden away for more than 40 years in the Soviet Union — cast grave doubt on these widely accepted claims.
Inmate deaths at Auschwitz were carefully recorded by the camp authorities on certificates that were bound in dozens of death registry volumes. Each "death book" (Sterbebuch) contains hundreds of death certificates. Each certificate meticulously records numerous revealing details, including the deceased person's full name, profession and religion, date and place of birth, pre-Auschwitz residence, parents' names, time of death, and cause of death as determined by a camp physician. More
by Mark Weber
Over the years, Holocaust historians and standard Holocaust studies have consistently maintained that Jewish prisoners who arrived at Auschwitz between the spring of 1942 and the fall of 1944, and who were not able to work, were immediately put to death. Consistent with the alleged German program to exterminate Europe's Jews, only able-bodied Jews who could be "worked to death" were temporarily spared from the gas chambers. Holocaust historians also agree that no records were kept of the deaths of the Jews who were summarily killed in the camp's gas chambers because they were too old, too young or otherwise unable to work. [1]
However, Auschwitz camp death records — which were hidden away for more than 40 years in the Soviet Union — cast grave doubt on these widely accepted claims.
Inmate deaths at Auschwitz were carefully recorded by the camp authorities on certificates that were bound in dozens of death registry volumes. Each "death book" (Sterbebuch) contains hundreds of death certificates. Each certificate meticulously records numerous revealing details, including the deceased person's full name, profession and religion, date and place of birth, pre-Auschwitz residence, parents' names, time of death, and cause of death as determined by a camp physician. More
From the Editor
By Mark Weber
We begin this issue with another IHR exclusive. Published here for the first time anywhere are copies of inmate death certificates from the long-hidden Auschwitz camp death registry volumes.
These documents, which remained inaccessible in Soviet archives for more than 40 years, disprove the widely repeated myth that all Jewish inmates in Auschwitz who were too old or otherwise not able to work were promptly put to death, and that their deaths were not recorded.
We introduce a selection of facsimile reproductions of a number of these certificates with an essay that explains their significance.
We are grateful for the support of Revisionist researchers and activists in foreign countries, without whose help these documents -- which strike yet another powerful blow against the Holocaust extermination story -- could not have been have published.
Today, nearly almost half a century after his death in embattled Berlin, the extraordinary personality and dramatic career of Adolf Hitler continues to fascinate millions around the world.
"Ever since V-E day, the swastika has worked like an underwriter's lab seal of approval in Hollywood; Hitler makes anything high concept," a writer for the leftist New York weekly Village Voice recently commented. "In fact," he went on: More
We begin this issue with another IHR exclusive. Published here for the first time anywhere are copies of inmate death certificates from the long-hidden Auschwitz camp death registry volumes.
These documents, which remained inaccessible in Soviet archives for more than 40 years, disprove the widely repeated myth that all Jewish inmates in Auschwitz who were too old or otherwise not able to work were promptly put to death, and that their deaths were not recorded.
We introduce a selection of facsimile reproductions of a number of these certificates with an essay that explains their significance.
We are grateful for the support of Revisionist researchers and activists in foreign countries, without whose help these documents -- which strike yet another powerful blow against the Holocaust extermination story -- could not have been have published.
Today, nearly almost half a century after his death in embattled Berlin, the extraordinary personality and dramatic career of Adolf Hitler continues to fascinate millions around the world.
"Ever since V-E day, the swastika has worked like an underwriter's lab seal of approval in Hollywood; Hitler makes anything high concept," a writer for the leftist New York weekly Village Voice recently commented. "In fact," he went on: More
Treblinka
Wartime Aerial Photos of Treblinka Cast New Doubt on "Death Camp" Claims
by Mark Weber and Andrew Allen
Treblinka is widely regarded as the second most important German wartime extermination center. Only Auschwitz-Birkenau is supposed to have claimed more lives.
Treblinka became the focus of worldwide attention in 1987-1988 during the 14-month trial in Jerusalem of John (Ivan) Demjanjuk, a Ukrainian-born American factory worker. As Treblinka's "Ivan the Terrible," Demjanjuk supposedly operated the machinery used to gas hundreds of thousands of Jews there. Citing testimony by Jewish survivors, the Israeli court that condemned him to death in April 1988 declared that more than 850,000 Jews were killed at Treblinka between July 1942 and August 1943.
After the death sentence was handed down, Demjanjuk's family was able to discover previously suppressed evidence -- much of it from Soviet Russian archives -- indicating that the real "Ivan the Terrible" was another Ukrainian named Ivan Marchenko (or Marczenko). This new evidence discredited the courtroom testimony of five Jewish camp survivors, each of whom had "positively" identified Demjanjuk as the sadistic mass murderer of Treblinka. (note 1) More
by Mark Weber and Andrew Allen
Treblinka is widely regarded as the second most important German wartime extermination center. Only Auschwitz-Birkenau is supposed to have claimed more lives.
Treblinka became the focus of worldwide attention in 1987-1988 during the 14-month trial in Jerusalem of John (Ivan) Demjanjuk, a Ukrainian-born American factory worker. As Treblinka's "Ivan the Terrible," Demjanjuk supposedly operated the machinery used to gas hundreds of thousands of Jews there. Citing testimony by Jewish survivors, the Israeli court that condemned him to death in April 1988 declared that more than 850,000 Jews were killed at Treblinka between July 1942 and August 1943.
After the death sentence was handed down, Demjanjuk's family was able to discover previously suppressed evidence -- much of it from Soviet Russian archives -- indicating that the real "Ivan the Terrible" was another Ukrainian named Ivan Marchenko (or Marczenko). This new evidence discredited the courtroom testimony of five Jewish camp survivors, each of whom had "positively" identified Demjanjuk as the sadistic mass murderer of Treblinka. (note 1) More
War Atrocity Propaganda Exposed
by Mark Weber
A tearful account of Iraqi barbarism, which stunned millions of Americans and fueled popular enthusiasm for war against Saddam Hussein's regime, has now been definitively exposed as a propaganda hoax.
In testimony before a US congressional committee, October 10, 1990, a young Kuwaiti woman, publicly identified only as "Nayirah," tearfully claimed to have personally seen Iraqi soldiers storm into a Kuwait hospital and brutally remove 15 babies from incubators, leaving them "on the cold floor to die." Her moving testimony enraged millions of Americans, who saw it broadcast and re-broadcast on television, and was cited later by seven US Senators in speeches they gave in support of their decision to authorize American military action against Iraq in the "desert storm" Gulf War.
As it turns out, the emotionally powerful testimony was a sham. The young woman never witnessed the alleged atrocity, and "Nayirah" is actually the daughter of Kuwait's ambassador in Washington, Sheik Saud al Nasir al Sabah, a member of Kuwait's ruling clan. Her testimony was part of an extensive public relations blitz organized by the large Washington-based public relations firm of Hill and Knowlton. The PR campaign was financed with millions of dollars from Kuwait's government in exile. More
A tearful account of Iraqi barbarism, which stunned millions of Americans and fueled popular enthusiasm for war against Saddam Hussein's regime, has now been definitively exposed as a propaganda hoax.
In testimony before a US congressional committee, October 10, 1990, a young Kuwaiti woman, publicly identified only as "Nayirah," tearfully claimed to have personally seen Iraqi soldiers storm into a Kuwait hospital and brutally remove 15 babies from incubators, leaving them "on the cold floor to die." Her moving testimony enraged millions of Americans, who saw it broadcast and re-broadcast on television, and was cited later by seven US Senators in speeches they gave in support of their decision to authorize American military action against Iraq in the "desert storm" Gulf War.
As it turns out, the emotionally powerful testimony was a sham. The young woman never witnessed the alleged atrocity, and "Nayirah" is actually the daughter of Kuwait's ambassador in Washington, Sheik Saud al Nasir al Sabah, a member of Kuwait's ruling clan. Her testimony was part of an extensive public relations blitz organized by the large Washington-based public relations firm of Hill and Knowlton. The PR campaign was financed with millions of dollars from Kuwait's government in exile. More
Reviews of IHR Books Show Greater Acceptance of Revisionism
by Mark Weber
Books published by the Institute for Historical Review are gaining increasing acceptance, as indicated by reviews that have appeared in reputable journals and newspapers during the last several years. These respectful and often laudatory reviews show that the IHR is increasingly regarded as a legitimate publisher of serious works of history. Some highlights:
How I Survived the A-Bomb, Akira Kohchi's moving memoir, has received critical acclaim both in this country and in the author's homeland. In Japan, where the taboos against historical revisionism are not as stringent as in the United States, that country's leading English-language daily, The Japan Times, praised Kohchi's book as a "noteworthy" and "authentic" personal account in a lengthy review published December 11, 1990.
The Bookwatch, a monthly newsletter published by the Midwest Book Review -- and distributed to about 600 community libraries in California and about 400 in Wisconsin -- similarly praised Kohchi's memoir in its June 1990 issue as "a moving, gripping account." The complete text of the review: More
Books published by the Institute for Historical Review are gaining increasing acceptance, as indicated by reviews that have appeared in reputable journals and newspapers during the last several years. These respectful and often laudatory reviews show that the IHR is increasingly regarded as a legitimate publisher of serious works of history. Some highlights:
How I Survived the A-Bomb, Akira Kohchi's moving memoir, has received critical acclaim both in this country and in the author's homeland. In Japan, where the taboos against historical revisionism are not as stringent as in the United States, that country's leading English-language daily, The Japan Times, praised Kohchi's book as a "noteworthy" and "authentic" personal account in a lengthy review published December 11, 1990.
The Bookwatch, a monthly newsletter published by the Midwest Book Review -- and distributed to about 600 community libraries in California and about 400 in Wisconsin -- similarly praised Kohchi's memoir in its June 1990 issue as "a moving, gripping account." The complete text of the review: More
The Nuremberg Trials and the Holocaust
by Mark Weber
A common response to expressions of skepticism about the Holocaust story is to say something like "What about Nuremberg? What about the trials and all the evidence?!" This reaction is understandable because the many postwar "war crimes" trials have given explicit, authoritative judicial legitimacy to the Holocaust extermination story.
By far the most important of these was the great Nuremberg trial of 1945-1946, officially known as the International Military Tribunal (IMT). The governments of the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain and France put on trial the most prominent surviving German leaders as "Major War Criminals" for various "war crimes," "crimes against peace," and "crimes against humanity." In the words of the Tribunal's Charter, these "Nazi conspirators" carried out their crimes as part of a great "Common Plan or Conspiracy."
In addition, twelve secondary Nuremberg trials (NMT) organized by the US government alone were conducted between 1946 to 1949. Similar trials were also conducted by the British at Lüneburg and Hamburg, and by the United States at Dachau. Since then, many other Holocaust-related trials have been held in West Germany, Israel and the United States, including the highly-publicized trials in Jerusalem of Adolf Eichmann and John Demjanjuk.
More
A common response to expressions of skepticism about the Holocaust story is to say something like "What about Nuremberg? What about the trials and all the evidence?!" This reaction is understandable because the many postwar "war crimes" trials have given explicit, authoritative judicial legitimacy to the Holocaust extermination story.
By far the most important of these was the great Nuremberg trial of 1945-1946, officially known as the International Military Tribunal (IMT). The governments of the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain and France put on trial the most prominent surviving German leaders as "Major War Criminals" for various "war crimes," "crimes against peace," and "crimes against humanity." In the words of the Tribunal's Charter, these "Nazi conspirators" carried out their crimes as part of a great "Common Plan or Conspiracy."
In addition, twelve secondary Nuremberg trials (NMT) organized by the US government alone were conducted between 1946 to 1949. Similar trials were also conducted by the British at Lüneburg and Hamburg, and by the United States at Dachau. Since then, many other Holocaust-related trials have been held in West Germany, Israel and the United States, including the highly-publicized trials in Jerusalem of Adolf Eichmann and John Demjanjuk.
More
Revisionism in Croatia: Croatia's President Rejects 'Six Million' Story
by Mark Weber
While Holocaust Revisionism is suppressed in some countries, in Croatia it has official support from the highest level. Croatian President Franjo Tudjman publicly rejects the "Six Million" Holocaust story.
In a 500-page book entitled Bespuca -- Povjesne Zbiljnosti ("Wastelands -- Historical Truth"), which was published in 1988, and republished in 1989 and again in 1990, Tudjman comments in some detail on Second World War history. About the familiar Holocaust story he writes:
The estimated loss of up to six million [Jewish] dead is founded too much on both emotional, biased testimonies and on exaggerated data in the postwar reckonings of war crimes and squaring of accounts with the defeated -- In the mid'80s, world Jewry still has the need to recall its "holocaust" by trying to prevent the election of the former U.N. Secretary General Kurt Waldheim as president of Austria!
