The Gas Chambers: Truth or Lie?
Questions by Antonio Pitamitz To Robert Faurisson (Storia Illustrata, August 1979)
Translated by Vivian Bird
Expanded, reviewed, and corrected by Dr. Robert Faurisson
QUESTION 1: Monsieur Faurisson, for some time now in France — and not only in France — you have found yoursellf at the center of a bitter controversy resulting from certain things which you have asserted on the subject of what is still one of the most somber pages in the history of the Second World War. We refer to the extermination of the Jews on the part of the Nazis. In particular, one of your assertions appears as dogmatic as it is incredible. Is it true that you deny that the gas chambers ever existed?
ANSWER 1:
I assert, in fact, that these famous alleged homicidal “gas chambers” are nothing but a tall story of wartime. This invention of wartime propaganda is comparable to the widespread legends of the First World War about “Teutonic barbarism.” The Germans were then already accused (in the First World War) of completely imaginary crimes; of Belgian children with hands cut off; crucified Canadians; corpses turned into soap.[1] The Germans, I suppose, said similar things about the French.
German concentration camps did really exist but the whole world knows that they were not original or unique to the Germans. Crematorium ovens have also existed in certain of these camps, but incineration is no more offensive or criminal than burial. The crematorium ovens even constitute progress from the sanitary point of view where there was a risk of epidemics. Typhus ravaged the whole of wartime Europe. The majority of corpses which are shown to us in photos are clearly the corpses of typhus victims. These photos illustrate the fact that the internees-and sometimes the guards-died of typhus. They prove nothing other than this. To exploit the fact that the Germans at times used crematorium ovens is not very honest. In asserting this one counts on the repulsion or feeling of unease and disquiet felt by people accustomed to burial and not to incineration. Imagine an oceanic population accustomed to burning its dead. Tell such a people that you bury your own and you will appear a kind of savage. Perhaps they would even suspect that in Europe persons “more or less alive” are placed in the earth! One displays one’s complete dishonesty when in the same way, one presents as homicidal “gas chambers” the fumigation chambers (autoclaves) which were in reality used for the disinfecting of garments by gas. This never clearly formulated accusation has now been almost totally abandoned, but in certain museums or in certain books we are still confronted with a photo of one of these autoclaves, sited at Dachau, with an American soldier in front, about to decipher the time-table for gassings.[2]
Another form of gassing really existed in the German camps: this is the fumigation of buildings by gas to exterminate vermin. For this purpose the renowned Zyklon B was used, around which a fantastic legend has been built up. Zyklon B, whose license goes back to 1922,[3] is still used today, notably for the disinfecting of furniture, of barracks, of silos, of ships, but also for the destruction of fox burrows or of pests of all kinds.[4] It is very dangerous to handle for, as the letter “B” indicates, it is “Blausaure” ("blue” acid or prussic acid or hydrocyanic acid). In passing, it is worth noting that the Soviets, misunderstanding the significance of this letter, accused the Germans of having killed deportees with Zyklon A and with Zyklon B![5]
But let us turn to the alleged homicidal “gas chambers.” Until, the year 1960 1 still believed in the reality of these human abattoirs where, using industrial methods, the Germans would have killed internees in industrial quantities.
Then I learned that certain authors regarded the reality of these “gas chambers” as contestable; among them Paul Rassimer, who had been deported to Buchenwald and then to Dora. These authors ended up by forming a group of historians describing themselves as Revisionists. I studied their arguments. Of course, I also studied the arguments of the official historians. The latter believed in the reality of extermination in the “gas chambers.” They are, if one wishes to so describe them, the “Exterminationists."[6] For many years I minutely examined the arguments of one and another. I went to Auschwitz, to Majdanek, and to Struthof. I have searched, in vain, for a single person capable of telling me: “I have been interned in such a camp and I have seen there, with my own eyes, a building which was undoubtedly a gas chamber.” I have read many books and documents. For many years, I have studied the archives of the Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine (CDJC) at Paris. Obviously, I took a special interest in the so-called “war crimes” cases.
I have devoted very special attention to what has been presented to me as being “admissions” on the part of the SS or of Germans generally. I am not going to enumerate for you here the names of all the specialists whom I have consulted. Strangely enough, it only took a few minutes of conversation before these “specialists” in question would declare to me: “Now, you must know, I am not a specialist on gas chambers. “ And an even more curious thing: there does not exist to this day any book, nor even any article from the Exterminationist school on the subject of the “gas chambers.” I know that perhaps certain titles can be quoted to me, but these titles are deceptive.[7] In reality, in the formidable mountain of writings devoted to the German camps, there exists nothing which concerns their sine qua non: the “gas chambers!” No Exterminationist has written on the “gas chambers.” The most one can say is that Georges Wellers, of the CDJC, attempted to address this subject in an attempt to plead for partial acceptance of the veracity of the Gerstein document, about the Belzec[8] “gas chambers.”
On the other hand, the Revisionists have written quite a lot about the “gas chambers” to say that their existence was dubious, or to affirm frankly that their existence was impossible. My personal opinion is joined to the latter. The existence of the “gas chambers” is completely impossible. My reasons are primarily those which the Revisionists have accumulated in their publications. Next, there are those proofs which I have discovered myself.
I have thought it necessary to start at the beginning. You know that in general it takes a long time to perceive that one actually ought to have begun at the beginning. I realized that all of us would talk of the “gas chambers” as if we knew the sense of these words.
Among all those who make statements, speeches or use sentences in which the expression “gas chamber” appears, how many of those people actually know what they are talking about? It has not taken me very long to realize that many people commit one of the most glaring errors. These people imagine a “gas chamber” as being similar to a mere bedroom under the door of which a household gas is released. These people forget that an execution by gas is by definition profoundly different from a simple suicidal or accidental asphyxiation. In the case of an execution, one must carefully avoid all risk of illness, poisoning or death for the executioner and his crew. Such a risk is to be avoided before, during and after the execution. The technical difficulties implied herein are considerable. I was most anxious to know how domestic minks were gassed, how foxes were gassed in foxholes, and how in the U.S. a person who was sentenced to death was executed by gassing. I have found that, in the vast majority of cases, hydrocyanic acid was used for such purposes. This was precisely the same gas which the Germans used to fumigate their barracks. It was also with this gas that they allegedly killed groups of individuals as well as great masses of people. I have therefore studied this gas. I wanted to know its use in Germany and in France. I have reviewed ministerial documents governing the use of this highly toxic product. I had the good fortune of discovering some documents on Zyklon B and hydrocyanic acid which had been gathered by the Allies in the German industrial archives at Nuremberg.
Then, with greater scrutiny I re-examined certain statements and confessions which had been made in German and Allied courts concerning the use of Zyklon B for putting prisoners to death, and I was shocked. And now, you in turn will also be shocked. I will first read to you the statement or confession of Rudolf Höss. Then, I will tell you the results of my research, purely physical, on hydrocyanic acid and Zyklon B. (Please bear in mind R. Höss was one of the three successive commanding officers at Auschwitz; all three of whom were detained and interrogated by the Allies. Only Höss left a confession, for which we are indebted to his Polish jailers.[9])
In this confession, the description of the actual gassing is remarkably short and vague. However, it is essential to realize that all those others who claim to have been present at this sort of an operation are also vague and brief and that their statements are full of contradictions on certain points. Rudolf Höss writes, “Half an hour after having released the gas, the door would be opened and the fan turned on. The bodies immediately began to be removed."[10] I call your attention to the word “immediately"; in German the word is sofort. Höss then adds that the crew in charge of handling and removing 2,000 bodies from the “gas chamber” and transporting them to the crematory ovens did so while “eating or smoking"; therefore, if I understand correctly, these duties were all performed without gas masks. Such a description runs counter to all common sense. It implies that it is possible to enter an area saturated with hydrocyanic acid without taking any precautionary measures in the barehanded handling of 2,000 cyanided cadavers which were probably still contaminated with the fatal gas. The hair (which was supposedly clipped after the operation) was undoubtedly impregnated with the gas. The mucous membranes would have been impregnated also. Air pockets between the bodies which were supposedly heaped one on top of the other would have been filled with the gas. What kind of superpowerful fan is able to instantly disperse so much gas drifting through the air and hidden in air pockets? Even if such a fan had existed, it would have been necessary to perform a test for the detection of any remaining hydrocyanic acid and to develop a procedure for informing the crew that the fan had actually fulfilled its function and that the room was safe. Now, it is abundantly clear from Höss' description that the fan in question must have been endowed with magical powers in order to be able to disperse all of the gas with such flawless performance so that there was no cause for concern or need for verification of the absence of the gas!