Tudjman, who worked for many years as a university history professor, also suggests that many wartime Jewish deaths would not have occurred if German armed forces had prevailed over the Soviet Union, allowing for a "territorial solution" to the Jewish question such as a "reservation" in eastern Poland or in Madagascar. (The New Republic, Nov. 25, 1991, pp. 16, 18.; Die Presse, Vienna, Jan. 28, 1992.) More
While Holocaust Revisionism is suppressed in some countries, in Croatia it has official support from the highest level. Croatian President Franjo Tudjman publicly rejects the "Six Million" Holocaust story.
In a 500-page book entitled Bespuca -- Povjesne Zbiljnosti ("Wastelands -- Historical Truth"), which was published in 1988, and republished in 1989 and again in 1990, Tudjman comments in some detail on Second World War history. About the familiar Holocaust story he writes:
The estimated loss of up to six million [Jewish] dead is founded too much on both emotional, biased testimonies and on exaggerated data in the postwar reckonings of war crimes and squaring of accounts with the defeated -- In the mid'80s, world Jewry still has the need to recall its "holocaust" by trying to prevent the election of the former U.N. Secretary General Kurt Waldheim as president of Austria!
Tudjman, who worked for many years as a university history professor, also suggests that many wartime Jewish deaths would not have occurred if German armed forces had prevailed over the Soviet Union, allowing for a "territorial solution" to the Jewish question such as a "reservation" in eastern Poland or in Madagascar. (The New Republic, Nov. 25, 1991, pp. 16, 18.; Die Presse, Vienna, Jan. 28, 1992.) More
A prominent Holocaust historian wrestles with a rising revisionism
by Mark Weber
Defenders of the crumbling Holocaust story are confused and frustrated about how best to respond to the increasingly "sophisticated" arguments of Revisionists, a leading Holocaust historian says. Writing in the April 1991 issue of Dimensions, the Zionist Anti-Defamation League's "Journal of Holocaust Studies, " Deborah Lipstadt declares that Revisionist historians must be relentlessly "exposed" and denounced, while carefully avoiding any discussion of what they actually write and say.
Lipstadt teaches history at Occidental College in Los Angeles. She is the author of Beyond Belief: The American Press and the Coming of the Holocaust, 1933-1945, and is currently working on a book about Holocaust Revisionism. If it is anything like this essay, her forthcoming work will be little more than a polemical smear job.
Holocaust revisionism can no longer simply be "brushed off, " she writes in her essay, "Resisting History," because Revisionists have adopted a much more serious and scholarly approach in recent years: More
Defenders of the crumbling Holocaust story are confused and frustrated about how best to respond to the increasingly "sophisticated" arguments of Revisionists, a leading Holocaust historian says. Writing in the April 1991 issue of Dimensions, the Zionist Anti-Defamation League's "Journal of Holocaust Studies, " Deborah Lipstadt declares that Revisionist historians must be relentlessly "exposed" and denounced, while carefully avoiding any discussion of what they actually write and say.
Lipstadt teaches history at Occidental College in Los Angeles. She is the author of Beyond Belief: The American Press and the Coming of the Holocaust, 1933-1945, and is currently working on a book about Holocaust Revisionism. If it is anything like this essay, her forthcoming work will be little more than a polemical smear job.
Holocaust revisionism can no longer simply be "brushed off, " she writes in her essay, "Resisting History," because Revisionists have adopted a much more serious and scholarly approach in recent years: More
'Jewish Soap'
by Mark Weber
One of the most lurid and slanderous Holocaust claims is the story that the Germans manufactured soap from the bodies of their victims. Although a similar charge during the First World War was exposed as a hoax almost immediately afterwards, it was nevertheless revived and widely believed during the Second. [1] More important, this accusation was "proved" at the main Nuremberg trial of 1945-1946, and has been authoritatively endorsed by numerous historians in the decades since. In recent years, though, as part of a broad retreat from the most obviously untenable aspects of the "orthodox" extermination story, Holocaust historians have grudgingly conceded that the human soap tale is a wartime propaganda lie. In their retreat, though, these historians have tried to dismiss the soap story as a mere wartime "rumor," neglecting to mention that international Jewish organizations and then Allied governments endorsed and sanctioned this libelous canard.
Wartime rumors that the Germans were manufacturing soap from the corpses of slaughtered Jews were based in part on the fact that soap bars distributed by German authorities in Jewish ghettos and camps bore the impressed initials "RIF," which many took to stand for "Rein jüdisches Fett" or "Pure Jewish Fat." (It did not seem to matter that the letters were "RIF" and not "RJF.") These rumors spread so widely in 1941 and 1942 that by late 1942 German authorities in Poland and Slovakia were expressing official concern about their impact. [2] More
One of the most lurid and slanderous Holocaust claims is the story that the Germans manufactured soap from the bodies of their victims. Although a similar charge during the First World War was exposed as a hoax almost immediately afterwards, it was nevertheless revived and widely believed during the Second. [1] More important, this accusation was "proved" at the main Nuremberg trial of 1945-1946, and has been authoritatively endorsed by numerous historians in the decades since. In recent years, though, as part of a broad retreat from the most obviously untenable aspects of the "orthodox" extermination story, Holocaust historians have grudgingly conceded that the human soap tale is a wartime propaganda lie. In their retreat, though, these historians have tried to dismiss the soap story as a mere wartime "rumor," neglecting to mention that international Jewish organizations and then Allied governments endorsed and sanctioned this libelous canard.
Wartime rumors that the Germans were manufacturing soap from the corpses of slaughtered Jews were based in part on the fact that soap bars distributed by German authorities in Jewish ghettos and camps bore the impressed initials "RIF," which many took to stand for "Rein jüdisches Fett" or "Pure Jewish Fat." (It did not seem to matter that the letters were "RIF" and not "RJF.") These rumors spread so widely in 1941 and 1942 that by late 1942 German authorities in Poland and Slovakia were expressing official concern about their impact. [2] More
Reviewing a Year of Progress
by Mark Weber
Since our last conference in February 1989, the entire world has been joyful witness to dramatic and almost unbelievable historical events in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Above all, we have seen the breakdown of Soviet Communism, and with it, the end of Soviet domination of eastern Europe.
These world-historical events, which were all but unthinkable just a few years ago, mark the welcome end of the Cold War and of the postwar era in Europe, including the artificial division of the continent. Along with these developments, including the steady withdrawal of both American and Soviet military forces from Europe, a new age of freedom is dawning in Europe.
The peoples of that continent are on their way to once again being masters of their own destiny.
Perhaps the most dramatic and symbolic expression of these changes was the opening of the Berlin Wall last November 9th. Just ten days ago, we witnessed the formal unification of the German Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic into a unified state of almost 80 million people. More
Keynote address presented October 13, 1990, to the Tenth International
Revisionist Conference.
Since our last conference in February 1989, the entire world has been joyful witness to dramatic and almost unbelievable historical events in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Above all, we have seen the breakdown of Soviet Communism, and with it, the end of Soviet domination of eastern Europe.
These world-historical events, which were all but unthinkable just a few years ago, mark the welcome end of the Cold War and of the postwar era in Europe, including the artificial division of the continent. Along with these developments, including the steady withdrawal of both American and Soviet military forces from Europe, a new age of freedom is dawning in Europe.
The peoples of that continent are on their way to once again being masters of their own destiny.
Perhaps the most dramatic and symbolic expression of these changes was the opening of the Berlin Wall last November 9th. Just ten days ago, we witnessed the formal unification of the German Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic into a unified state of almost 80 million people. More
Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers
Reviewed by Mark Weber
This useful and enlightening work by French pharmacist Jean-Claude Pressac is an ambitious defense of the Auschwitz extermination story against growing criticism from Holocaust revisionists. The author and the publishers -- "Nazi hunters" Beate and Serge Klarsfeld -- realize very clearly that Holocaust revisionism is not some temporary or frivolous phenomenon, but is a serious and formidable challenge that has already found many thoughtful adherents.
This book is being promoted by the publishers as "a scientific rebuttal of those who deny the gas chambers." An article about it in The New York Times (Dec. 18, 1989) appeared under the heading "A New Book Is Said to Refute Revisionist View of the Holocaust" or (in other editions) "Auschwitz: A Doubter Verifies the Horror."
Printed on 564 oversize pages of 17 by 11 inches, Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers includes hundreds of good-quality reproductions of original German architectural plans and diagrams, photographs taken both during and after the war, and many documents, with translations. About half of the one thousand copies that were printed have been donated to major libraries and research centers around the world. Remaining copies are being sold for $100 each, in the hope that they will be donated to smaller libraries. More
This useful and enlightening work by French pharmacist Jean-Claude Pressac is an ambitious defense of the Auschwitz extermination story against growing criticism from Holocaust revisionists. The author and the publishers -- "Nazi hunters" Beate and Serge Klarsfeld -- realize very clearly that Holocaust revisionism is not some temporary or frivolous phenomenon, but is a serious and formidable challenge that has already found many thoughtful adherents.
This book is being promoted by the publishers as "a scientific rebuttal of those who deny the gas chambers." An article about it in The New York Times (Dec. 18, 1989) appeared under the heading "A New Book Is Said to Refute Revisionist View of the Holocaust" or (in other editions) "Auschwitz: A Doubter Verifies the Horror."
Printed on 564 oversize pages of 17 by 11 inches, Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers includes hundreds of good-quality reproductions of original German architectural plans and diagrams, photographs taken both during and after the war, and many documents, with translations. About half of the one thousand copies that were printed have been donated to major libraries and research centers around the world. Remaining copies are being sold for $100 each, in the hope that they will be donated to smaller libraries. More
Alois Brunner Talks About His Past
by Mark Weber
"I first heard about gas chambers after the end of the war," says Alois Brunner, the "most wanted Nazi war criminal" still at large.
Following the Anschluss with Austria in 1938, SS Captain Brunner directed the Central Office for Jewish Emigration in Vienna, through which large numbers of Jews migrated to foreign countries.
The man known as "Eichmann's right hand" later organized deportations of Jews from Berlin, France, Slovakia and Greece to ghettos and camps in eastern Europe.
Since the 1950s he has been living in exile in Damascus, Syria, under the name of "Georg Fischer." Letter bomb attacks in 1961 and 1980 cost him one eye and the fingers of his left hand. Bodyguards constantly protect Brunner, who is now 76 or 77 years old; West Germany, Austria and France have asked for his extradition.
In 1985, the West German magazine Bunte published an interview in Damascus with Brunner, accompanied with color photographs. He told the Munich weekly that he had "no bad conscience" about his wartime work. Two years later, a rather widely reported Chicago Tribune interview gave the impression that an unrepentant Brunner admitted involvement in exterminating Jews. More
"I first heard about gas chambers after the end of the war," says Alois Brunner, the "most wanted Nazi war criminal" still at large.
Following the Anschluss with Austria in 1938, SS Captain Brunner directed the Central Office for Jewish Emigration in Vienna, through which large numbers of Jews migrated to foreign countries.
The man known as "Eichmann's right hand" later organized deportations of Jews from Berlin, France, Slovakia and Greece to ghettos and camps in eastern Europe.
Since the 1950s he has been living in exile in Damascus, Syria, under the name of "Georg Fischer." Letter bomb attacks in 1961 and 1980 cost him one eye and the fingers of his left hand. Bodyguards constantly protect Brunner, who is now 76 or 77 years old; West Germany, Austria and France have asked for his extradition.
In 1985, the West German magazine Bunte published an interview in Damascus with Brunner, accompanied with color photographs. He told the Munich weekly that he had "no bad conscience" about his wartime work. Two years later, a rather widely reported Chicago Tribune interview gave the impression that an unrepentant Brunner admitted involvement in exterminating Jews. More
Simon Wiesenthal: Bogus 'Nazi Hunter'
by Mark Weber
Simon Wiesenthal is a living legend. In a formal White House ceremony in August 1980, a teary-eyed President Carter presented the world's foremost "Nazi hunter" with a special gold medal awarded by the U.S. Congress. President Reagan praised him in November 1988 as one of the "true heroes" of this century.
He is the recipient of West Germany's highest decoration, and one of world's most renowned Holocaust organizations bears his name: the Simon Wiesenthal Center of Los Angeles. He was portrayed in flattering terms by the late Laurence Oliver in the 1978 film fantasy "The Boys From Brazil," and by Ben Kingsley in the April 1989 made-for-television movie "The Murderers Among Us: The Simon Wiesenthal Story."