What mere common sense suggested is now confirmed by the technical documents concerning Zyklon B and its usage.[11] In order to fumigate a barrack, the Germans were constrained by numerous precautionary measures: specially trained teams which were licensed only after an internship at a Zyklon B manufacturing plant; special materials including especially the “J” filters which when used in gas masks were capable of protecting an individual under the most rigorous toxic conditions; evacuations of all surrounding barracks; warnings posted in several languages and bearing a skull and cross-bones; a meticulous examination of the site to be fumigated in order to locate and seal any fissures or openings; the sealing of any chimneys or airshafts and the removal of keys from doors. The cans of Zyklon B were opened at the site itself. After the gas had apparently killed all the vermin, the most critical operation would begin: this was the ventilation of the site. Sentries were to be stationed at a certain distance from all doors and windows, their backs to the wind, in order to prevent the approach of all persons. The specially trained crew equipped with gas masks would then enter the building and unclog the chimneys and cracks, and open the windows. This operation completed, they had to go outside again, remove their masks and breathe freely for ten minutes. They had to put their masks on again to re-enter the building and perform the next step. Once all of this work was completed, it was still necessary to wait TWENTY hours. Actually, because Zyklon B was “difficult to ventilate, since it adheres strongly to surfaces,” the dispersion of the gas required a long natural ventilation. This was especially important when great volumes of the gas were employed as in the case of a barrack containing more than one floor. (When Zyklon B was used in an autoclave with a total volume of only 10 cubic meters, ventilation (forced or artificially) was still necessary.) After twenty hours had elapsed, the crew would return with their masks on. They would then verify by means of a paper test (the paper would turn blue in the presence of hydrocyanic acid) as to whether or not the site was indeed again fit for human habitation. And so we see that a site which had been gassed was not safely accessible until a minimum of 21 hours had elapsed. As far as French legislation is concerned, the minimum is set at 24 hours.[12]
It becomes, therefore, apparent that in the absence of a magical fan capable of instantly expelling a gas that is “difficult to ventilate, since it adheres strongly to surfaces,” the “human slaughterhouse” called a “gas chamber” would have been inaccessible for nearly a full day. its walls, floors, ceiling would have retained portions of a gas which was highly poisonous to man. And what about the bodies? These cadavers could have been nothing less than saturated with the gas, just as the cushions, mattresses and blankets discussed in the same technical document on the use of Zyklon B would have been saturated also. These mattresses, etc., had to be taken out of doors to be aired and beaten for an hour under dry atmospheric conditions and for two hours when the weather was humid. When this was accomplished, these items were then heaped together and beaten again if the paper test revealed any further presence of hydrocyanic acid.
Hydrocyanic acid is both inflammable and explosive. How could it then have been used in close proximity to the entrance of crematory ovens? How could one have entered the “gas chamber” while smoking?
I have not yet even touched upon the subject of the superabundance of technical and physical impossibilities which become apparent upon an actual examination of the site and the dimensions of the supposed “gas chambers” at Auschwitz and Auschwitz-Birkenau. Moreover, just as an inquisitive fact-finder of the Polish museum may discover, these chambers were in reality nothing more than “cold storage rooms” (mortuaries) and were typical of such rooms both in lay-out as well as size. The supposed “gas chamber” of Krema II at Birkenau, of which there remains only a ruin, was in fact a morgue, located below ground in order to protect it from heat and measuring 30 meters in length and 7 meters down the center to allow for the movement of wagons). The door, the passageways, the freight lift (which measured only 2.10 meters by 1.35 meters) which led to the crematory chamber were all of Lilliputian dimensions in comparison to the insinuations of Höss’s account.[13] According to Höss, the gas chamber could easily accommodate 2,000 standing victims, but had a capacity of 3,000. Can you imagine that? Three thousand people crammed into a space of 210 square meters. In other words, to make a comparison, 286 people standing in a room measuring 5 meters by 4 meters! Do not be deceived into believing that before their retreat the Germans blew up the “gas chambers” and crematory ovens to conceal any trace of their alleged crimes. If one wishes to obliterate all trace of an installation which would be intrinsically quite sophisticated, it must be scrupulously dismantled from top to bottom so that there remains not one shred of incriminating evidence. Destruction by means of demolition would have been ingenuous. If explosives had been employed, mere removal of the concrete blocks would still have left this or that telltale sign. As a matter of fact, Poles of the present day Auschwitz museum have reconstructed the remains of some “Kremas” (meaning, in reality, reconstructions of crematoria and supposed “gas chambers"). However, all of the artefacts shown to tourists attest to the existence of crematory ovens rather than to anything else.[14] If it was the Germans who dynamited those installations (as an army often does in retreat) it was precisely because those installations concealed nothing suspicious. In Majdanek, on the other hand, they left intact installations which were dubbed “gas chambers” after the war.
In the U.S.A. the first execution by gassing took place on 8 February 1924 in the prison of Carson City, Nevada. Two hours after the execution, poison traces were still to be found in the grounds of the prison. Mr. Dickerson, warden of the prison, declared that as far as the condemned man was concerned, the method of execution was certainly the most humane so far used. But he added that he would reject this method in the future because of the danger to the witnesses.[15] Recently, on 22 October 1979, Jesse Bishop was executed by gas at the same prison.
The real gas chambers, such as those created in 1924 and developed by the Americans around 1936-1938 offer some idea of the inherent complexity of such a method of execution.[16] The Americans, for one thing, only gas one prisoner at a time normally (some gas chambers exist, however, which are equipped with two seats for the execution of two brothers, for example). The prisoner is totally immobilized. He is poisoned by the hydrocyanic acid (actually by the dropping of sodium cyanide pellets into a container of sulfuric acid and distilled water which results in release of hydrocyanic acid gas). Within approximately 40 seconds, the prisoner dozes off, and in a few minutes he dies. Apparently, the gas causes no discomfort. As in the case of Zyklon B, it is the dispersion of the gas which causes problems. Natural ventilation for 24 hours is not possible in this case. Obviously, the location of the site of execution precludes such ventilation without seriously endangering the guards as well as other prison inmates. What, then, is the best course of action with a gas which poses such difficult problems of ventilation? The solution is to transform the acidic vapors into a solid salt which can then be flushed out with water. For this purpose, ammonia vapors which are basic are used to react with the acid vapors to form the salt by chemical reaction. When the hydrocyanic acid has all but vanished, a warning signal would alert the attending physician and his aides who are located on the opposite side of a glass barrier. The warning signal is phenolphtalein. It is arranged in containers located at various places in the chamber and turns from pink to purple in the absence of hydrocyanic acid. Once the absence of the poison is indicated and once an arrangement of fans draws the ammonia fumes out through an exhaust vent, the physician and his assistants enter the chamber wearing gas masks. Rubber gloves are used to protect the hands. The doctor ruffles through the convict’s hair so as to brush out any residual hydrocyanic acid. Only after a full hour has elapsed since the death, can the doctor and his assistants enter the chamber. The convict’s body is washed very carefully and the room is hosed down. The ammonia gas has by this time been expelled via a high chimney stack above the prison. Because of the danger to guards who are normally stationed in the prison watch towers, in some prisons the guards are required to leave their post during such an execution. I will just mention the other requirements for a completely air-tight gas chamber such as the need for locks, “Herculite” glass barriers of considerable thickness (because of the risk of implosion since a vacuum has to be made) a vacuum system, mercury valves, etc.
A gassing is not an improvisation. If the Germans had decided to gas millions of people, a complete overhaul of some very formidable machinery would have been absolutely essential. A general order, instructions, studies, commands and plans would surely have been necessary also. Such items have never been found. Meetings of experts would have been necessary: of architects, chemists, doctors, and experts in a wide range of technical fields. Disbursements and allocations of funds would have been necessary. Had this occurred in a state such as the Third Reich, a wealth of evidence would surely have survived. We know, for example, down to the pfennig the cost of the kennel at Auschwitz and of the bay trees which were ordered for the nurseries. Orders for projects would have been issued. Auschwitz and Birkenau would not have been camps where so much coming and going would have been allowed. In fact, it was because of all this to-ing and fro-ing, and in order to prevent any increase in escapes, that it was found necessary for registration numbers to be tattooed onto prisoners' arms.[17] Civilian workers and engineers would not have been permitted to mingle with the inmates. Passes would not have been granted to Germans in the camp, and their family members would not have had visiting rights. Above all, the prisoners who had served their sentences would not have been released and permitted to return to their respective countries: that well guarded secret among historians was revealed to us several years ago in an article by Louis De Jong, Director of the Institute of World War II History of Amsterdam.[18]
Moreover, in the United States the recent publication of aerial photographs of Auschwitz deals a death blow to the extermination fable: even in the summer of 1944 at the height of the influx of Hungarian Jews, there is no indication of any human pyre or throng of prisoners near the crematorium (but an open gate and a landscaped area are clearly visible) and there is no suspicious smoke (although the smoke stacks of the crematoria reportedly spewed forth flames continuously that were visible from a distance of several kilometers both day and night).[19]
I will conclude with a comment on what I regard as the criterion of false evidence regarding the gas chambers. I have noticed that all of these statements, vague and inconsistent as they are, concur on at least one point: the crew responsible for removing the bodies from the “gas chambers” entered the site either “immediately” or a “few moments” after the deaths of the victims. I contend that this point alone constitutes the cornerstone of the false evidence, because this is a physical impossibility. If you encounter a person who believes in the existence of the “gas chambers,” ask him how, in his opinion, the thousands of cadavers were removed to make room for the next batch.
QUESTION 2: How can you assert this, after all that has been said and written during the past 35 years? After all that the survivors of the camps have recounted? After the cases brought against war criminals? After Nuremberg? Upon what proofs and upon what documents do you base your assertions?
ANSWER 2:
Many historical errors have lasted more than 35 years. What certain “survivors” have recounted does indeed constitute evidence, but it is evidence among others. Testimony evidence alone is not proof. In particular, the “evidence” presented at the “war crimes” trials ought to be examined with special caution. Unless I am mistaken, not a sole witness in 35 years has ever been prosecuted for perjury; a fact which amounts to giving a watertight guarantee to everyone desirous of providing evidence of “war crimes.” Furthermore, this also explains the fact that earlier tribunals have “established” the existence of “gas chambers” in parts of Germany where it has now been finally and firmly established that there were none (for example, throughout the entire territory of the Old Reich).
The judgments pronounced at Nuremberg have only a relative value. The vanquished were judged by their victors. There was not the least possibility of appeal. Articles 19 and 21 of the Statutes of this political tribunal cynically gave it the right of not having to have solid proof, they even validated hearsay evidence.[20] All the other trials for “war crimes” have, as a result, been inspired by the legislation at Nuremberg. The trials of witches and sorcerers through the centuries used to proceed in such a manner.
There have existed, at least at first glance, “proofs” and “witnesses” of gassing at Oranienburg, at Buchenwald, at Bergen-Belsen, at Dachau, at Ravensbrück, and at Mauthausen. Professors, priests, Catholics, Jews, Communists, have all attested to the existence of “gas chambers” in these camps, and of their use for killing internees. To take only one example: Mgr. Piguet, Bishop of Clermont-Ferrand, has written that Polish priests have passed through the “gas chambers” of Dachau.[21] But since 1960 it has been officially recognized that no one was ever gassed at Dachau.[22]
But even more outrageous: there have been many cases where those in charge in certain camps have confessed to the
existence and the functioning of homocidal “gas chambers” where it has since been revealed by investigation that none ever existed. As far as Ravensbrück is concerned, the commandant of the camp (Suhren), his deputy (Schwarzhuber), and the camp doctor (Dr. Treite), have all admitted to the existence of a “gas chamber” and have even described, in a vague fashion, its operation.[23] They were executed or they committed suicide.
The same scenario existed for the commandant Ziereis at Mauthausen who, in 1945, on his death bed, is reported to have also made such confessions.[24]
One should not immediately assume that the admissions of the Ravensbrück administrators were extorted from them by the Russians or by the Poles. It was actually the judicial apparatus of Britain and of France which obtained these confessions. An even more disturbing factor is that the “confessions” were extracted several years after the war’s end. The necessary pressure continued to be applied to such unfortunates right up until as late as 1950, when a man like Schwarzhuber collaborated with his interrogators, or his judges, or his bench magistrates.
No serious historian pretends any longer that people were gassed in any camp anywhere in the Old Reich. Today, allegations are only made about certain camps situated in Poland. 19 August 1960 constituted an important date in the history of the myth of the “gas chambers.” On this day, the newspaper Die Zeit published a letter which was entitled “No gassing at Dachau."[25] From the content of the letter, a better title would have been “No gassing anywhere in the Old Reich"; (Germany with its 1937 frontiers.) This letter emanated from Dr. Martin Broszat, director since 1972 of the Institute of Contemporary History at Munich. This Dr. Broszat is a convinced anti-Nazi. He belongs to the group of Exterminationist historians. He believes in the authenticity of the “confessions” of Rudolf Hoss, which he published in 1958 (but with serious cuts of the text in the passages where Hoss had exaggerated “a little too much"-probably obeying the suggestions of his Polish jailers.[26] In brief, Dr. Broszat admitted on 19 August 1960 that gassing had never existed in the whole of the Old Reich. He added, using a confused expression, that there had been gassing “above all"(?) at some chosen points in Poland, for instance Auschwitz.[27]
All the official historians, as far as I know, have concluded by agreeing with Dr. Broszat. I deplore the fact that Dr. Broszat has contented himself with only a letter. A scientific paper was necessary, and detailed explanations were indispensable. It was necessary to explain to us why the proof, the evidence, and the confessions-all of which were considered unimpeachable up to that point-had suddenly lost all of their value. We are still waiting for the explanations of Dr. Broszat after nearly 20 years.[28] They would be valuable to us in determining if the proof, the evidence, and the confessions which we possess on the gassings at Auschwitz or Treblinka[29] are more valuable than the proof, evidence, and confessions which we possess on the faked gassings of Buchenwald or of Ravensbrück. In the meantime, it is extremely curious that the evidence collected (mainly) by the French, British and American tribunals should suddenly lose all its value in this way, while the evidence collected by the Polish and Soviet tribunals should preserve its value on the same subject!
In 1968, it was the turn of the “gas chamber” at Mauthausen (in Austria) to be declared mythical by an Exterminationist historian: Olga Wormser-Migot, in her thesis on The Nazi Concentration Camp System, in particular the section titled “The problem of the gas chambers."[30] Let us retain this heading; for according to the admissions of the Exterminationist historians themselves, there does exist a “PROBLEM of the gas chambers!”
In regard to the false confessions, I one day asked the Exterminationist historian Joseph Billig (attached to the CDJC) how he could, for his part, explain them. Here is his reply: They were, so he said, “psychotic phenomena!” For my part, I have an explanation to offer about these alleged “psychotic phenomena” as well as about the “schizoid apathy” of Höss on the day of his depositions before the Nuremberg Tribunal. Höss had been tortured by his British jailers.[31] He had been “interrogated with a riding whip and primed with alcohol.” Likewise at the Dachau Trial, the Americans-as revealed in particular by the Van Roden Commission of inquiry-had abominably tortured other German accused.[32]
But torture more often than not is useless. The procedures of intimidation are numerous. The massive universal condemnation which was brought to bear on the accused Nazis still retains its potency today. When “Anathema resounds with a religious unanimity as dignified as in the great mediaeval communions” there is nothing one can do against it, especially if the lawyers come into play, and impress upon the defendants that concessions are necessary. I well remember my own hatred of the Germans during the war, and just after its end. It was an incandescent hatred which I believed was voluntary. But with the passing of time, I perceived that it was not in fact mine but had been breathed into me. My hatred stemmed from the British radio, from the propaganda of Hollywood, and from the Stalinist press. I myself would have been merciless toward any German who should have told me that he had been a guard at some camp, and that he had not seen any of the massacres which the entire world talked about. If I had been his judge, then I would have considered it my duty to force him to “confess.”
For 35 years this scenario involving German defendants has been comparable to that against witches and sorcerers of the Middle Ages. Let us consider for a moment the incredible courage which would be needed for one of these accused witches to dare to say to her tribunal: “The best proof that I have not had dealings with the Devil is simply that the Devil does not exist.” Most of the time, those so-called witches could not believe the facts they were blamed for, but they would go along with, or pretend to go along with, their accusing-judges' belief in the Devil. (Accusing-judges during the French Revolution were at one and the same time judge and prosecutor.) In the same way, Dr. Dürrfeld, who had been an engineer at Auschwitz, initially told his judges that he personally had never suspected the existence of “gas chambers” in the camp; then later, joining the fashionable belief, he declared to the tribunal his indignation at “this brand of infamy for the German people."[33]
The witch would use deceit with her judges, just as the Germans, even today during the “Majdanek” trial in Düsseldorf, deceive their judges too. For example, the witch might admit that the Devil had been there on such and such a day, but that he was at the top of a hill while she herself had remained at the foot of the hill. Likewise, a German defendant endeavors to demonstrate that he himself had nothing to do with the “gas chambers.” Sometimes, he even goes so far as to say that he assisted in pushing people into the “gas chamber” or even that he was ordered to pour a product through a trap in the ceiling under threat of execution if he disobeyed.[34] Thus, he often gives the impression of sidestepping the issue. His accusers think: “Here again is one who seeks to get out of his predicament. They are extraordinary, these Germans! They almost never saw or heard anything!” The truth, however, is that they neither saw nor knew anything concerning what it was wished they should say in the matter of gassing.[35] Any reproach should be directed at the accusers, not at the defendants who are caught up in the only defense strategy left open to them. The lawyers have a grave responsibility for the adoption of this strategy. I do not speak of those lawyers who, like nearly everyone, believe that the “gas chambers” existed. I speak of those who know or suspect that they are confronted with an enormous lie. They prefer not to raise this question, either in their own interests or in their clients' interests. Eichmann’s lawyer did not believe in the existence of the “gas chambers” but that did not prevent him from deliberately avoiding opening this can of worms at the trial in Jerusalem.[36] One cannot reproach him for this. I understand that the statute of this tribunal allowed for the dismissal of the defense lawyer if he should present any argument which fitted the term “intolerable” or a term approximating this.
An old resort of lawyers, a resort necessitated on occasion by the needs of the defense, is to plead the seeming truth rather than the actual truth. The truth is sometimes too difficult to gain acceptance into the judges' minds. One has to be contented with pragmatism. An example admirably demonstrates this. It is recounted by Maitre Albert Naud, the lawyer representing Lucien Léger, whom the entire French press regarded as the perpetrator of an abominable crime. Lucien Léger protested his innocence. He chose Mailtre Naud as his lawyer. The lawyer went to see him in prison. He said to him: “Léger, be serious! If you want me to be your lawyer, we are going to plead guilty.” A bargain was struck. Léger saved his head. Some years later, Maitre Naud became convinced that Léger was innocent. He developed an enormous complex because he had forced Léger to plead guilty. He summoned all of his powers to obtain a retrial.[37] Too late. Naud died. And Léger, if he is innocent, will probably pay until the end of his days for the abominable attitude of the press and the blindness of his lawyer.
A tribunal has no capacity for determining historical truth. Even historians have very often the utmost trouble in distinguishing the factual truth on a point of history. The independence of the judges is necessarily very relative. Judges read newspapers just like everyone else. They keep informed, at least in part, through the radio or television. Reviews and books present to them, as to all of us, “documents” or “photographs” of Nazi atrocities. Unless they are especially skilled in the critical appraisal of this kind of document or photos, they tend to fall into the more blatant traps of the media-orchestrated propaganda. Simultaneously, the judges are concerned to bring about respect for public order, public morality, certain norms, usages and beliefs, even, of public life. All of this, without counting the anxiety of ever seeing their name vilified in the press, can only be conducive to judgments in matters of “war crimes” which the historian himself is not obliged to accept as his own.