Wiesenthal's reputation is undeserved. The man whom the Washington Post calls the "Holocaust's Avenging Angel" has a well-documented record of reckless disregard for truth. [1] He has lied about his own wartime experiences. He has misrepresented his postwar "Nazi-hunting" achievements, and has spread vile falsehoods about alleged German atrocities. He is certainly no moral authority. More
Simon Wiesenthal is a living legend. In a formal White House ceremony in August 1980, a teary-eyed President Carter presented the world's foremost "Nazi hunter" with a special gold medal awarded by the U.S. Congress. President Reagan praised him in November 1988 as one of the "true heroes" of this century.
He is the recipient of West Germany's highest decoration, and one of world's most renowned Holocaust organizations bears his name: the Simon Wiesenthal Center of Los Angeles. He was portrayed in flattering terms by the late Laurence Oliver in the 1978 film fantasy "The Boys From Brazil," and by Ben Kingsley in the April 1989 made-for-television movie "The Murderers Among Us: The Simon Wiesenthal Story."
Wiesenthal's reputation is undeserved. The man whom the Washington Post calls the "Holocaust's Avenging Angel" has a well-documented record of reckless disregard for truth. [1] He has lied about his own wartime experiences. He has misrepresented his postwar "Nazi-hunting" achievements, and has spread vile falsehoods about alleged German atrocities. He is certainly no moral authority. More
My Role in the Zündel Trial
by Mark Weber
For the better part of five days in March 1988, I testified as an expert witness for the defense in the "Holocaust Trial" of German-Canadian publisher Ernst Zündel. It was one of the most challenging and interesting experiences of my life, as well as one of the most emotionally grueling.
Zündel was on trial in Toronto District Court for publishing Did Six Million Really Die?, a 32-page booklet (often called the "Harwood booklet" after the pen name of its English author) that contests the Holocaust story, that the Germans systematically exterminated six million European Jews during the Second World War.
During my time on the stand, which included a detailed examination of the booklet itself, I presented evidence which, together with the testimony of the other defense witnesses, powerfully discredits the extermination story. I also told the court about the solid achievements of Holocaust Revisionism in the years since the Harwood booklet was first published in England in 1974.
For the sake of clarity in this essay, I have reorganized and compressed my testimony into a coherent summary. I have also tried to convey something of the atmosphere in the courtroom, and have included a few personal observations. More
For the better part of five days in March 1988, I testified as an expert witness for the defense in the "Holocaust Trial" of German-Canadian publisher Ernst Zündel. It was one of the most challenging and interesting experiences of my life, as well as one of the most emotionally grueling.
Zündel was on trial in Toronto District Court for publishing Did Six Million Really Die?, a 32-page booklet (often called the "Harwood booklet" after the pen name of its English author) that contests the Holocaust story, that the Germans systematically exterminated six million European Jews during the Second World War.
During my time on the stand, which included a detailed examination of the booklet itself, I presented evidence which, together with the testimony of the other defense witnesses, powerfully discredits the extermination story. I also told the court about the solid achievements of Holocaust Revisionism in the years since the Harwood booklet was first published in England in 1974.
For the sake of clarity in this essay, I have reorganized and compressed my testimony into a coherent summary. I have also tried to convey something of the atmosphere in the courtroom, and have included a few personal observations. More
The Strange Life of Ilya Ehrenburg
by Mark Weber
Ilya Ehrenburg, the leading Soviet propagandist of the Second World War, was a contradictory figure.
A recent article in the weekly Canadian Jewish News sheds new light on the life of this "man of a thousand masks." [1]
Ehrenburg was born in 1891 in Kiev to a non-religious Jewish family. In 1908 he fled Tsarist Russia because of his revolutionary activities.
Although he returned to visit after the Bolshevik revolution, he continued to live abroad, including many years in Paris, and did not settle in the Soviet Union until 1941.
A prolific writer, Ehrenburg was the author of almost 30 books. The central figure of one novel, The Stormy Life of Lazik Roitschwantz, is a pathetic "luftmensch," a recurring character in Jewish literature who seems to live "from the air" without visible means of support .
As a Jew and a dedicated Communist, Ehrenburg was a relentless enemy of German National Socialism. During the Second World War, he was a leading member of the Soviet-sponsored Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. More
Ilya Ehrenburg, the leading Soviet propagandist of the Second World War, was a contradictory figure.
A recent article in the weekly Canadian Jewish News sheds new light on the life of this "man of a thousand masks." [1]
Ehrenburg was born in 1891 in Kiev to a non-religious Jewish family. In 1908 he fled Tsarist Russia because of his revolutionary activities.
Although he returned to visit after the Bolshevik revolution, he continued to live abroad, including many years in Paris, and did not settle in the Soviet Union until 1941.
A prolific writer, Ehrenburg was the author of almost 30 books. The central figure of one novel, The Stormy Life of Lazik Roitschwantz, is a pathetic "luftmensch," a recurring character in Jewish literature who seems to live "from the air" without visible means of support .
As a Jew and a dedicated Communist, Ehrenburg was a relentless enemy of German National Socialism. During the Second World War, he was a leading member of the Soviet-sponsored Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. More
Dr. Karl Otto Braun: A Memorial Tribute
by Mark Weber
Dr. Karl Otto Braun -- German diplomat, businessman and Revisionist historian -- passed away in Munich on 21 August 1988, shortly before his 78th birthday. He is also remembered as an uncommonly decent and honorable man. He is survived by his wife, Elisabeth, and two daughters. The eldest, Monica, gave birth to his first grandchild, a girl, in late 1987.
Dr. Braun was born on 31 August 1910 in Wolnzach, Bavaria, the son of a physician. Young Karl Otto received his secondary education at the prestigious Wilhelmsgymnasium in Munich and the humanistic Gymnasium in Coburg.
He studied English, history, geography and international law at the universities of Munich, London and Berlin, including study under the great historian Dr. Karl Alexander von Müller in Munich. Braun's special areas of emphasis were Manchuria, the League of Nations and the works of Shakespeare. After receiving his Dr. phil. (Ph.D.) in 1935, he studied Japanese at the University of Berlin's center for oriental languages. (He also spoke English, Italian, Spanish and French.)
He received a year of training for the diplomatic service at the German Foreign Office in Berlin, and then, from 1938 to November 1940, he served in Japan as a cultural attache with the German embassy in Tokyo and as an economic affairs Vice Consul with the German Consulate General in Osaka. From 1941 until the end of the Second World War he was with the East Asia section of the Political Department of the German Foreign Office in Berlin. During the final two years of the war, he headed the section. During that terrible period, he also lost his brother, Major Wilhelm Braun, who was killed in action in Poland in July 1944. More
Dr. Karl Otto Braun -- German diplomat, businessman and Revisionist historian -- passed away in Munich on 21 August 1988, shortly before his 78th birthday. He is also remembered as an uncommonly decent and honorable man. He is survived by his wife, Elisabeth, and two daughters. The eldest, Monica, gave birth to his first grandchild, a girl, in late 1987.
Dr. Braun was born on 31 August 1910 in Wolnzach, Bavaria, the son of a physician. Young Karl Otto received his secondary education at the prestigious Wilhelmsgymnasium in Munich and the humanistic Gymnasium in Coburg.
He studied English, history, geography and international law at the universities of Munich, London and Berlin, including study under the great historian Dr. Karl Alexander von Müller in Munich. Braun's special areas of emphasis were Manchuria, the League of Nations and the works of Shakespeare. After receiving his Dr. phil. (Ph.D.) in 1935, he studied Japanese at the University of Berlin's center for oriental languages. (He also spoke English, Italian, Spanish and French.)
He received a year of training for the diplomatic service at the German Foreign Office in Berlin, and then, from 1938 to November 1940, he served in Japan as a cultural attache with the German embassy in Tokyo and as an economic affairs Vice Consul with the German Consulate General in Osaka. From 1941 until the end of the Second World War he was with the East Asia section of the Political Department of the German Foreign Office in Berlin. During the final two years of the war, he headed the section. During that terrible period, he also lost his brother, Major Wilhelm Braun, who was killed in action in Poland in July 1944. More
The Reichstag speech of December 11, 1941: Hitler's declaration of war against the United States
It has often been said that Hitler's greatest mistakes were his
decisions to go to war against the Soviet Union and the United States. Whatever
the truth may be, it's worth noting his own detailed justifications for these
grave decisions. On Thursday afternoon, 11 December 1941, four days after the
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hitler spoke to the Reichstag in Berlin. The
88-minute address, which he had written himself, was broadcast to the nation. In
it the German leader recounted the reasons for the outbreak of war in September
1939, explained why he decided to strike against the Soviet Union in June 1941,
reviewed the dramatic course of the war thus far, and dealt at length with
President Franklin Roosevelt's hostile policies toward Germany. Hitler detailed
the increasingly belligerent actions of Roosevelt's government and then
dramatically announced that Germany was now joining Japan in war against the
United States. The day after it was delivered, a very inaccurate and misleading
translation of portions of the address appeared in the New York Times. But
although it should be of particular interest to Americans, a complete text of
this important historical document has apparently never before been made
available to the English-speaking world.
This translation is my own, as are
the brief clarifications given in brackets.
Following the speech, I have
included Germany's formal note to the U.S. government declaring war and a short
list of items for suggested further reading.
-- Mark Weber
Deputies! Men of the German Reichstag!
A year of world-historical events is coming to an end. A year of great decisions is approaching. In this grave period I speak to you, deputies of the Reichstag, as the representatives of the German nation. In addition, the entire German nation should also review what has happened and take note of the decisions required by the present and the future.
After the repeated rejection of my peace proposal in 1940 by the British Prime Minister [Churchill] and the clique that supports and controls him, it was clear by the fall of that year that this war would have to be fought through to the end, contrary to all logic and necessity. You, my old Party comrades, know that I have always detested half-hearted or weak decisions. If Providence has deemed that the German people are not to be spared this struggle, then I am thankful that She has entrusted me with the leadership in a historic conflict that will be decisive in determining the next five hundred or one thousand years, not only of our German history, but also of the history of Europe and even of the entire world.
The German people and its soldiers work and fight today not only for themselves and their own age, but also for many generations to come. A historical task of unique dimensions has been entrusted to us by the Creator which we are now obliged to carry out. More
West Germany's Holocaust payoff to Israel and world Jewry
by Mark Weber
The passions and propaganda of wartime normally diminish with the passage of time. A striking exception is the Holocaust campaign, which seems to grow more pervasive and intense as the years go by. Certainly the most lucrative expression of this seemingly endless campaign has been West Germangs massive and historically unparalleled reparations payoff to Israel and world Jewry for the alleged collective sins of the German people during the Hitler era. Since 1953, West Germany has paid out more than $35 billion in reparations to the Zionist state and to millions of individual "victims of National Socialism."
How did this remarkable program get started? How lucrative has it been? What does it suggest about the "six million" figure? And what are its social and political implications?
Bowing to pressure
In September 1945, shortly after the end of the Second World War, Jewish leader Chaim Weizmann submitted a memorandum on behalf of the Zionist Jewish Agency to the governments of the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain and France "demanding" (in the words of the Encydopaedia Judaica) "reparations, restitution and indemnification due to the Jewish people from Germany" The western Allies lost no time in responding favorably to Weizmann's demands.See 1. The American government was particularly eager to have the Germans pay up.See 2. As a result, the German government set up by the western Allies at Bonn in 1949 never had any real choice but to acknowledge the alleged collective guilt of the German people during the Hitler era and pay what was demanded. More
The passions and propaganda of wartime normally diminish with the passage of time. A striking exception is the Holocaust campaign, which seems to grow more pervasive and intense as the years go by. Certainly the most lucrative expression of this seemingly endless campaign has been West Germangs massive and historically unparalleled reparations payoff to Israel and world Jewry for the alleged collective sins of the German people during the Hitler era. Since 1953, West Germany has paid out more than $35 billion in reparations to the Zionist state and to millions of individual "victims of National Socialism."
How did this remarkable program get started? How lucrative has it been? What does it suggest about the "six million" figure? And what are its social and political implications?