Justice has been itself judged. At no time during this kind of trial has justice considered asking for an expert’s report about the weapon of the crime. When they are suspected of being instruments of a crime, items such as a knife, a rope, or a revolver, are all subject to expert forensic appraisal. Yet, those objects have nothing mysterious about them. But in the case of the “gas chambers” there has not been a single forensic appraisal in 35 years! There is certainly talk of an appraisal supposedly made by the Soviets, but in every case the text of it seems to have remained secret.
For one and a half years, at the Frankfurt trial of 1963-65, a German tribunal conducted the affair called “the Auschwitz guards trial,” without ordering any expert forensic appraisal of the actual device used for the crime. The same happened at the Majdanek trial at Düsseldorf and, just after the war, for the Struthof trial in France. This absence of forensic expertise is even less excusable when one considers that not one judge, not one prosecutor, not one lawyer, possessed any experience on the nature and the functioning of these extraordinary “human abattoirs.” At Struthof and Majdanek these “chambers” are, however, still represented as being an original fixture: therefore it would suffice to examine the “instrument of the crime” on the spot.
At Auschwitz things are less clear. At the principal camp (Auschwitz 1) tourists are led to believe that the “gas chamber” is authentic, but when the museum authorities are pressed with questions, they beat a retreat and talk of a “replica” (which is nothing other than downright deceit, easily proved as such from certain archive documents). At the Birkenau annex (Auschwitz II) one is only shown the ruins of the “gas chambers.” But even there forensic examination is perfectly possible. To an archaeologist even a few meager indices sometimes suffice in order to reveal the nature and the purpose of an encampment inhabited for several centuries. To give you some idea of the complacent attitude taken by the lawyers at the trial in Frankfurt, even to the extent of agreeing with the accusations in advance(!), I would tell you that one of these lawyers even had his photograph taken by the press in the process of lifting a trapdoor (sic!) of the pretended “gas chamber” at the principal camp at Auschwitz.[38] Ten years after the trial I asked this lawyer what had caused him to consider the building in question a “gas chamber.” His written reply was more than evasive. It resembled the reply which has been made to me by the authorities of the Dachau Museum. I asked the Dachau people in writing upon what documents did they base their confirmation that a certain piece of camp equipment was an unfinished “gas chamber.” In effect, I was surprised to learn that it could be determined that an unfinished structure was destined to become, once completed, a thing which no one had ever seen in his life. One day I will publish my correspondence with these authorities as well as with the officials of the International Dachau Committee at Brussels.
You ask me upon what proofs and upon what documents I base my declaration that the “gas chambers” never existed. I believe that I have already largely replied to this question. I would add that a good part of these proofs and documents are those of the accusers.[39] It suffices to re-read through the texts of the prosecution in order to perceive that the accusation bordered on the opposite of the result which it wanted to establish. The basic texts are the 42 volumes of the International Military Tribunal (IMT), the 15 volumes of the Nuremberg Military Tribunal (NMT), the 19 volumes published by the University of Amsterdam, the stenographic transcripts of the Eichmann trial, various verbal proceedings relating to interrogations, the works of Hilberg, of Reitlinger, of Adler, of Langbein, of Olga Wormser-Migot, the Encyclopedia judaica, the Memorial by Klarsfeld (very interesting for the list of fake gassings), the publications of different institutes. I have, above all, worked a great deal at the CDJC of Paris. But I was hounded at the beginning of 1978, on the initiative, in particular, of Georges Wellers, because it was known at what conclusions I had already arrived in regard to the “gas chambers” and “genocide.” The CDJC is a semi-public body. It receives public money. Nonetheless, it arrogates to itself the right to hound those who do not think as it requires. And it says so!
QUESTION 3: You have gone so far as to deny any deliberate intention on the part of Hitler to exterminate the Jews. And lastly, in the course of a debate on Swiss-Italian television, you have said: “Hitler never had a single person killed because they were Jewish.” What exactly do you mean to say with this phrase?
ANSWER 3:
I say exactly this: “Hitler never ordered nor admitted that anyone should be killed on account of his race or his religion.”
This phrase is perhaps shocking to certain people, but I truly believe it. Hitler was anti-Jewish and racist. His racism was, moreover, not opposed to fostering admiration for the Arabs and Hindus. He was hostile to colonialism. On 7 February 1945 he declared to his entourage: “The Whites have carried to these (colonial) people the worst that they could carry: the plagues of the world: materialism, fanaticism, alcoholism, and syphilis. Moreover, since what these people possessed on their own was superior to anything we could give them, they have remained themselves… The sole result of the activity of the colonizers is: they have everywhere aroused hatred."[40]
Hitler became hostile to the Jews rather late. Before saying and repeating that the Jews are “the grand masters of the lie"[41] he had been rather favorable toward them. He writes in Mein Kampf. “They were persecuted (on account of their beliefs) as I believed, often making my dislike of unfavorable assertions about them almost reach the point of repugnance.”
Personally, I know Hitler rather poorly, and he interests me no more than Napoleon Bonaparte. If he raved, then I do not see why we ourselves should rave about him. Let us make efforts to speak of Hitler with the same sang-froid with which one used to speak of Amenophis Akhenaton. Between Hitler and the Jews there was an inexpiable war. It is evident that each holds the other responsible for this conflict. In the person of Chaim Weizmann, president of the World Jewish Congress (and future president of the state of Israel), the international Jewish community declared war on Germany on 5 September 193.[42] Hitherto, as early as 1934, the hostility of the international Jewish community had been manifested by the exigencies of the economic boycott against Nazi Germany.[43] Obviously it had been motivated by retaliation against the measures taken by Hitler against the German Jews. This deadly chain of events, on the part of both sides, was to lead to the world war. Hitler said: “The Jews and the Allies wish for our annihilation, but it is they who will be destroyed,” while the Allies and the Jews said: “Hitler and the Nazis and their allies wish for our destruction, but it is they who will be destroyed.” The two hostile camps during the whole course of the war thus intoxicated themselves in belligerent and fanatical proclamations. The enemy became a beast to be slaughtered. Think, in the same fashion, of the words of the Marseillaise: “Qu'un sang impur abreuve nos sillions!” ("Let our soil be drenched by their impure blood!")
Moreover, the Allies waged a pitiless war against the Nazis, and 35 years after the war’s end, still pursue a kind of “Nazi hunt.” But in the same way as the Allies never actually decreed that a civilian National Socialist, whether he be a man, woman or child, should be killed solely on a basis of their National Socialism, in the same way it must also be said that Hitler — in spite of all the antipathy he had toward the Jews — never decreed that all Jews, or even one Jew, should be killed on the sole and unique basis of their Jewishness. Although, in the case of reprisals against “partisans” or “terrorists” when the Germans selected their hostages for execution, it was better to be neither a Jew, nor a Communist, nor a common-law criminal, but in that particular case it was a familiar aspect of hostage-taking (to kill the more expendable hostages) just as had been practiced everywhere throughout the ages.
Hitler had a proportion of the European Jews interned, but in no way does internment mean “extermination.” There has been neither “genocide” nor “Holocaust.” Every concentration camp is a pitiful sight, and a horror, irrespective of whether it is a German, Russian, British, French, American, Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese or Cuban camp. There are of course degrees in this pity or this horror, and it is certain that in times of war, of famine, of epidemics, a concentration camp becomes even more horrible. But nothing in the case which concerns us here permits us to say that there were deliberate camps of extermination, i.e. camps where people would have been placed to be killed.
The Exterminationists pretend that in the summer of 1941, Hitler gave the order to exterminate the Jews. But no one has ever seen this order. On the other hand, there exist neither specific conversations of Hitler nor measures taken by his armies, which imply that such an order could not have been given. On 24 July 1942, in a restricted gathering, Hitler recalled that the Jews had declared war on him through the intermediary of Chaim Weizmann, and said that after the war he would close the towns to the Jews, one after the other. His precise words were: “… if the Jewish dregs did not decamp and if they do not emigrate to Madagascar or to some other national Jewish homeland."[44] For my own part, I would like to know just how one can reconcile this talk in a circle of confidants with any “definitive order of extermination” supposedly given one year previously (summer 1941).
Even in July 1944, on the eastern front where the German soldiers were engaged in a ferocious war against the partisans (Jews or non-Jews, Russians or Communists, Ukrainians, etc.) the army gave the most draconian orders that no German soldier should participate in any excesses against the civilian population, Jews included. Otherwise, they would be court-martialled[45]. Such excesses were to be absolutely suppressed. Hitler called for a merciless struggle in the fight, especially against the partisans, including, if it were necessary, against women and children mingling with the partisans or who were apparent accomplices of the partisans. He had evidently not rejected the practice of taking hostages (neither had the Allies, of course). But he did not go beyond that measure. The day our media decide to break with certain taboos and devote to the war crimes of the Allies even one thousandth of the time which they devote to the war crimes of the vanquished, on that day there will be astonishment among the naive public. The “crimes” of Hitler will then take on their correct proportions in a proper historical perspective. There is indeed little talk about Dresden and Katyn. But I say that Dresden and Katyn are small matters when compared to the deportations the Allies inflicted on the German minorities in the eastern territories. It is true that officially it was not a matter of “deportations” but of … “displacement” (e.g. “displaced persons"). And I wonder if the champions of all the “war criminals” have not been the British with their delivery to the Soviets of their Russian internees?[46]
QUESTION 4: What is your conception and what is your definition of genocide?