Bowing to pressure
In September 1945, shortly after the end of the Second World War, Jewish leader Chaim Weizmann submitted a memorandum on behalf of the Zionist Jewish Agency to the governments of the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain and France "demanding" (in the words of the Encydopaedia Judaica) "reparations, restitution and indemnification due to the Jewish people from Germany" The western Allies lost no time in responding favorably to Weizmann's demands.See 1. The American government was particularly eager to have the Germans pay up.See 2. As a result, the German government set up by the western Allies at Bonn in 1949 never had any real choice but to acknowledge the alleged collective guilt of the German people during the Hitler era and pay what was demanded. More
An Open Letter to the Rev. Mark Herbener
The following open letter was first published in Christian News, (Box 168, New Haven, MO 63068) a traditionalist Lutheran weekly friendly to Holocaust Revisionism, on April 27, 1987. In it Mark Weber responded to several letters by the Reverend Mark Herbener, a clergyman of the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches and a member of the Dallas (Texas) Memorial Center for Holocaust Studies. Weber's letter has been translated into French and published in the excellent French Revisionist quarterly, Annales d'Histoire Révisionniste (Autumn-Winter 1987, No. 3; B.P. 9805, 75224 Paris CEDEX 05, France). Readers of The Journal of Historical Review will be happy to learn that the challenge to debate the historicity of the Holocaust issue at the conclusion of "An Open Letter to the Rev. Mark Herbener" has been accepted by a group of Christian fundamentalists led by attorney Glen Peglau; as of this writing the debate is projected for early 1989, and will be held in Washington, DC. The Rev. Herbener has not replied to Mr. Weber's arguments or to his questions. - Editor
Dear Rev. Herbener:
Over the years, I have written a number of revisionist articles and essays challenging the story that the German government systematically exterminated some six million European Jews during the Second World War.
I was therefore particularly interested to read your letters of March 5, 18, and 27 to Rev. Herman Otten, along with his replies, in recent issues of the weekly Christian News. I also felt called upon to reply with this open letter to some of the questions and points you raised.
You pose a question that you apparently believe that revisionists cannot answer. You ask "What happened to the Jews who were transported to Sobibor or Chelmno or Treblinka?"
No 'Extermination Camps' in Germany More
Buchenwald: Legend and Reality
by Mark Weber
Buchenwald is widely regarded as one of wartime Germany's most notorious "death camps." In fact, though, this carefully cultivated image bears little resemblance to reality. Today, more than forty years after the end of the Second World War, the camp deserves another, more objective look.
History and Function
The Buchenwald concentration camp was located on a wooded hill outside of Weimar, in what is now East Germany. It was opened in July 1937. Until the war years, almost all the inmates were either professional criminals or political prisoners (most of them ardent Communists). Some 2,300 Buchenwald inmates were pardoned in 1939 in honor of Hitler's 50th birthday.
At the outbreak of war in September 1939 the camp population was 5,300. This grew slowly to 12,000 in early 1943, and then increased rapidly as many foreign workers, especially Poles, Ukrainians and Russians, were brought for employment in war production. (note l)
During the war years Buchenwald was expanded into a vast complex of more than a hundred satellite factories, mines and workshops spread across a large portion of Germany. The most important of these was probably the Dora underground plant, which produced V-2 missiles. In October 1944 it became the independent Nordhausen (Mittelbau) camp. (note 2) More
Buchenwald is widely regarded as one of wartime Germany's most notorious "death camps." In fact, though, this carefully cultivated image bears little resemblance to reality. Today, more than forty years after the end of the Second World War, the camp deserves another, more objective look.
History and Function
The Buchenwald concentration camp was located on a wooded hill outside of Weimar, in what is now East Germany. It was opened in July 1937. Until the war years, almost all the inmates were either professional criminals or political prisoners (most of them ardent Communists). Some 2,300 Buchenwald inmates were pardoned in 1939 in honor of Hitler's 50th birthday.
At the outbreak of war in September 1939 the camp population was 5,300. This grew slowly to 12,000 in early 1943, and then increased rapidly as many foreign workers, especially Poles, Ukrainians and Russians, were brought for employment in war production. (note l)
During the war years Buchenwald was expanded into a vast complex of more than a hundred satellite factories, mines and workshops spread across a large portion of Germany. The most important of these was probably the Dora underground plant, which produced V-2 missiles. In October 1944 it became the independent Nordhausen (Mittelbau) camp. (note 2) More
Joseph Sobran and Historical Revisionism
by Mark Weber
One of America's best conservative writers, Joseph Sobran, is currently under fire for his outspoken criticisms of Zionism and, in part, for an implied sympathy for historical Revisionism. Sobran writes a twice-weekly syndicated column that is distributed to about 70 newspapers in the United States. He is also a senior editor of National Review magazine.
Sobran's first "thoughtcrime" column, which vigorously defended President Reagan's decision to honor German soldiers buried at Bitburg, appeared in April 1985. In one essay he wrote: "Imputing diabolism to Hitler can be a strategy of pretending that his was a peculiar aberration. This allows us to evade the gross fact that communism has proved a far more potent and persistent evil than Nazism, which was a brief flare-up by comparison." Thus, he wrote, "it strikes me as misleading to speak of Hitler's crimes as 'the Holocaust.' This has been a century of holocausts. There is no 'the' holocaust. We are kidding ourselves if we tall as if there were anything 'unique' about what the Nazis did." Therefore, we "have no right to denounce 'the Holocaust' as long as we shut our eyes to the (communist) holocaust in progress."
In another column a few days later, Sobran wrote: "Along with those who care deeply about what Hitler did to the Jews, there are the Elmer Gantrys who inevitably attach themselves to every legitimate cause. In the '60s we were manipulated by people who used the memory of slave ships to extort moral deference and expressions of white guilt, which were parlayed into political power and-the bottom line-money. The same thing is now being done with Hitler's mass murders. If you don't condemn them in the prescribed ritual ways, the guilt-mongers will find a way to lump you with Hitler himself." Sobran jokingly added that, because of its obsession with one particular chapter of history, The New York Times, "really ought to change its name to Holocaust Update." More
One of America's best conservative writers, Joseph Sobran, is currently under fire for his outspoken criticisms of Zionism and, in part, for an implied sympathy for historical Revisionism. Sobran writes a twice-weekly syndicated column that is distributed to about 70 newspapers in the United States. He is also a senior editor of National Review magazine.
Sobran's first "thoughtcrime" column, which vigorously defended President Reagan's decision to honor German soldiers buried at Bitburg, appeared in April 1985. In one essay he wrote: "Imputing diabolism to Hitler can be a strategy of pretending that his was a peculiar aberration. This allows us to evade the gross fact that communism has proved a far more potent and persistent evil than Nazism, which was a brief flare-up by comparison." Thus, he wrote, "it strikes me as misleading to speak of Hitler's crimes as 'the Holocaust.' This has been a century of holocausts. There is no 'the' holocaust. We are kidding ourselves if we tall as if there were anything 'unique' about what the Nazis did." Therefore, we "have no right to denounce 'the Holocaust' as long as we shut our eyes to the (communist) holocaust in progress."
In another column a few days later, Sobran wrote: "Along with those who care deeply about what Hitler did to the Jews, there are the Elmer Gantrys who inevitably attach themselves to every legitimate cause. In the '60s we were manipulated by people who used the memory of slave ships to extort moral deference and expressions of white guilt, which were parlayed into political power and-the bottom line-money. The same thing is now being done with Hitler's mass murders. If you don't condemn them in the prescribed ritual ways, the guilt-mongers will find a way to lump you with Hitler himself." Sobran jokingly added that, because of its obsession with one particular chapter of history, The New York Times, "really ought to change its name to Holocaust Update." More
Millions Go Into New Museums
by Mark Weber
The campaign for the "U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum" in Washington D.C., has moved into high gear, says national director David Weinstein. More than $13 million in gifts and pledges for the museum center have already been received, he reports, and the campaign is receiving "support from all sectors of American life, which should enable construction of the museum to begin in the fall."
The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, an independent federal government agency, was mandated by Congress to build the national museum, which will be the only one in the world outside of Israel. President Ronald Reagan is honorary chairman of the museum's fund-raisin campaign.
The Council has set the Spring of 1989 as the target date for completion of the museum, which will be built near the Mall and the Washington Monument. Churches, schools, labor unions and corporations are scheduled to participate in the national fund-raising drive for the museum center, which will be supported with a massive nationwide Holocaust media barrage. The campaign will aim to collect $100 million, including an estimated $30 million for construction costs, $45 million for equipment, exhibits, computer systems, films and books, and $25 million for maintenance and operating costs.
The 275,000-square-foot museum center building will include a 10,000 square foot "Hall of Remembrance," as well as a library, archives, an auditorium and classrooms. Some 80,000 square feet of space will be reserved for both permanent and changing exhibitions. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council expects the museum to serve regional and local Holocaust centers across the country. More
The campaign for the "U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum" in Washington D.C., has moved into high gear, says national director David Weinstein. More than $13 million in gifts and pledges for the museum center have already been received, he reports, and the campaign is receiving "support from all sectors of American life, which should enable construction of the museum to begin in the fall."
The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, an independent federal government agency, was mandated by Congress to build the national museum, which will be the only one in the world outside of Israel. President Ronald Reagan is honorary chairman of the museum's fund-raisin campaign.
The Council has set the Spring of 1989 as the target date for completion of the museum, which will be built near the Mall and the Washington Monument. Churches, schools, labor unions and corporations are scheduled to participate in the national fund-raising drive for the museum center, which will be supported with a massive nationwide Holocaust media barrage. The campaign will aim to collect $100 million, including an estimated $30 million for construction costs, $45 million for equipment, exhibits, computer systems, films and books, and $25 million for maintenance and operating costs.
The 275,000-square-foot museum center building will include a 10,000 square foot "Hall of Remembrance," as well as a library, archives, an auditorium and classrooms. Some 80,000 square feet of space will be reserved for both permanent and changing exhibitions. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council expects the museum to serve regional and local Holocaust centers across the country. More
Churchill Wanted to 'Drench' Germany With Poison Gas
by Mark Weber
In a secret wartime memorandum recently made public, Winston Churchill told his advisers that he wanted to "drench" Germany with poison gas. Churchill's July 1944 memo to his chief of staff Gen. Hastings Ismay was reproduced in the August-September 1985 issue of American Heritage magazine.
"I you to think very seriously over this question of poison gas," the four-page note began. Britain's wartime leader continued; "It is absurd to consider morality on this topic when everybody used it [gas] in the last war without a word of complaint from the moralists or the Church. On the other hand, in the last war the bombing of open cities was regarded as forbidden. Now everybody does it as a matter of course. It is simply a question of fashion changing as she does between long and short skirts for women."
Churchill's directive bluntly stated: "I want a cold-blooded calculation made as to how it would pay to use poison gas ... One really must not be bound within silly conventions of the mind whether they be those that ruled in the last war or those in reverse which rule in this." Specifically he proposed: "We could drench the cities of the Ruhr and many other cities in Germany in such a way that most of the population would be requiring constant medical attention ... It may be several weeks or even months before I shall ask you to drench Germany with poison gas, and if we do it, let us do it one hundred per cent. In the meantime, I want the matter studied in cold blood by sensible people and not by the particular set of psalm-singing uniformed defeatists which one runs across now here now here now there." More
In a secret wartime memorandum recently made public, Winston Churchill told his advisers that he wanted to "drench" Germany with poison gas. Churchill's July 1944 memo to his chief of staff Gen. Hastings Ismay was reproduced in the August-September 1985 issue of American Heritage magazine.
"I you to think very seriously over this question of poison gas," the four-page note began. Britain's wartime leader continued; "It is absurd to consider morality on this topic when everybody used it [gas] in the last war without a word of complaint from the moralists or the Church. On the other hand, in the last war the bombing of open cities was regarded as forbidden. Now everybody does it as a matter of course. It is simply a question of fashion changing as she does between long and short skirts for women."
Churchill's directive bluntly stated: "I want a cold-blooded calculation made as to how it would pay to use poison gas ... One really must not be bound within silly conventions of the mind whether they be those that ruled in the last war or those in reverse which rule in this." Specifically he proposed: "We could drench the cities of the Ruhr and many other cities in Germany in such a way that most of the population would be requiring constant medical attention ... It may be several weeks or even months before I shall ask you to drench Germany with poison gas, and if we do it, let us do it one hundred per cent. In the meantime, I want the matter studied in cold blood by sensible people and not by the particular set of psalm-singing uniformed defeatists which one runs across now here now here now there." More
Stalin Prepared for Summer 1941 Attack
by Mark Weber
Viktor Suvorov is a former member of the Soviet General Staff who now lives in the West. He is the author of three authoritative works on the Soviet armed forces. Writing in the June 1985 issue of the Journal of the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies, Suvorov assembles impressive evidence to show that Stalin was preparing to attack Germany in 1941. The respected British journal introduced this startling article by noting that "historians who have hitherto uncritically accepted the thesis that Stalin was the victim of unprovoked aggression in the summer of 1941 may have to revise, or at least modify, their views."