ANSWER 4:
I describe “genocide” as the act of killing a man on account of his race. Hitler no more committed “genocide” than Napoleon, Stalin, Churchill or Mao. Roosevelt interned American citizens of Japanese extraction in concentration camps. That was not “genocide.”
Hitler treated the civilian Jews as the representatives of a belligerent enemy minority. It is regrettably common to treat this type of civilian as dangerous, or potentially dangerous. In fact, with good war logic, Hitler would have been lead to intern all the Jews who had fallen into his hands. He is very far from having done this, and without doubt this was not on account of any humanitarian motives, but for reasons of practicality. In certain parts of Europe he made his enemies wear a distinctive sign: the Star of David (beginning September 1941 in Germany, and June 1942 in the northern zone of France). The wearers of the star were not free to move about, except during certain hours. They were like prisoners of war on supervised parole. Hitler preoccupied himself perhaps less with the Jewish question than with ensuring the security of the German soldier. The average German trooper would have been incapable of distinguishing Jews from non-Jews. The Star of David identified them.
The Jews were suspected of passing information (many of them spoke German), of engaging in espionage, of trafficking in arms, of terrorism, and of black-marketeering. It was necessary to avoid all contact between the Jew and the German soldier. For example, on the Paris metro Jews wearing the Star of David were only allowed to ride in the last of the five cars, and a German soldier himself had no right to enter this car.[47] I am not a specialist on these questions but I believe that this kind of measure was dictated by reasons of military security as much as by reasons of deliberate humiliation. In places where there were large concentrations of Jews it was virtually impossible to keep them under surveillance (except through the intermediary of the Jewish ghetto police), and the Germans feared an insurrection similar to that which took place in the Warsaw ghetto, where a strategically dangerous uprising took place in April 1943. With stupefaction, the Germans discovered then that the Jews had constructed 700 blockhouses.[48] They suppressed the insurrection and transferred the survivors to transit camps, work camps, and concentration camps. The Jews experienced tragedy there.
I know that it is sometimes argued that children of 6 to 15 years of age could not constitute a danger, and should not have been subjected to the restrictive measures. But to convince us of the contrary there exist today sufficient accounts and memoirs by Jews telling us of their childhood when they committed all sorts of illicit activities or resistance to the Germans.
It is necessary to distinguish between what is real and what is fantasy in the representation which is made that the Jews allowed themselves to be slaughtered like sheep. Did the non-Jews resist as much as it is said? Did the Jews resist as little as it is said? The factor which increases the problem is that too many of our judgments are based on a false premise: that of the “genocide” against the Jews. Obviously, if this “genocide” had existed, then one would perhaps regard the Jews as cowards; this is apparently the reproach which young Israelis make against their fathers. But if, as the Revisionists claim, “genocide” is nothing other than a legend, then the reproach of cowardice no longer has a foundation.
QUESTION 5: If there had not been a deliberate intention on the part of Hitler to carry out genocide, then why Auschwitz, Treblinka, Belzec and the other extermination camps? They existed; they have been a reality. Not only Jews have been imprisoned and died there, but also “politicals,” gypsies, Slaves, homosexuals; that is to say, all those “deviants” whom Nazi racism condemned. Why were these camps organized? To what ultimate purpose?
ANSWER 5:
A camp can only be qualified as an “extermination” camp if people are exterminated there. It is so true, that, according to the nomenclature created by the official historians, only those camps where (it is pretended) there existed “gas chambers” can be termed “extermination” camps. These camps have never existed. The horrible epidemic of typhus at Bergen-Belsen did not transform this camp (for a great part without barbed-wire) into an extermination camp. Those dead are not the result of a crime except the crime of war itself, and of human folly. The Allies share with the Germans a grave responsibility for the frightful chaos in which Europe, its towns, its refugee camps, and its internee camps, were found at the end of the war. The Allies have distributed a large number of photographs showing the mass graves of Bergen-Belsen. However, thousands of the internees died of typhus after the entry of the British into Bergen-Belsen. At the time the British did not succeed any more than the Germans before them, in ending this terrible epidemic. Would it have been more honest to treat the British as criminals?
The first Nazi concentration camps were conceived for internment and for re-education (sic!) of the political opponents to Hitler. Propaganda asserted that these camps, open to numerous visits, constituted an advance on prisons where common-law criminals stagnated. Jews were interned there only in so far as they were Communists, Social Democrats, etc. The Jews were placed in the concentration camps only during the war, above all from 1942 onward. Those Jews who had been interned in 1938 as a reprisal for the assassination of von Rath by a Jew had been for the most part set free after only a few months.
Before the war, Hitler had attempted-with a certain amount of success-to promote the exodus of the Jews. The idea was the creation of a Jewish national homeland outside Europe. The “Madagascar project” was conceived as a Jewish homeland under German protection.[49] The initial plans provided, as a matter of priority, drainage works, banking systems, etc. But the war prevented the realization of this project.[50] It would have required too many ships. Little Germany-from the aspect of the map of the world-was engaged with Japan and a few allies in a formidable struggle against giants. The principal concern for Germany was to win the war. A secondary aim was to find a solution to the Jewish problem, a definitive solution; a “final” solution, a “total” solution, to a problem which, in a certain manner, was as old as the Jewish people themselves.[51] This provisional solution, because of the war, was largely going to consist of “driving back toward the East” the Jews in the camps.
Auschwitz was first and foremost a very important complex in Upper Silesia composed of three main camps and 39 sub-camps scattered over the whole of one region. The mining, industrial, agricultural operations, and the researches there, were considerable: coal mines (some with French capital), petro-chemicals, armaments, explosives, synthetics, artificial rubber, cattle-breeding, fish farms, etc. At Auschwitz there were free laborers as well as internees, and prisoners condemned to life imprisonment as well as prisoners interned for a shorter time. In Auschwitz-II or Birkenau camp, there was the distressing spectacle of numerous persons unskilled for any work and stagnating on the spot. Among them were the gypsies, who with few exceptions were not put to work. Numerous gypsy children were born at Auschwitz.[52] It seems that only the nomadic gypsies were interned. This does not seem to have been done for racial reasons, but on account of their nomadism and possible “delinquency.” I recall that in France even the Resistance had come to regard the gypsies with suspicion, and had suspected them of espionage, of collecting secret information, and of black market activities.[53] It would be interesting to determine how many gypsy troupes continued to wander around Europe during the war.
As for the homosexuals — classified as delinquents — they were, like many other “delinquents,” removed from prison or sent directly to the camps to work there. German legislation, like much other legislation of that epoch, repressed homosexuality. As for the Slavs, those of them who were in the camps were not there because they were Slavs, but as political internees, prisoners of war, etc., as well as other Europeans. At Auschwitz there were even British PoWs, taken prisoner at Tobruk.
The essential pre-occupation of the Germans at the end of 1942 was to put to work all these internees (with the exception of those unable to work, and, it seems, the gypsies) to win the war. At Auschwitz there even existed courses of professional training for the young from 12 to 15 years old, in masonry, for example.[54] The Germans responsible for the deportation of foreigners to the camps insisted upon obtaining the largest possible number of those “capable of work.” The foreign governments, for their part, insisted that families should not be separated and that the old and the children should join the convoys. Neither the Jews nor anyone else had any knowledge whatever of leaving for an “extermination” camp, if one is to believe testimonies such as those of Georges Wellers in L'Etoile Jaune à Pheure de Vichy.[55] They had good reason. This “massacre” was happily nothing but a propaganda invention of the war. Besides, it is difficult to conceive that Germany, dramatically short of locomotives, of wagons, of coal, of qualified personnel, and of soldiers, could have laid on such a system of convoys to the “abattoirs.” These convoys, I recall, seemed to have had a priority even over the convoys of war materiel.[56] Production, above all, skilled production was what pre-occupied the Germans more than anything in this matter.
QUESTION 6: You have specialized in the literary criticism of texts and documents, but you have made this particular problem your preferred terrain of historical research. Why? What do you wish to say when you continue to assert that there has been a conspiracy of silence concerning the problem of the gas chambers and the extermination of the Jews? Why should a conspiracy of silence exist, and organized by whom?
ANSWER 6:
For me, the critical appraisal of texts and documents aims at establishing the degree of authenticity and veracity of what one reads. One searches therein to distinguish between the true and the false, sense and nonsense, and so on. I suppose that this awareness was destined to guide me to the detection of certain historical fakes, and in particular, to the detection of what in a few years would appear to every historian as a monumental forgery.
The result of the conspiracy of silence surrounding the Revisionist works is that these works are for the most part '6samizdat” ("underground literature").[57] In regard to the authors who do succeed in breaking the wall of silence, they are treated as Nazis, which in turn ostracises them to an intellectual ghetto. The procedures utilized against the non-conformist historians or individuals range from pure criminality to judicial prosecutions, without forgetting the disgusting conduct of the police. All sorts of lobbies are active in attempting to establish a dominant atmosphere or terror. I am aware of that personally. I can no longer teach at the university. My life has become difficult. I am up against enormous power-blocs. Some young people support me. The light will eventually shine through. Some Jews are on my side; they themselves wish to denounce deception and persecution.