Suvorov writes that on 13 June 1941 Stalin secretly began "the biggest troop movement in the history of civilization, transferring enormous military forces to the Soviet-German frontier. The Soviet troops were deployed there not for defense, but in preparation for a surprise invasion.
"It seems certain," writes Suvorov, "that the Soviet concentration on the frontier was due to be completed by 10 July. Thus, the German blow which fell just 19 days earlier found the Red Army in the most unfavorable situation -- in railway wagons."
Citing information compiled mostly from official Soviet sources, Suvorov concludes that "the only credible military intention which Stalin could have had was to begin the war himself in the summer of 1941." More
Viktor Suvorov is a former member of the Soviet General Staff who now lives in the West. He is the author of three authoritative works on the Soviet armed forces. Writing in the June 1985 issue of the Journal of the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies, Suvorov assembles impressive evidence to show that Stalin was preparing to attack Germany in 1941. The respected British journal introduced this startling article by noting that "historians who have hitherto uncritically accepted the thesis that Stalin was the victim of unprovoked aggression in the summer of 1941 may have to revise, or at least modify, their views."
Suvorov writes that on 13 June 1941 Stalin secretly began "the biggest troop movement in the history of civilization, transferring enormous military forces to the Soviet-German frontier. The Soviet troops were deployed there not for defense, but in preparation for a surprise invasion.
"It seems certain," writes Suvorov, "that the Soviet concentration on the frontier was due to be completed by 10 July. Thus, the German blow which fell just 19 days earlier found the Red Army in the most unfavorable situation -- in railway wagons."
Citing information compiled mostly from official Soviet sources, Suvorov concludes that "the only credible military intention which Stalin could have had was to begin the war himself in the summer of 1941." More
Rauschning's Phony 'Conversations With Hitler': An Update
by Mark Weber
One of the most widely quoted sources of information about Hitler's personality and secret intentions is the supposed memoir of Hermann Rauschning, the National Socialist President of the Danzig Senate in 1933-1934 who was ousted from the Hitler movement a short time later and then made a new life for himself as a professional anti-Nazi.
In the book known in German as Conversations with Hitler (Gespraeche mit Hitler) and first published in the U.S. in 1940 as The Voice of Destruction, Rauschning presents page after page of what are purported to be Hitler's most intimate views and plans for the future, allegedly based on dozens of private conversations between 1932 and 1934. After the war the memoir was introduced as Allied prosecution exhibit USSR-378 at the main Nuremberg "war crimes" trial.
Among the damning quotations attributed to Hitler by Rauschning are these memorable statements: More
One of the most widely quoted sources of information about Hitler's personality and secret intentions is the supposed memoir of Hermann Rauschning, the National Socialist President of the Danzig Senate in 1933-1934 who was ousted from the Hitler movement a short time later and then made a new life for himself as a professional anti-Nazi.
In the book known in German as Conversations with Hitler (Gespraeche mit Hitler) and first published in the U.S. in 1940 as The Voice of Destruction, Rauschning presents page after page of what are purported to be Hitler's most intimate views and plans for the future, allegedly based on dozens of private conversations between 1932 and 1934. After the war the memoir was introduced as Allied prosecution exhibit USSR-378 at the main Nuremberg "war crimes" trial.
Among the damning quotations attributed to Hitler by Rauschning are these memorable statements: More
Lessons of the Mengele Affair
by Mark Weber
With the possible exceptions of Hitler and Himmler, no man has been so vilified in recent years as the personification of Nazi evil as Dr. Josef Mengele. The Mengele legend was the basis for two novels that Hollywood turned into popular movies: William Goldman's The Marathon Man and Ira Levin's The Boys From Brazil. In the latter film, Gregory Peck played a relentlessly malevolent Dr. Mengele who cloned dozens of little Hitlers as part of a diabolical Latin American Nazi conspiracy.
In countless newspapers and magazine articles, Mengele has been routinely accused of sending 400,000 people to their deaths in gas chambers while serving as the chief physician at Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1943 and 1944. The man dubbed the "Angel of Death" supposedly conducted gruesome "experiments" on selected Jewish victims and habitually delighted in sadistic atrocities. For example, according to U.S. News and World Report (24 June 1985) he enjoyed "giving candy to children he tossed alive into the ovens while he hummed Mozart and Wagner." The Washington Post (8 March 1985) reported that Mengele "routinely tossed babies into ovens alive" and "ordered pregnant women onto their backs, then stomped them until they aborted."
The media campaign reached a climax in June 1985 when the Mengele name was repeated daily on newspaper front pages and television network evening news broadcasts. Mengele's face stared from the cover of the gossipy mass circulation People weekly. A hunt that had been going on for years finally came to an end when an international team of forensic scientists positively identified the mortal remains exhumed from a Brazilian grave as those of Dr. Josef Mengele. Testimony from relatives and former friends of the German physician and a large collection of documentary material further established that Mengele had died in a drowning accident in February 1979. More
With the possible exceptions of Hitler and Himmler, no man has been so vilified in recent years as the personification of Nazi evil as Dr. Josef Mengele. The Mengele legend was the basis for two novels that Hollywood turned into popular movies: William Goldman's The Marathon Man and Ira Levin's The Boys From Brazil. In the latter film, Gregory Peck played a relentlessly malevolent Dr. Mengele who cloned dozens of little Hitlers as part of a diabolical Latin American Nazi conspiracy.
In countless newspapers and magazine articles, Mengele has been routinely accused of sending 400,000 people to their deaths in gas chambers while serving as the chief physician at Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1943 and 1944. The man dubbed the "Angel of Death" supposedly conducted gruesome "experiments" on selected Jewish victims and habitually delighted in sadistic atrocities. For example, according to U.S. News and World Report (24 June 1985) he enjoyed "giving candy to children he tossed alive into the ovens while he hummed Mozart and Wagner." The Washington Post (8 March 1985) reported that Mengele "routinely tossed babies into ovens alive" and "ordered pregnant women onto their backs, then stomped them until they aborted."
The media campaign reached a climax in June 1985 when the Mengele name was repeated daily on newspaper front pages and television network evening news broadcasts. Mengele's face stared from the cover of the gossipy mass circulation People weekly. A hunt that had been going on for years finally came to an end when an international team of forensic scientists positively identified the mortal remains exhumed from a Brazilian grave as those of Dr. Josef Mengele. Testimony from relatives and former friends of the German physician and a large collection of documentary material further established that Mengele had died in a drowning accident in February 1979. More
The Abandonment Of The Jews: America and the Holocaust
Reviewed by Mark Weber
Most of the important information assembled in this significant new book has already been presented and evaluated by others, most notably by Bernard Wasserstein, Martin Gilbert and Arthur Morse. But in The Abandonment of the Jews, David Wyman goes further than any other historian to accuse the Allied wartime leadership of passive complicity in the Holocaust.
Wyman makes no secret of his basic outlook. In the preface he describes himself as "strongly pro-Zionist" and a "resolute supporter of the state of Israel." He is a member of the Academic Advisory Board of the Simon Wiesenthal Center of Los Angeles. The bias that pervades this book is reflected, for example, in Wyman's reference to "the alleged Russian massacre of Polish officers at the Katyn forest." (p. 334. Emphasis added.) While eager to accept at face value the unsubstantiated Holocaust story, Wyman is unwilling to acknowledge the indisputably established Soviet slaughter of thousands of leading Poles in the Katyn forest near Smolensk.
Wyman devotes just three pages of "evidence" for the Holocaust itself, including a lengthy excerpt from the widely-quoted affidavit of Hermann Graebe (Nuremberg document 2992-PS) describing a mass shooting of Soviet Jews in 1942. Wyman does not mention (and probably does not know) that in 1964 and 1965 Graebe was proven to have been a professional liar who perjured himself in 145 Allied "war crimes" trials, and that his famous "eyewitness" affidavit is now thoroughly discredited. (See: Der Spiegel, 29 December 1965, pp. 25-28) Also cited is Göring's well-known letter of 31 July 1941 to Heydrich which Wyman describes as the "directive" for "the systematic extermination of all Jews in the Nazi grip." But as the letter's text (not given by Wyman) makes rather clear, and as Martin Broszat and some other anti-Hitler historians have conceded, Göring's reference to "the final solution of the Jewish question" in this key document meant peaceful emigration and deportation, not extermination. More
Most of the important information assembled in this significant new book has already been presented and evaluated by others, most notably by Bernard Wasserstein, Martin Gilbert and Arthur Morse. But in The Abandonment of the Jews, David Wyman goes further than any other historian to accuse the Allied wartime leadership of passive complicity in the Holocaust.
Wyman makes no secret of his basic outlook. In the preface he describes himself as "strongly pro-Zionist" and a "resolute supporter of the state of Israel." He is a member of the Academic Advisory Board of the Simon Wiesenthal Center of Los Angeles. The bias that pervades this book is reflected, for example, in Wyman's reference to "the alleged Russian massacre of Polish officers at the Katyn forest." (p. 334. Emphasis added.) While eager to accept at face value the unsubstantiated Holocaust story, Wyman is unwilling to acknowledge the indisputably established Soviet slaughter of thousands of leading Poles in the Katyn forest near Smolensk.
Wyman devotes just three pages of "evidence" for the Holocaust itself, including a lengthy excerpt from the widely-quoted affidavit of Hermann Graebe (Nuremberg document 2992-PS) describing a mass shooting of Soviet Jews in 1942. Wyman does not mention (and probably does not know) that in 1964 and 1965 Graebe was proven to have been a professional liar who perjured himself in 145 Allied "war crimes" trials, and that his famous "eyewitness" affidavit is now thoroughly discredited. (See: Der Spiegel, 29 December 1965, pp. 25-28) Also cited is Göring's well-known letter of 31 July 1941 to Heydrich which Wyman describes as the "directive" for "the systematic extermination of all Jews in the Nazi grip." But as the letter's text (not given by Wyman) makes rather clear, and as Martin Broszat and some other anti-Hitler historians have conceded, Göring's reference to "the final solution of the Jewish question" in this key document meant peaceful emigration and deportation, not extermination. More
Historical Revisionism and the Legacy of George Orwell
by Mark Weber
During the Second World War, George Orwell wrote a weekly radio political commentary, designed to counter German and Japanese propaganda in India, that was broadcast over the BBC overseas service. His wartime work for the BBC was a major inspiration for his monumental novel, 1984. Very few readers of 1984 know, for example, that Orwell's attack against the perverse double-talk language called Newspeak was based on the author's revulsion against Basic English, an artificial language that Churchill's wartime cabinet wanted the BBC to use in its overseas propaganda. Similarly, Orwell's model for the lying Ministry of Truth was the British wartime Ministry of Information, which censored BBC broadcasts. The shorthand form, Minitrue, was taken directly from the Ministry of Information telegraphic address, Miniform.
Throughout his lifetime, the great English writer continually questioned all "official" or "accepted" versions of history. As early as 1945, just after the end of the war in Europe, he expressed doubts about the widespread stories of "gas oven" exterminations (Notes on Nationalism). George Orwell was a revisionist. He detested officially sanctioned atrocity and hate propaganda. If he were alive today he would certainly be nauseated by the pervasive Holocaust propaganda of our times. And as a staunch lifelong supporter of free speech and open historical inquiry, he would undoubtedly defend the right of revisionist historians to present their challenging views to the world.
It is worth noting that last July's devastating fire-bomb attack against the offices of the Institute for Historical Review, the foremost center of dissident historical inquiry, took place during the year made immortal by 1984. The terrorist attack also forced the rescheduling of the revisionist conference dedicated to Orwell's memory. Symbolically, the July fire-bombing of the Institute was an attack against the spirit of George Orwell in our times. More
During the Second World War, George Orwell wrote a weekly radio political commentary, designed to counter German and Japanese propaganda in India, that was broadcast over the BBC overseas service. His wartime work for the BBC was a major inspiration for his monumental novel, 1984. Very few readers of 1984 know, for example, that Orwell's attack against the perverse double-talk language called Newspeak was based on the author's revulsion against Basic English, an artificial language that Churchill's wartime cabinet wanted the BBC to use in its overseas propaganda. Similarly, Orwell's model for the lying Ministry of Truth was the British wartime Ministry of Information, which censored BBC broadcasts. The shorthand form, Minitrue, was taken directly from the Ministry of Information telegraphic address, Miniform.
Throughout his lifetime, the great English writer continually questioned all "official" or "accepted" versions of history. As early as 1945, just after the end of the war in Europe, he expressed doubts about the widespread stories of "gas oven" exterminations (Notes on Nationalism). George Orwell was a revisionist. He detested officially sanctioned atrocity and hate propaganda. If he were alive today he would certainly be nauseated by the pervasive Holocaust propaganda of our times. And as a staunch lifelong supporter of free speech and open historical inquiry, he would undoubtedly defend the right of revisionist historians to present their challenging views to the world.
It is worth noting that last July's devastating fire-bomb attack against the offices of the Institute for Historical Review, the foremost center of dissident historical inquiry, took place during the year made immortal by 1984. The terrorist attack also forced the rescheduling of the revisionist conference dedicated to Orwell's memory. Symbolically, the July fire-bombing of the Institute was an attack against the spirit of George Orwell in our times. More
Roosevelt's 'Secret Map' Speech
by Mark Weber
Franklin Roosevelt often lied to further his goals. In a radio address broadcast to the nation on 23 October 1940, for example, he gave "this most solemn assurance" that he had not given any "secret understanding in any shape or form, direct or indirect, with any government or any other nation in any part of the world, to involve this nation in any war or for any other purpose." But American, British and Polish documents (mostly released many years later) proved that this "most solemn assurance" was a bald-faced lie. Roosevelt had, in fact, made numerous secret arrangements to involve the U.S. in war.
Of all his speeches, perhaps the best example of Roosevelt's readiness to lie is his 1941 Navy Day address broadcast over nationwide radio on 27 October.
A lot had happened in the months preceding that address. On 11 March 1941 Roosevelt signed the Lend-Lease bill into law, permitting increased deliveries of military aid to Britain in violation of U.S. neutrality and international law. In April Roosevelt illegally sent U.S. troops to occupy Greenland. On 27 May he proclaimed a state of "unlimited national emergency," a kind of presidential declaration of war that circumvented a power constitutionally reserved to Congress. Following the Axis attack against the USSR in June, the Roosevelt administration began delivering enormous quantities of military aid to the beleagured Soviets. These shipments also blatantly violated international law. In July Roosevelt illegally sent American troops to occupy Iceland. More
Franklin Roosevelt often lied to further his goals. In a radio address broadcast to the nation on 23 October 1940, for example, he gave "this most solemn assurance" that he had not given any "secret understanding in any shape or form, direct or indirect, with any government or any other nation in any part of the world, to involve this nation in any war or for any other purpose." But American, British and Polish documents (mostly released many years later) proved that this "most solemn assurance" was a bald-faced lie. Roosevelt had, in fact, made numerous secret arrangements to involve the U.S. in war.
Of all his speeches, perhaps the best example of Roosevelt's readiness to lie is his 1941 Navy Day address broadcast over nationwide radio on 27 October.
A lot had happened in the months preceding that address. On 11 March 1941 Roosevelt signed the Lend-Lease bill into law, permitting increased deliveries of military aid to Britain in violation of U.S. neutrality and international law. In April Roosevelt illegally sent U.S. troops to occupy Greenland. On 27 May he proclaimed a state of "unlimited national emergency," a kind of presidential declaration of war that circumvented a power constitutionally reserved to Congress. Following the Axis attack against the USSR in June, the Roosevelt administration began delivering enormous quantities of military aid to the beleagured Soviets. These shipments also blatantly violated international law. In July Roosevelt illegally sent American troops to occupy Iceland. More
Albert Speer and the 'Holocaust'
by Mark Weber
Albert Speer may ultimately be best remembered as the only high German wartime official to be "rehabilitated" during his lifetime and even profit handsomely from his once-powerful position. The one-time Hitler confidant and Reich Armaments Minister escaped the hangman's noose at Nuremberg by adopting an unusual defense strategy. While maintaining that he personally knew nothing of a Jewish extermination program during the war, he nevertheless declared himself guilty for having worked diligently for a regime he belatedly considered evil.
After serving a 20-year prison sentence at Spandau, the democratic mass media showered praise on the "repentant Nazi" for his sometimes subtle but always fervent condemnations of the Hitler regime. His contrite memoirs, published in America as Inside the Third Reich, were highly acclaimed and sold very profitably throughout the world.
Until his death in 1981, Speer repeatedly insisted that he did not know of any extermination program or gassings during the war. In an obliging May 1977 letter to the Executive Director of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies, he stated: " I would give something to be able to state clearly that Hitler ordered the killing of the Jews in my presence. Neither am I in a position to testify to the exact number of Jews killed."
(This statement, incidentally and interestingly, provided yet another opportunity for "Nazi hunter" Simon Wiesenthal to bleat out one of his big lies. In a notarized statement dated 4 May 1981, referring to Speer's letter quoted above, Wiesenthal declared: "Albert Speer, a former friend of Hitler and minister of his government, made a statement for the court in Johannesburg. He declared under oath that Hitler often spoke about the murdering of Jews and that as far as he knows, gasifications [gassings] of Jews took place." How Simon Wiesenthal gets that out of what Speer actually wrote is a question best reserved for professional students of the "Nazi hunting" psyche.) More
Albert Speer may ultimately be best remembered as the only high German wartime official to be "rehabilitated" during his lifetime and even profit handsomely from his once-powerful position. The one-time Hitler confidant and Reich Armaments Minister escaped the hangman's noose at Nuremberg by adopting an unusual defense strategy. While maintaining that he personally knew nothing of a Jewish extermination program during the war, he nevertheless declared himself guilty for having worked diligently for a regime he belatedly considered evil.
After serving a 20-year prison sentence at Spandau, the democratic mass media showered praise on the "repentant Nazi" for his sometimes subtle but always fervent condemnations of the Hitler regime. His contrite memoirs, published in America as Inside the Third Reich, were highly acclaimed and sold very profitably throughout the world.
Until his death in 1981, Speer repeatedly insisted that he did not know of any extermination program or gassings during the war. In an obliging May 1977 letter to the Executive Director of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies, he stated: " I would give something to be able to state clearly that Hitler ordered the killing of the Jews in my presence. Neither am I in a position to testify to the exact number of Jews killed."
(This statement, incidentally and interestingly, provided yet another opportunity for "Nazi hunter" Simon Wiesenthal to bleat out one of his big lies. In a notarized statement dated 4 May 1981, referring to Speer's letter quoted above, Wiesenthal declared: "Albert Speer, a former friend of Hitler and minister of his government, made a statement for the court in Johannesburg. He declared under oath that Hitler often spoke about the murdering of Jews and that as far as he knows, gasifications [gassings] of Jews took place." How Simon Wiesenthal gets that out of what Speer actually wrote is a question best reserved for professional students of the "Nazi hunting" psyche.) More
Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski and the 'Holocaust'
by Mark Weber
During the Second World War, Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski was an SS Obergruppenführer, Higher SS and Police Chief for the center section of the Eastern front, and Chief of the Anti-Partisan Units.
He testified for the prosecution at the postwar Nuremberg Tribunal as part of a deal struck with the Allied authorities. Probably the most devastating part of his testimony dealt with the activities of the Einsatzgruppen.
In 1951 he was sentenced to ten years' arrest by a Munich denazification court. In 1952 he publicly denounced himself as a mass murderer. In February 1961 he was sentenced by a Nuremberg court to four and a half years' imprisonment for a 1934 murder. At that 1961 trial he declared: "I am still an absolute Hitler man." (New York Times, 21 March 1972, p. 44.) In August 1962 he was sentenced to life imprisonment for the 1933 murders of some communists. (New York Times, 4 August 1962, p. 4.)
On 24 July 1964, Bach-Zelewski reportedly testified at the trial of SS Obergruppenführer Karl Wolff that "Hitler knew nothing of the mass destruction of the Jews" and that "the entire thing began with Himmler." (David Irving, Hitler's War, p. 946, note for pp. 428-429, Viking two-volume ed.)
Bach-Zelewski died in a suburban Munich hospital on 8 March 1972, but his death was not publicly announced until 20 March. Newspaper reports of his passing appeared in the editions of 21 March. Die Welt, the Frankfurter Allgemeine, and the Sueddeutsche Zeitung each carried the same, short Associated Press dispatch. The Times of London report was also very short. The New York Times published a much more complete obituary. (21 March 1972, pp. 44, col. 1.) The Washington Post and the Washington Star reported nothing. More
During the Second World War, Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski was an SS Obergruppenführer, Higher SS and Police Chief for the center section of the Eastern front, and Chief of the Anti-Partisan Units.
He testified for the prosecution at the postwar Nuremberg Tribunal as part of a deal struck with the Allied authorities. Probably the most devastating part of his testimony dealt with the activities of the Einsatzgruppen.
In 1951 he was sentenced to ten years' arrest by a Munich denazification court. In 1952 he publicly denounced himself as a mass murderer. In February 1961 he was sentenced by a Nuremberg court to four and a half years' imprisonment for a 1934 murder. At that 1961 trial he declared: "I am still an absolute Hitler man." (New York Times, 21 March 1972, p. 44.) In August 1962 he was sentenced to life imprisonment for the 1933 murders of some communists. (New York Times, 4 August 1962, p. 4.)
On 24 July 1964, Bach-Zelewski reportedly testified at the trial of SS Obergruppenführer Karl Wolff that "Hitler knew nothing of the mass destruction of the Jews" and that "the entire thing began with Himmler." (David Irving, Hitler's War, p. 946, note for pp. 428-429, Viking two-volume ed.)
Bach-Zelewski died in a suburban Munich hospital on 8 March 1972, but his death was not publicly announced until 20 March. Newspaper reports of his passing appeared in the editions of 21 March. Die Welt, the Frankfurter Allgemeine, and the Sueddeutsche Zeitung each carried the same, short Associated Press dispatch. The Times of London report was also very short. The New York Times published a much more complete obituary. (21 March 1972, pp. 44, col. 1.) The Washington Post and the Washington Star reported nothing. More
Sebastian Haffner's 1942 Call for Mass Murder
by Mark Weber
One of postwar Germany's most influential writers has been Sebastian Haffner. This successful wordsmith has written half a dozen books on political and historical issues, several of which have been translated into English. His most recent is a highly critical review of Adolf Hitler's life and place in history. The American edition, The Meaning of Hitler, received very favorable reviews in the American press. For many years Haffner contributed a regular column of political commentary to West Germany's leading general-circulation illustrated weekly, Stern.
Haffner's persuasiveness lies in his ability to present liberal-democratic, egalitarian ideas in apparently detached and objective prose. His sober and confident style reassures many otherwise skeptical readers.
But Haffner's real character came through in an extraordinary article published during the Second World War while he was living as an emigré in Britain. In the August 1942 issue of the reputable London monthly World Review, Haffner called for the mass murder of at least half a million young Germans by the victorious Allies at the end of the war. According to his article "The Reintegration of Germany into Europe," the National Socialist revolution of 1933 had divorced Germany from Christian European civilization. An Allied victory in the World War would make it possible to restore the prewar order.
Fortunately, Haffner wrote, the "hard core" of Nazi revolutionaries were concentrated in the SS and could therefore be easily liquidated. The SS had become "for all practical purposes the human integration of Nazism. It is Nazism incarnate. With its elimination Nazism may not yet be dead as an idea, but it will be dead as an active political force for the decisive next ten years. Thus the road will be clear for the reconstruction of a Europe embracing Germany. But it must be eliminated first." More
One of postwar Germany's most influential writers has been Sebastian Haffner. This successful wordsmith has written half a dozen books on political and historical issues, several of which have been translated into English. His most recent is a highly critical review of Adolf Hitler's life and place in history. The American edition, The Meaning of Hitler, received very favorable reviews in the American press. For many years Haffner contributed a regular column of political commentary to West Germany's leading general-circulation illustrated weekly, Stern.
Haffner's persuasiveness lies in his ability to present liberal-democratic, egalitarian ideas in apparently detached and objective prose. His sober and confident style reassures many otherwise skeptical readers.
But Haffner's real character came through in an extraordinary article published during the Second World War while he was living as an emigré in Britain. In the August 1942 issue of the reputable London monthly World Review, Haffner called for the mass murder of at least half a million young Germans by the victorious Allies at the end of the war. According to his article "The Reintegration of Germany into Europe," the National Socialist revolution of 1933 had divorced Germany from Christian European civilization. An Allied victory in the World War would make it possible to restore the prewar order.