I believe rather less in conspiracies and rather more in the force of conformity. The victors of the last war needed to make us believe in the intrinsic evil of the vanquished. Soviets and Westerners, whatever their differences, had found common ground of agreement there. Hollywood and the apparatus of Stalinist propaganda have conjugated their efforts. What a fracas of propaganda! The principal beneficiaries of the operation have been the state of Israel and international Zionism. The principal victims have been the German people — but not its leaders — and the Palestinian people as a whole. But today there is dissension in the air. Zionists and Poles already present us with a divergent version of Auschwitz.
QUESTION 7: You dispute a very large part of the methods which the official historians have applied in this historical research. In your opinion, this chapter in 20th Century history has not been written in the right way. Why, then? And why would those historians have done so?
ANSWER 7:
The official historians have been lacking in their obligations. They have not observed in this matter the routine methods of historical criticism. They have followed the general current, i.e. that which is sponsored by the media. They have allowed themselves to be absorbed by the system. An official historian such as Professor Hellmut Diwald saw the terrible vexation confronting him when he risked simply writing a phrase saying that “genocide” in spite of the abundant literature dedicated to it, is an affair which in essentials “is not yet well elucidated.” Under the pressure of the German Jewish organizations, the second edition of his History of the Germans was issued as “re-cast and improved” (sic!) where it was necessary. The courage of Paul Rassinier consisted in having precisely applied the routine methods of historical criticism. In a way he has said to his accusers: “Show me your proof.” “Does your document offer guarantees of authenticity?” “Are you sure that this expression, that this phrase, has in fact the meaning which you attribute?” “Where do your figures come from?” “How have you reached these statistics?” “Where does the caption of this photo come from?” “Who says to me that this old woman and this child in this picture are really 'on the road to the gas chambers'?” “Does this pile of shoes signify that people were gassed in this camp or that many of those detained there were in fact employed in making shoes?” “Where is the manuscript of this extraordinary testimony which ought to have only one form and which is published in many, contradictory forms, even by one and the same historian?” And so on, and so on.
Paul Rassinier, modest professor of history and geography, has given a remarkable lesson of clairvoyance and of probity to his eminent colleagues of the university. A genuine revolutionary, a genuine member of the Resistance, a genuine deportee, this man loved the truth in the manner it is necessary to love it: fiercely and above anything else. He has denounced what he calls “the lie of Ulysses.” Ulysses, as we know, experienced a hundred trials during exile but, returning home, he recounted a thousand. We know that man finds it difficult not to make up yarns. He is often fond of stories of hunting, fishing, love, and wealth. But above all he is fascinated by stories of atrocities.
The American author Arthur R. Butz has written a book on The Hoax of the Twentieth Century. This book provokes disarray among the Exterminationists. The demonstration is unavoidable. The German edition has been placed on the list of “works dangerous to young people,” and steps are now being taken to have it banned altogether in West Germany.[58] The German Wilhelm Stäglich has published Der Auschwitz Mythos (The Auschwitz Myth). The Swedish group Jewish Information has published Auschwitz Exit. A Jew has written Revisionist works: J. G. Burg in Germany. In very recent times, the extreme left review La Guerre Sociale (The Class War) has published a study entitled “From exploitation in the camps to the exploitation of the camps".[59] In Britain, in the United States, in Germany (in this particular country the persecution of Revisionists is merciless), in Australia, in Belgium, in Spain, in France, almost in every part of the world, voices are raised demanding that this absurd war propaganda be finally renounced.
I even know — although I cannot give here their names — of official historians who have awakened from this nightmare. Perhaps they wish to decide to renounce the delights which the Revisionist historian David Irving calls “incest among historians.” This figurative expression illustrates the practice which consists of delighting in reassessing what other historians have affirmed and of not reviving the subject except by subtle outbidding. It is instructive to participate in a congress of historians dealing with Nazism. What strange communion in respect of a taboo! Misfortune to those who wish to disturb the expiatory ceremony by the expression of a non-official theme: derision and censure.[60]
QUESTION 8: Are you an anti-Semite? What is your assessment of Nazism?
ANSWER 8:
I am not anti-Semitic. One must avoid imagining anti-Semites everywhere. Those Jews who denounce the imposture of “genocide” are like Catholics who say Fatima is an imposture (where thousands of witnesses are supposed to have seen the sun dance). The truth, or its research, cannot be anti-Semitic. In fact Nazism was the dictatorship of a Führer. It died with the Führer on 30 April 1945. My enemy is vanquished. Do not count on me to spit upon his corpse. As long as I am a man, I will not accept that the German people should be defamed by attributing to them crimes which are without precedent in human history. And above all, I will not accept that the German people are so thoroughly “reeducated” that they are the first to believe in these crimes, and deprecate themselves even more than their leaders require of them. In my capacity as an historian, I merely state that Adenauer, Brandt and Schmidt repeat the lessons they have learned from the conquerors of the West, while their homologs in East Germany repeat the lessons taught them by their conquerors from the East. It is realpolitik, I suppose.
QUESTION 9: You deny also that the number of victims-six million-is credible. But even if the number of victims had been less, does this change anything in the fact that there was genocide? And would the number of victims matter, in fact?
ANSWER 9:
The six million is equivalent to a population of a country like Switzerland. No one at the Nuremberg Trial had the tiniest scrap of evidence capable of backing up such a figure. It was on the morning of 14 December 1945 that the American prosecutor Walsh attempted to insinuate the acceptance of this figure by means of presenting an affidavit by witness Wilhelm Höttl. That very afternoon he was forced to beat a retreat by the intervention of the lawyer Kauffmann, who decisively demanded the appearance of this witness so that he could be cross-examined in regard to this figure. The sad fact is that the press and the historians have retained this figure as if the tribunal had totally believed it.[61]
My estimation is as follows: First, the number of Jews exterminated by the Nazis (or: “victims of genocide") is happily equivalent to zero. Second, the number of Europeans killed by acts of war (often by atrocious acts of war) could be in the order of 40 millions; among them the proportion of European Jews could be somewhere in the order of one million, but more likely, several hundred thousands if one does not count those Jews fighting in the uniforms of military allies — I insist on the fact that, as far as I am concerned, it is an estimate without proper scientific character. Moreover, I have good enough reason to think that the figure of the dead at Auschwitz (Jews and non-Jews) amounts to around 50,000 and not to 4 million, as has been pretended for a long time. (This was before the Institute of Contemporary History in Munich decided to content themselves with one million as the accepted figure.)
As to the number of dead in all the concentration camps from 1933 to 1945, I think that it ought to be 200,000 or, at the most, 360,000. One day I will cite my sources, but today I assert that, if one employs computers, one can without doubt quickly establish the real number of dead. The deportees were indexed in files by many authorities. They left behind much evidence.
QUESTION 10: Do you realize that you can contribute this toward a “rehabilitation” of Nazism?
ANSWER 10:
Is it rehabilitating Nero if it is said that we do not possess any proof that he set Rome on fire? What one must concern oneself with rehabilitating or re-establishing is the truth! (Or at least, whenever it is possible.) The historian ought not to preoccupy himself with how Peter or Paul is going to react. What is important for me is to make my contribution to a truthful history of the Second World War. If an old Nazi happened to say to me that the pretended “gas chambers” and the pretended “genocide” of the Jews constitute one and the same unique historical lie, I would agree with him as much as if he had told me that two and two make four. I would not go further, and I would leave him to his political ideas.
Neo-Nazism is to a large extent an invention of the media who even sell a kind of Hollywood sex-shop Nazism. This is also the case with the imaginary “Odessa File” or the Nazi colonies in South America. Or the fairy-tale re-appearances of Hitler or Bormann. A lot of money is made through these inventions. In Germany, I believe that those whom their political adversaries classify as “Neo-Nazi” form 0.7 percent of the electorate. We live in a fantasmagoria, in a sort of Nazism without Nazis. About this subject, I would refer to the pertinent analyses of Gilbert Comte which appeared in Le Monde 29 and 30 May 1979. Since nothing happens by accident in this world, it is plain that an examination of this “media hype” reveals a complex play of interests, passions, and conflicts, all on a planetary scale. The state of Israel has a vital interest in the maintenance of this fantasmagoria, which contributed so much to its creation in 1948. Even a state such as the French republic has an interest in masking the reality of all of this, thanks to upholding in everyone’s mind a vigilance against the worst enemy who ever existed: the well-known vile beast of Nazism, a beast which died 35 years ago and against which it is permitted to let off steam. Consequently you have those perpetual expiatory ceremonies, those condemnations to eternal flames, this necessity of vengeance, of chastisement, of denunciation without any limit of time, of place, or of person.
QUESTION 11: Don’t you think that to treat the problem of Jewish genocide in such a manner is a way to discredit the memories upon which the widespread conviction is principally based that anti-Semitism is the worst of all the racism practiced in the course of the 20th Century? Memories which are discredited in fact serve nothing.
ANSWER 11:
Anti-Semitism is not the worst kind of racism, but a good way of making us believe that it is, is to convince us that “genocide” was practiced against the Jews. However, the Zionists have gone too far. They should have listened to those who counselled against the principle of “financial reparations” imposed on Germany in the name, particularly, of “genocide.” Unfortunately, Ben Gurion for the state of Israel and Nahum Goldmann, acting at the same time for Israel and the Diaspora, wished to draw a gigantic financial profit from the whole affair. Adenauer was a party to it. That gives the imposture of “genocide” an even more outrageous coloration. Read the stupefying interview of Nahum Goldmann which appeared in number 624 of Nouvel Observateur (25-29 October 1976).[62] One has rarely seen a man so elated and happy at having succeeded in a splendid financial-political operation.