Fortunately, Haffner wrote, the "hard core" of Nazi revolutionaries were concentrated in the SS and could therefore be easily liquidated. The SS had become "for all practical purposes the human integration of Nazism. It is Nazism incarnate. With its elimination Nazism may not yet be dead as an idea, but it will be dead as an active political force for the decisive next ten years. Thus the road will be clear for the reconstruction of a Europe embracing Germany. But it must be eliminated first." More
Swiss Historian Exposes Anti-Hitler Rauschning Memoir as Fraudulent
by Mark Weber
Virtually every major biography of Adolf Hitler or history of the Third Reich quotes from the memoir of Hermann Rauschning, a former National Socialist Senate President of Danzig. In the book published in Britain as Hitler Speaks (London, 1939) and in America as The Voice of Destruction (New York, 1940) Rauschning presents page after page of what are purported to be Hitler's most intimate views and plans for the future. They are allegedly based on a hundred or so private conversations between the two men.
Now, after more than forty years, a Swiss historian has thoroughly exposed this supposed document of Hitler's madness as completely fraudulent. Wolfgang Haenel presented the results of his research to the annual conference in May 1983 of the Ingolstadt Contemporary History Research Center in West Germany.
Rauschning's Hitler is nothing more than a nihilistic revolutionary utterly lacking in ideas, goals, principles or systematic ideology who demagogically exploited words and men to accumulate power for its own sake. He was a clever but completely unscrupulous opportunist who believed nothing of what he said. His National Socialism, according to Rauschning, was just a "Revolution of Nihilism." He was allegedly preoccupied with war. His numerous disarmament proposals and peace offers were just hypocritical rhetoric designed to mislead his future victims.
Of the man who unified Germany, Hitler is supposed to have said: "Bismarck was stupid. He was just a Protestant." He allegedly rebuked Rauschning for his qualms: "Why do you babble about brutality and get upset over suffering. The masses want that. They need some cruelty." "I want a violent, masterful, fearless, cruel youth," he is quoted as saying. On another occasion, Hitler reportedly declared: "Yes, we are barbarians. We want to be barbarians. It is an honorable title." More
Virtually every major biography of Adolf Hitler or history of the Third Reich quotes from the memoir of Hermann Rauschning, a former National Socialist Senate President of Danzig. In the book published in Britain as Hitler Speaks (London, 1939) and in America as The Voice of Destruction (New York, 1940) Rauschning presents page after page of what are purported to be Hitler's most intimate views and plans for the future. They are allegedly based on a hundred or so private conversations between the two men.
Now, after more than forty years, a Swiss historian has thoroughly exposed this supposed document of Hitler's madness as completely fraudulent. Wolfgang Haenel presented the results of his research to the annual conference in May 1983 of the Ingolstadt Contemporary History Research Center in West Germany.
Rauschning's Hitler is nothing more than a nihilistic revolutionary utterly lacking in ideas, goals, principles or systematic ideology who demagogically exploited words and men to accumulate power for its own sake. He was a clever but completely unscrupulous opportunist who believed nothing of what he said. His National Socialism, according to Rauschning, was just a "Revolution of Nihilism." He was allegedly preoccupied with war. His numerous disarmament proposals and peace offers were just hypocritical rhetoric designed to mislead his future victims.
Of the man who unified Germany, Hitler is supposed to have said: "Bismarck was stupid. He was just a Protestant." He allegedly rebuked Rauschning for his qualms: "Why do you babble about brutality and get upset over suffering. The masses want that. They need some cruelty." "I want a violent, masterful, fearless, cruel youth," he is quoted as saying. On another occasion, Hitler reportedly declared: "Yes, we are barbarians. We want to be barbarians. It is an honorable title." More
Das Hossbach-'Protokoll': Die Zerstoerung Einer Legende
Reviewed by Mark Weber
Hitler, we're told over and over again, set out to conquer the world, or at least Europe. At the great postwar Nuremberg Tribunal the victorious Allies sought to prove that Hitler and his "henchmen" had engaged in a sinister "Conspiracy to Wage Aggresive War." The most important piece of evidence produced to sustain this charge was and is a document known as the "Hossbach Protocol" or "Hossbach Memorandum."
On 5 November 1937, Hitler called a few high officials together for a conference in the Reich Chancellery in Berlin: War Minister Werner von Blomberg, Army Commander Werner von Fritsch, Navy Commander Erich Raeder, Air Force Commander Hermann Göring, and Foreign Minister Konstantin von Neurath. Also present was Hitler's Army adjutant, Colonel Count Friedrich Hossbach.
Five days later, Hossbach wrote up an unauthorized record of the meeting based on memory. He did not take notes during the conference. Hossbach claimed after the war that he twice asked Hitler to read the memorandum, but the Chancellor replied that he had no time. Apparently none of the other participants even knew of the existence of the Colonel's conference record. Nor did they consider the meeting particularly important.
A few months after the conference, Hossbach was transferred to another position. His manuscript was filed away with many other papers and forgotten. In 1943 German general staff officer Colonel Count Kirchbach found the manuscript while going through the file and made a copy for himself. Kirchbach left the Hossbach original in the file and gave his copy to his brother-in-law, Victor von Martin, for safe keeping. Shortly after the end of the war, Martin turned over this copy to the Allied occupation authorities, who used it to produce a substantially altered version for use as incriminating evidence at Nuremberg. Sentences such as those quoting Hitler as saying that "The German question can only be solved by force" were invented and inserted. But over all, the document presented at Nuremberg is less than half the length of the original Hossbach manuscript. Both the original written by Hossbach and the Kirchbach/Martin copy have completely (and conveniently) disappeared. More
Hitler, we're told over and over again, set out to conquer the world, or at least Europe. At the great postwar Nuremberg Tribunal the victorious Allies sought to prove that Hitler and his "henchmen" had engaged in a sinister "Conspiracy to Wage Aggresive War." The most important piece of evidence produced to sustain this charge was and is a document known as the "Hossbach Protocol" or "Hossbach Memorandum."
On 5 November 1937, Hitler called a few high officials together for a conference in the Reich Chancellery in Berlin: War Minister Werner von Blomberg, Army Commander Werner von Fritsch, Navy Commander Erich Raeder, Air Force Commander Hermann Göring, and Foreign Minister Konstantin von Neurath. Also present was Hitler's Army adjutant, Colonel Count Friedrich Hossbach.
Five days later, Hossbach wrote up an unauthorized record of the meeting based on memory. He did not take notes during the conference. Hossbach claimed after the war that he twice asked Hitler to read the memorandum, but the Chancellor replied that he had no time. Apparently none of the other participants even knew of the existence of the Colonel's conference record. Nor did they consider the meeting particularly important.
A few months after the conference, Hossbach was transferred to another position. His manuscript was filed away with many other papers and forgotten. In 1943 German general staff officer Colonel Count Kirchbach found the manuscript while going through the file and made a copy for himself. Kirchbach left the Hossbach original in the file and gave his copy to his brother-in-law, Victor von Martin, for safe keeping. Shortly after the end of the war, Martin turned over this copy to the Allied occupation authorities, who used it to produce a substantially altered version for use as incriminating evidence at Nuremberg. Sentences such as those quoting Hitler as saying that "The German question can only be solved by force" were invented and inserted. But over all, the document presented at Nuremberg is less than half the length of the original Hossbach manuscript. Both the original written by Hossbach and the Kirchbach/Martin copy have completely (and conveniently) disappeared. More
President Roosevelt's Campaign To Incite War in Europe:
by Mark Weber
Major ceremonies were held in 1982 to mark the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. With the exceptions of Washington and Lincoln, he was glorified and eulogized as no other president in American history. Even conservative President Ronald Reagan joined the chorus of applause. In early 1983, newspapers and television networks remembered the fiftieth anniversary of Roosevelt's inauguration with numerous laudatory tributes.
And yet, with each passing year more and more new evidence comes to light which contradicts the glowing image of Roosevelt portrayed by the mass media and politicians.
Much has already been written about Roosevelt's campaign of deception and outright lies in getting the United States to intervene in the Second World War prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Roosevelt's aid to Britain and the Soviet Union in violation of American neutrality and international law, his acts of war against Germany in the Atlantic in an effort to provoke a German declaration of war against the United States, his authorization of a vast "dirty tricks" campaign against U.S. citizens by British intelligence agents in violation of the Constitution, and his provocations and ultimatums against Japan which brought on the attack against Pearl Harbor -- all this is extensively documented and reasonably well known.[1]
Not so well known is the story of Roosevelt's enormous responsibility for the outbreak of the Second World War itself. This essay focuses on Roosevelt's secret campaign to provoke war in Europe prior to the outbreak of hostilities in September 1939. It deals particularly with his efforts to pressure Britain, France and Poland into war against Germany in 1938 and 1939.
More
Major ceremonies were held in 1982 to mark the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. With the exceptions of Washington and Lincoln, he was glorified and eulogized as no other president in American history. Even conservative President Ronald Reagan joined the chorus of applause. In early 1983, newspapers and television networks remembered the fiftieth anniversary of Roosevelt's inauguration with numerous laudatory tributes.
And yet, with each passing year more and more new evidence comes to light which contradicts the glowing image of Roosevelt portrayed by the mass media and politicians.
Much has already been written about Roosevelt's campaign of deception and outright lies in getting the United States to intervene in the Second World War prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Roosevelt's aid to Britain and the Soviet Union in violation of American neutrality and international law, his acts of war against Germany in the Atlantic in an effort to provoke a German declaration of war against the United States, his authorization of a vast "dirty tricks" campaign against U.S. citizens by British intelligence agents in violation of the Constitution, and his provocations and ultimatums against Japan which brought on the attack against Pearl Harbor -- all this is extensively documented and reasonably well known.[1]
Not so well known is the story of Roosevelt's enormous responsibility for the outbreak of the Second World War itself. This essay focuses on Roosevelt's secret campaign to provoke war in Europe prior to the outbreak of hostilities in September 1939. It deals particularly with his efforts to pressure Britain, France and Poland into war against Germany in 1938 and 1939.
More
Feuerzeichen: Die 'Reichskristallnacht,' Anstifter und Brandstifter -- Opfer und Nutzniesser
Reviewed by Mark Weber
No single event so drastically changed relations between Germans and Jews in modern times than the so-called "Night of Broken Glass" or Reichskristallnacht. On the night of 9-10 November 1938, Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues across Germany were attacked by inflamed mobs. Fire consumed many buildings. Several dozen Jews (the exact number is still unclear) lost their lives in the tumult. Ever since, countless films, books, articles and so forth have sought to impress the horror of the "Crystal Night" into the minds of millions. It is cited ad nauseum as a major milestone in the German program to exterminate the Jews of Europe.
In Feuerzeichen (Fire Sign), Ingrid Weckert tackles this crucial chapter of contemporary history with sobriety, critical objectivity, and careful attention to detail. Her analysis is a welcome relief from the usually maudlin and highly tendentious treatments all too common in books dealing with modern Jewish history. Furthermore, this fascinating book never fails to keep the reader's attention. It is easy to understand why the first printing sold out within a few months.
A few days before the Crystal Night, a young Polish Jew named Herschel Grynszpan visited the German embassy in Paris, pulled out a pistol, and shot a Legation Secretary named Ernst vom Rath. Doctors were unable to save the mortally wounded young official. His death on the afternoon of 9 November 1938 could not have come on a more fateful day. All Germany was observing the "Memorial Day for the Fallen of the Movement," probably the most auspicious National Socialist anniversary. (On that day in 1923, 14 followers of the fledging movement fell before the fire of government soldiers during an ill-fated attempt to overthrow the Weimar regime by force.) More
No single event so drastically changed relations between Germans and Jews in modern times than the so-called "Night of Broken Glass" or Reichskristallnacht. On the night of 9-10 November 1938, Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues across Germany were attacked by inflamed mobs. Fire consumed many buildings. Several dozen Jews (the exact number is still unclear) lost their lives in the tumult. Ever since, countless films, books, articles and so forth have sought to impress the horror of the "Crystal Night" into the minds of millions. It is cited ad nauseum as a major milestone in the German program to exterminate the Jews of Europe.
In Feuerzeichen (Fire Sign), Ingrid Weckert tackles this crucial chapter of contemporary history with sobriety, critical objectivity, and careful attention to detail. Her analysis is a welcome relief from the usually maudlin and highly tendentious treatments all too common in books dealing with modern Jewish history. Furthermore, this fascinating book never fails to keep the reader's attention. It is easy to understand why the first printing sold out within a few months.