QUESTION 12: In the course of your dispute with all those who contest this thesis, you have also asserted that a good part of what the public knows is only a legend and that this legend has been rendered possible thanks to the indiscriminate use of the mass media. What exactly do you wish to say by this?
ANSWER 12:
This point is grave and fascinating. The responsibility of the media in all of this is overwhelming. For 35 years, on five continents, this legend of “genocide” and “gas chambers” has been presented to us as a truth. Countless millions of people have been abused in this way . It makes one dizzy. What a lesson for those who believe in the quality of diverse and contradictory information! It has needed the heroic struggle of some individuals, of some non-conformist spirits in order to make a rupture in “official” truth. I could write a long study on the methods used by the French newspapers and television in order to stifle information. The courts help them in this, and also the public authorities as a whole. journalists are afraid that in the near future a data bank of information will be installed. This information would result in a classification of news items, which they would scarcely have means to control. But I have some advice for them. If they wish to know what a risk they are running of being deceived, let them look to the past, and-for some of them at their own past. If they wish to know how lies may look in the future, let them study the way in which the most remarkable lie of all time has been jealously guarded. When Louis XIV lied, his lies scarcely reached beyond a few provinces. Today, lies can take on veritable Hollywoodian dimensions. A “docudrama” like Holocaust is the crowning of an edifice. It was not conceivable in the years which followed the war, and which were indeed full of hatred. It has needed thirty years of intoxication. A drug as strong as Holocaust cannot be administered except to patients already long impregnated with other drugs of the same kind and which automatically require even more virulent drugs. But the overdose has produced some salutory effects through the spectacle of our addiction. Some sane reactions have been noticed. I am thinking in particular of the quite remarkable reactions by the “liberated Jew” Michel Rachline in an issue of Le Figaro (3 March 1979).
The non-existence of the “gas chambers” and of “genocide” is good news. Man, although still capable of many horrors, did not bring about these. And even better: millions of men who have been presented to us as accomplices of a monstrous crime or as cowards or as liars have been in fact decent individuals. I have already said that the Jews accused by their children of being driven like sheep into the abattoirs by the Germans do not in fact merit the accusation. I would add that the defendants at Nuremberg and at a thousand other trials were actually telling the truth when they declared to their accusing judges that they did not know of these terrifying massacres. The Vatican and the Red Cross told the truth when they humbly confessed the same ignorance. The Americans, the British, the Swiss, the Swedes, and all those peoples or governments whom the extremist Jews accused of “having done nothing” no longer have any need to show sinful repentance. The most unfortunate result of this gigantic imposture has been, and will still remain for some time to come, the bad conscience which the extremist Jews created among the western peoples, and in particular among the German people. Above all, I do not wish to give the impression that I am in the least making an apology for Nazism. I would even argue that I am capable of presenting a caustically critical analysis of this type of ideology. But I shall not present this analysis so long as the Exterminationists continue to wear us to death with this fake Nazism which continues to be denounced by the majority of official historians. These people, in attacking a Nazism which never existed, give the impression that they are incapable of attacking the reality of Nazism. They make me think of those people who imagine evil as a Devil with his tenterhooks, his pales, and his ovens. In reality, evil, as we well know, is inherent in the life-styles which man has created. So long as we take on mythical forms of evil, genuine evil will continue to be fighting fit. Our society is disconcerted. The medieval Devil has been re-invented right in the middle of the Twentieth Century. People are combating an imaginary enemy. They have better to do. An effort at analysis is necessary. We should open our eyes and recognize what the mass media have made us into. We should unmask that which lobbies, powers and governments seek to mask everywhere.
Footnotes
- This absurd legend (consult an anatomist, a chemist, any kind of specialist about it) has been revived but without any great success, in the course of the Second World War. Gitta Sereny makes mention of it in her book Into That Darkness: From Mercy Killing to Mass Murder, London, Andre Deutsch, 1974, 380pp. She says in a footnote of page 141 “The universally accepted story that the corpses were used to make soap and fertilizer is finally refuted by the generally very reliable Ludwigsburg Central Authority for Investigation into Nazi Crimes.” She adds: “The authority has found after considerable research that only one experiment was made, with 'a few corpses from a concentration camp. When it proved impractical, the idea was apparently abandoned.' “ The authority she talks about is “die Zentrale Stelle der Landesjustizverwaltangen zur Aufk1drung NS-Verbrechen.” It operates at Ludwigsburg under the direction of Adalbert Rtickerl, a convinced Exterminationist. It would be interesting to get proof of “that only one experiment.” Most of the time, when a big lie is revealed, the liars or their sympathizers say that there was only a mistake, and they then put forward to us a little he. I suppose that “that only one experiment” could be one of these little lies.
In The Journal of Historical Review of Summer 1980, Ditlieb Felderer makes some interesting remarks about “human soap.” He says: “Immediately after liberation, in Polticeni, a Romanian town, the district rabbi ordered all soaps to be collected which had the letters RIF written on them. With much weeping and wailing, while the rabbi muttered his Kaddisch prayer, the soaps were then buried in a cemetery. The news report about this incident was later published in the Polish press, and was picked up in books such as F. C. Weiskopf’s Elend und Grösse unserer Tage, 1950. The letters RIF actually stand for “Reichsstelle fur Industrielle Fettsversorgung,” a German Government outlet which oversaw the production of soap and detergent products. These letters were, however, twisted by the Exterminationists to mean 'Pure Jewish Fat' (Rein Judisches Fett).” The article was previously printed in Auschwitz Exit, which is obtainable from Ditlieb Felderer, Marknadsvagen 289, S-I 83, 34 Taby, Sweden.
If one must believe Pierre joffroy, “bars of Jewish soap” are today found buried in the Jewish cemetery at Haifa, Israel. Pierre joffroy, in an article about Anne Frank, stated:these four bars of “Jewish soap” manufactured from corpses in the extermination camps and which, discovered in Germany, were wrapped in a shroud, in 1948, and piously buried according to the rites in a corner of a Haifa cemetery (Israel).
In 1943, representatives of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (founded in Moscow in 1942) toured the United States in order to raise political, and-above all-material, aid from the U.S.A. for the USSR. The two month trip raised more than two million dollars. Big meetings were held in many American cities. “At each of the meetings, (Salomon) Mikhoels showed the public a bar of soap made out of Jewish flesh, and taken from a concentration camp.” ("A chacune des réunions qui se tenaient, Mikhoels [qui était un prodigieux acteur] montrait au public une savormette faite avec de la chair humaine juive et remenée d'un camp de concentration"; Gérard Israel, Jid/Les Juifs en URSS, Paris, Editions Spéciale, (Jean-Claude Lattès), 1971, p. 203). I acknowledge Mark Weber, from Arlington, Virginia, for presenting me with this information.
Paris-Match, No. 395, 3 November 1956, p. 93. - Study this U.S. Army photo which has been spread allover the world and which Arthur R. Butz reproduces on page 191 of The Hoax of the Twentieth Century, Institute for Historical Review, 1979.
- “ ( … ) für die Degesch vom 20. Juni ab vom Reichspatentamt patentiert.” (Justiz und NS-Verbrechen, Amsterdam, University Press, vol. XIU (1975), p. 137).
- “Un gaz contre les renards” ("A gas against foxes"), Le Quotithen de Paris, 2 September 1977. See also a review devoted to hunting: Le Saint-Hubert, April 1979, pp. 180-181, “Methodes de réduction de la population vulpine” ("Méthods of reducing the fox population").
- I cannot actually provide definitive proof of what I put forward here. I have discovered this point in the archives of the CDJC in Paris, where I have been refused admittance since January 1978, on account of my historical findings.
- This expression seems to have been created by the Swedish research group based at Täby and headed by Ditlieb Felderer. See note 1 on their work and on the lie of Auschwitz entitled Auschwitz Exit.
- Among deceptive titles one can cite that of Pierre Serge Choumoff, Les Chambres à gaz de Mauthausen (The Gas Chambers of Mauthausen), Amicale des Déportés et Familles de Disparus du Camp de Concentration de Mauthausen (Association of Mauthausen Victims), 31 Boulevard Saint-Germain, Paris 5e, 1971, 96 pp.
- Georges Wellers, “La 'Solution Finale de la Question Juive' et la mythomanie n6o-nazie” ("The 'Final Solution' of the Jewish Question and the neo-Nazi Mythomania"), Le Monde Juif, No. 86 April-June 1977, pp. 41-84. Translated into English, this article carries the title, “Reply to the Neo-Nazi Falsification of Historical Facts Concerning the Holocaust"; it is reproduced on pages 105162 of a work published in 1978 by the Beate Klarsfeld Foundation of New York, with the title: The Holocaust and the Neo-Nazi Mythomania, XVIII-215 pp.