A few days before the Crystal Night, a young Polish Jew named Herschel Grynszpan visited the German embassy in Paris, pulled out a pistol, and shot a Legation Secretary named Ernst vom Rath. Doctors were unable to save the mortally wounded young official. His death on the afternoon of 9 November 1938 could not have come on a more fateful day. All Germany was observing the "Memorial Day for the Fallen of the Movement," probably the most auspicious National Socialist anniversary. (On that day in 1923, 14 followers of the fledging movement fell before the fire of government soldiers during an ill-fated attempt to overthrow the Weimar regime by force.) More
Declaration of Mark Edward Weber
On October 9, 1981, California Superior Court Judge Thomas. T. Johnson, took "judicial notice" of the fact that "Jews were gassed to death at Auschwitz concentration Camp in Poland during the summer of 1944." Johnson's ruling was made in response to a Motion for "Judicial Notice" that had been made by plaintiff Mel Mermelstein in his law suit against the Institute for Historical Review. (note 1) Normally, parties to a legal dispute are permitted to introduce factual evidence to support their respective claims within the guidelines of evidentiary rules, which in California have been codified by the State legislature as the California Evidence Code. However, in order to avoid wasting the time of the court in proving the "obvious," the doctrine of the "judicial notice" has been developed whereby certain matters can be assumed to be factually true by the court and, thus, do not have to be proven through the introduction of evidence. In other words, where judicial notice is taken, no evidence needs to be introduced to prove the existence of the fact in question. (note 2)
In California, the doctrine of "permissive" judicial notice is set forth in Evidence Code§452 which states that: More
In California, the doctrine of "permissive" judicial notice is set forth in Evidence Code§452 which states that: More
In Memoriam: Mabel Elsabe Narjes
A great fighter for historical truth, Mabel Elsabe Narjes, has passed on. Fluent in English and French, as well as a master stylist in her native German, she produced many superbly well-crafted and lucid translations of important historical works into German.
Frau Narjes was responsible for the translation of Prof. David Hoggan's masterwork, Der Erzwungene Krieg. The 900-page study unleashed a great debate in Germany about the origins of the Second World War and is still the standard work on the war guilt question. She also translated Benjamin Colby's 'Twas a Famous Victory and portions of Dr. Arthur Butz's The Hoax of the Twentieth Century into German. Not long before her death, she translated The Spotlight newspaper reprint of "The Great Holocaust Debate" and was able to witness its enthusiastic reception in Germany.
She worked closely with many of the great historical pioneers of her age. She had the honor of introducing two of them -- Paul Rassinier, a good friend, and the great American historian Harry Elmer Barnes -- to each other personally in Europe.
She attended the 1980 convention of the Institute for Historical Review where she received well-deserved recognition of her years of devoted work. All those who met Frau Narjes were impressed by her sharp intellect and extraordinary spirit. More
Frau Narjes was responsible for the translation of Prof. David Hoggan's masterwork, Der Erzwungene Krieg. The 900-page study unleashed a great debate in Germany about the origins of the Second World War and is still the standard work on the war guilt question. She also translated Benjamin Colby's 'Twas a Famous Victory and portions of Dr. Arthur Butz's The Hoax of the Twentieth Century into German. Not long before her death, she translated The Spotlight newspaper reprint of "The Great Holocaust Debate" and was able to witness its enthusiastic reception in Germany.
She worked closely with many of the great historical pioneers of her age. She had the honor of introducing two of them -- Paul Rassinier, a good friend, and the great American historian Harry Elmer Barnes -- to each other personally in Europe.
She attended the 1980 convention of the Institute for Historical Review where she received well-deserved recognition of her years of devoted work. All those who met Frau Narjes were impressed by her sharp intellect and extraordinary spirit. More
The Civil War Concentration Camps
by Mark Weber
No aspect of the American Civil War left behind a greater legacy of bitterness and acrimony than the treatment of prisoners of war. "Andersonville" still conjures up images of horror unmatched in American History. And although Northern partisans still invoke the infamous Southern camp to defame the Confederacy, the Union had its share of equally horrific camps. Prison camps on both sides produced scenes of wretched, disease-ridden and emaciated prisoners as repulsive as any to come out of the Second World War.
Partisans in both the North and the South produced wildly exaggerated novels, reminiscences of prisoners, journalistic accounts and even official government reports which charged the enemy with wanton criminal policies of murderous intent. It took several decades for Revisionist historians to separate fact from propagandistic fancy and deliberate distortion from misunderstanding. Even today the bitter legacy of hate lingers on in widespread but often grossly distorted accounts from this tragic chapter of American history.
Neither side deliberately set out to maltreat prisoners. Arrangements were made hurriedly to deal with unexpected masses of men. As neither side expected the war to last long, these measures were only makeshifts undertaken with minimum expenditure. Management was bad on both sides, but worse in the South owing to poorer, more decentralized organization and more meager resources. Thus, prisoners held by the Union were somewhat better off.
In the first phase of the war, 1861-1862, the relatively small numbers of prisoners taken by both sides were well treated. Both sides agreed to a prisoner exchange arrangement which operated during the latter half of 1862. Under the cartel, captives remaining after the exchanges were paroled. But the agreement broke down, in part because of Northern refusal to recognize the Confederate authorities as anything other than "rebels," and in part over the Negro question. More
No aspect of the American Civil War left behind a greater legacy of bitterness and acrimony than the treatment of prisoners of war. "Andersonville" still conjures up images of horror unmatched in American History. And although Northern partisans still invoke the infamous Southern camp to defame the Confederacy, the Union had its share of equally horrific camps. Prison camps on both sides produced scenes of wretched, disease-ridden and emaciated prisoners as repulsive as any to come out of the Second World War.
Partisans in both the North and the South produced wildly exaggerated novels, reminiscences of prisoners, journalistic accounts and even official government reports which charged the enemy with wanton criminal policies of murderous intent. It took several decades for Revisionist historians to separate fact from propagandistic fancy and deliberate distortion from misunderstanding. Even today the bitter legacy of hate lingers on in widespread but often grossly distorted accounts from this tragic chapter of American history.
Neither side deliberately set out to maltreat prisoners. Arrangements were made hurriedly to deal with unexpected masses of men. As neither side expected the war to last long, these measures were only makeshifts undertaken with minimum expenditure. Management was bad on both sides, but worse in the South owing to poorer, more decentralized organization and more meager resources. Thus, prisoners held by the Union were somewhat better off.
In the first phase of the war, 1861-1862, the relatively small numbers of prisoners taken by both sides were well treated. Both sides agreed to a prisoner exchange arrangement which operated during the latter half of 1862. Under the cartel, captives remaining after the exchanges were paroled. But the agreement broke down, in part because of Northern refusal to recognize the Confederate authorities as anything other than "rebels," and in part over the Negro question. More
The Japanese Camps in California
by Mark Weber
In the months following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, many expected an immediate attack against the West Coast. Fear gripped the country and a wave of hysterical antipathy against the Japanese engulfed the Pacific Coast.
The FBI quickly began rounding up any and all "suspicious" Japanese for internment. None was ever charged with any crime. Almost all were simply Japanese community leaders, Buddhist or Shinto priests, newspaper editors, language or Judo instructors, or labor organizers. The Japanese community leadership was liquidated in one quick operation.
Men were taken away without notice. Most families knew nothing about why their men had suddenly disappeared, to where they were taken, or when they would be released. Some arrestees were soon let free, but most were secretly shipped to internment camps around the country. Some families learned what had happened to their men only several years later. The action also included the freezing of bank accounts, seizure of contraband, drastic limitation on travel, curfew and other severely restrictive measures. But this FBI operation merely set the stage for the mass evacuation to come.
In February 1942, Lt. Gen. John L. DeWitt, Commanding General of the Western Defense Command, requested authorization from Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson to evacuate "Japanese and other subversive persons" from the West Coast area. On 19 February, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order No. 9066 authorizing the Secretary of War or any military commander to establish "military areas" and to exclude from them "any or all persons. A month later, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order No. 9102 establishing the War Relocation Authority, which eventually operated the internment camps. Roosevelt named Milton Eisenhower, brother of the future president, to head the WRA. More
In the months following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, many expected an immediate attack against the West Coast. Fear gripped the country and a wave of hysterical antipathy against the Japanese engulfed the Pacific Coast.
The FBI quickly began rounding up any and all "suspicious" Japanese for internment. None was ever charged with any crime. Almost all were simply Japanese community leaders, Buddhist or Shinto priests, newspaper editors, language or Judo instructors, or labor organizers. The Japanese community leadership was liquidated in one quick operation.
Men were taken away without notice. Most families knew nothing about why their men had suddenly disappeared, to where they were taken, or when they would be released. Some arrestees were soon let free, but most were secretly shipped to internment camps around the country. Some families learned what had happened to their men only several years later. The action also included the freezing of bank accounts, seizure of contraband, drastic limitation on travel, curfew and other severely restrictive measures. But this FBI operation merely set the stage for the mass evacuation to come.
In February 1942, Lt. Gen. John L. DeWitt, Commanding General of the Western Defense Command, requested authorization from Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson to evacuate "Japanese and other subversive persons" from the West Coast area. On 19 February, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order No. 9066 authorizing the Secretary of War or any military commander to establish "military areas" and to exclude from them "any or all persons. A month later, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order No. 9102 establishing the War Relocation Authority, which eventually operated the internment camps. Roosevelt named Milton Eisenhower, brother of the future president, to head the WRA. More
The Boer War Remembered
by Mark Weber
The Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902 was more than the first major military clash of the 20th century. Pitting as it did the might of the globe-girdling British Empire, backed by international finance, against a small pioneering nation of independent-minded farmers, ranchers and merchants in southern Africa who lived by the Bible and the rifle, its legacy continues to resonate today. The Boers' recourse to irregular warfare, and Britain's response in herding a hundred thousand women and children into concentration camps foreshadowed the horrors of guerilla warfare and mass detention of innocents that have become emblematic of the 20th century.
The Dutch, Huguenot and German ancestors of the Boers first settled the Cape area of South Africa in 1652. After several attempts, Britain took control of it in 1814. Refusing to submit to foreign colonial rule, 10,000 Boers left the Cape area in the Great Trek of 1835-1842. The trekkers moved northwards, first to Natal and then to the interior highlands where they set up two independent republics, the Orange Free State and the South African (Transvaal) Republic. The Boers (Dutch: "farmers") worked hard to build a new life for themselves. But they also had to fight to keep their fledgling republics free of British encroachment and safe from native African attacks.
Their great leader was Paul Kruger, an imposing, passionate and deeply religious man. The bearded, patriarchal figure was beloved by his people, who affectionately referred to him as "Oom Paul" (Uncle Paul). Born into a relatively well-to-do Cape colony farming family in 1825, he took part as a boy in the Great Trek. He married at the age of 17, became a widower at 21, remarried twice, and fathered 16 children. With just a few months of schooling, his reading was confined almost entirely to the Bible. He was an avid hunter, an expert horseman, and an able swimmer and diver.
Over his lifetime, Kruger repeatedly proved his courage and resourcefulness in numerous pitched military engagements. When he was 14 he fought in his first battle, a commando raid against Matabele regiments, and also shot his first lion. While in his twenties he took part in two major battles against native black forces. More
The Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902 was more than the first major military clash of the 20th century. Pitting as it did the might of the globe-girdling British Empire, backed by international finance, against a small pioneering nation of independent-minded farmers, ranchers and merchants in southern Africa who lived by the Bible and the rifle, its legacy continues to resonate today. The Boers' recourse to irregular warfare, and Britain's response in herding a hundred thousand women and children into concentration camps foreshadowed the horrors of guerilla warfare and mass detention of innocents that have become emblematic of the 20th century.
The Dutch, Huguenot and German ancestors of the Boers first settled the Cape area of South Africa in 1652. After several attempts, Britain took control of it in 1814. Refusing to submit to foreign colonial rule, 10,000 Boers left the Cape area in the Great Trek of 1835-1842. The trekkers moved northwards, first to Natal and then to the interior highlands where they set up two independent republics, the Orange Free State and the South African (Transvaal) Republic. The Boers (Dutch: "farmers") worked hard to build a new life for themselves. But they also had to fight to keep their fledgling republics free of British encroachment and safe from native African attacks.
Their great leader was Paul Kruger, an imposing, passionate and deeply religious man. The bearded, patriarchal figure was beloved by his people, who affectionately referred to him as "Oom Paul" (Uncle Paul). Born into a relatively well-to-do Cape colony farming family in 1825, he took part as a boy in the Great Trek. He married at the age of 17, became a widower at 21, remarried twice, and fathered 16 children. With just a few months of schooling, his reading was confined almost entirely to the Bible. He was an avid hunter, an expert horseman, and an able swimmer and diver.
Over his lifetime, Kruger repeatedly proved his courage and resourcefulness in numerous pitched military engagements. When he was 14 he fought in his first battle, a commando raid against Matabele regiments, and also shot his first lion. While in his twenties he took part in two major battles against native black forces. More
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