- The camp at Auschwitz had three successive commandants: Rüdolf Höss, Arthur Liehehenschel and Richard Baer. The first had been interrogated by the British, and then by the Poles, who executed him. The second was executed by the Poles. The third died suddenly in prison when the famous “Auschwitz Trial” at Frankfurt (1963-65) was in preparation. On their own, the Poles seem to have interrogated and passed judgment on 617 persons (Nazis or allies of the Nazis) in connection with the question of Auschwitz. This figure is given by Hermann Langbein on page 993 of Der Auschwitz Prozess (The Auschwitz Trial), Europa Verlag, Vienna, 1965, 2 vols. On their part, the French, the British, and the Americans have often interrogated or passed judgment on former Auschwitz guards. It is surprising that there has emanated such a derisory amount of information on the pretended massacres in “gas chambers” from such an enormous number of interrogations and trials. To my knowledge there has been no mention of “admissions,” or even of any kind of information, on the part of Liebehenschel or Baer on the “gas chambers.” The true “Gas Chambers Trial” of Auschwitz has been-one can never repeat it enough-that of the architects Walter Dejaco and Fritz Ertl at Vienna (Austria) in 1972. This trial, launched by Simon Wiesenthal and presented as a sensational affair, very quickly became a fiasco for the prosecution. The two men having been charged with having “constructed and repaired gas chambers and crematorium ovens at Auschwitz-Birkenau,” revealed, I suppose, as established technicians, that even if they had constructed or had had constructed the crematoria ovens, they most certainly had not designed plans of “gas chambers” but only for the morgues which flanked these crematoria ovens. The two architects were acquitted.
- Kommandant in Auschwitz / Autobiographische Aufzeichnungen (Commandant of Auschwitz / Autobiographical Notes) by Rudolf Höss, introduction and commentary by Martin Broszat, 1958, Verlagsanstalt, Stuttgart. It is on page 166 of this book, in the part of the confession which Höss had drawn up in November 1946, where the following passage is found: “Eine halbe Stunde nach den Einwurf des Gasses wurde die Tür geöffnet und die Entlüftungsanlage eingeschaltet. Es wurde sofort mit dem Herausziehen der Leichen begonnen.” ("Half an hour after the gas had been thrown in, the door was opened and the ventilating apparatus switched on. The removal of the bodies was begun immediately.") And it is on page 126 of the book, in the excerpt dated February 1947, that it is said that the squad charged with the responsibility of removing the corpses from the “gas chambers” did this labor “mit einer stumpfer Gleichmütigkeit” ("with a gloomy indifference") as if it were a matter of some kind of everyday chore ("als wenn es irgend etwas Alltäglisches wäre"). Höss is supposed to have added: “Beim Leichenschleppen assen sie oder rauchten.” That is to say: “While pulling out [the cadavers] they used to eat or smoke.” For Höss, moreover, they would not cease eating. They would eat when pulling the cadavers out of the chambers, when extracting the gold teeth, when cutting off the hair, when dragging them toward the furnaces or pits. Höss even adds this outrageous remark: “At the pits they used to keep the fire going. They would pour accumulated molten fat over the new cadavers, and they would poke around in the mountains of burning bodies to create a flue.”
Höss does not reveal to us how the fat managed not to be burnt itself (corpses cannot be spit-roasted as if they were chickens, but they are reduced to bones and ashes in heaps piled up on the ground or in the form of pyres). He does not tell us how the men could approach these formidable pyres to collect the streams of fat (!), neither does he tell us how they could get close enough to poke around in these mountains of bodies to effect a flue. The absurdity of this “pouring accumulated fat” ("das Übergiessen des angesammelten Fettes") is moreover so evident that the French translator of the book presented by Martin Broszat has quite discreetly omitted to translate those five German words (Rudolf Höss, Le Commandant d'Auschwitz parle (The Commandant of Auschwitz Speaks), translated from German to French by Constantin de Grunwald, Paris, Julliard, 1959, printing of 15 March 1970, p. 212. Filip Müller has written Sonderbehandlung, translated as Eyewitness Auschwitz / Three Years in the Gas Chambers, New York, Stein & Day, 1979, XIV-180 pp. From page 132 to 142 he accumulates the most astonishing stories about boiling human fat running like water, collecting pans for the fat, sizzling fat scooped out with buckets on a long curved rod and poured all over the pit, the SS guard Moll flinging live babies into the boiling human fat, and so on. - For the various trials generally called “Nuremberg Trials” the Americans have perused many technical documents concerning Zyklon B. If they had read these documents carefully, and if they had-as I did myself- continued further research in certain technical tomes in the Library of Congress, Washington, DC, they would have become aware of the incredible number of technical impossibilities contained in the German “gas chamber” evidence. One day I will devote a study to four specific documents which, in my opinion, completely destroy the legend of the “gas chambers.” Those four documents are: first, two documents recorded by the Americans for the Nuremberg Trials, and then, two technical studies signed by Gerhard Peters; all of which one may consult at the Washington Library of Congress. I recall that Gerhard Peters was, during the war, the temporary director of the firm DEGESCH (Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Schädlingsbekämpfung: German Company for Pest Control) which controlled in particular the distribution of Zyklon B. After the war, Gerhard Peters was to be brought before the courts many times by his own compatriots. He said he had never heard during the war about any homicidal use of Zyklon B.
Nuremberg documents (documents with the prefix NI, which means Nuremberg, Industrialists):- NI-9098, recorded only on 25 July 1947: a brochure entitled Acht Vorträge aus dem Arbeitgebiet der DEGESCH (Eight lectures on aspects of DEGESCH’s Field of Operation) and printed in 1942 for private usage. At the end of this brochure, page 47, there appears a descriptive table on each of the eight gases distributed by the firm. At point number 7 of the description one reads for Zyklon B: “Lüftbarkeit: wegen starken Haftvermögens des Gases an Oberflächen erschwert und langwierig.” ("Ventilation Properties: complicated and long to ventilate since the gas adheres strongly to surfaces.")
- NI-9912, recorded only on 21 August 1947: a public notice entitled Richtlinien fur die Anwendung von Blausäure (Zyklon) zur Ungeziefervertilgung (Entwesung) (Directives for the use of Prussic Acid (Zyklon) for the Destruction of Vermin (Disinfestation).). This document is of capital importance. Better than any other it shows at what point the handling of Zyklon B can only be done by trained personnel. The time required for the product to destroy vermin ranges from 6 hours in hot times, to 32 hours during cold periods. The normal duration is 16 hours. This long duration is explained undoubtedly by the composition of Zyklon. Zyklon is prussic acid, or hydrocyanic acid, absorbed by a support of diatomite. The gas is released slowly because of the nature of its support. This slowness is such that one cannot understand how on earth the Germans could have chosen a gas such as Zyklon in order to liquidate masses of human beings. It would have been easier for them to have utilized hydrocyanic acid in its liquid form. They had at their disposal significant quantities of this acid in the laboratories of the IG-Farben plant at Auschwitz, where they tried to make synthetic rubber. It is from document NI-9912 that I draw the information concerning the employment of Zyklon B for the fumigation of a barracks, the duration of aeration (at least 21 hours), et cetera.
Documents at the Library of Congress. These concern two technical studies written by Gerhard Peters and both were published in Sammlung Chemischer & Chemisch-technischer Vorträge, the first in 1933 in Neue Folge, Heft 20, and the other in Neue Folge, Heft 47a in 1942, (review edited by Ferdinand Enke at Stuttgart). Here are the titles, followed by the Library of Congress reference:
- “Blausäure zur Schädlingsbekämpfung” (QD1, S2, n.f., hft.20, 1933), 75pp.
- “Die hochwirksamen Gase und Dämpfe in der Schädlingsbekämpfung” (QD1, S2, n.f., hft.47a, 1942), 143pp. It should be said in passing that it is admirable that this review which was published during the war in Germany should have arrived safely also during the war at the Library of Congress in Washington! The 1942 issue bears the Washington registration date of … 1 April 1944!
- French regulations concerning the use of hydrocyanic acid are as strict as the German. See the decree 50-1290 of 18 October 1950 from the Ministry of Public Health, Paris.
- The plan which allows us to give these dimensions to the nearest centimeter is found in the archives of the State Museum of Oswiecim (Auschwitz). The reference number of this photo of the plan is Neg. 519. The plans of the “Kremas” (crematoria) IV and V are even more interesting than those of Kremas II and III. They prove, in effect, that the three structures abusively described as “gas chambers” were in fact inoffensive premises, complete with ordinary doors and windows. The sole means for the SS to “throw in the Zyklon” into these places “from the exterior” would have been the following scenario: The SS would have had to have requested their victims-piled up in hundreds or thousands in a space of only 2 36m2 -to open the windows for them to “throw in the Zyklon” after which the victims would carefully close the windows again, and abstain from smashing the window panes, until death ensued.78 It is perfectly easy to understand why the Polish Communist authorities are so reluctant to display these plans; they prefer to rely on the Ht5ss “confessions” with no supporting topographical data.
- These interesting remains of the crematoria can be seen behind a large glass in the back room which, in the exhibition block No. 24, is devoted to the Kremas.
- These details of the first execution by toxic gas were published in the Belgian Le Soir of 9 February 1974, under the rubric “50 Years Ago": a reprint of an article from the 9 February 1924 edition of the same paper.
- The summary which I give here of an execution by hydrocyanic acid is inspired by an inquiry which an American lawyer kindly conducted for me on six penitentiaries and on a firm manufacturing gas chambers. The penitentiaries are as follows: San Quentin, California; Jefferson City, Missouri; Santa Fe, New Mexico; Raleigh, North Carolina; Baltimore, Maryland; and Florence, Arizona. The firm is Eaton Metal Products Company of Denver, Colorado. It is obvious that there are variations in the method from one penitentiary to another. I have personally obtained authorization to visit one of these gas chambers. The “Gas Chamber Procedure Sheet” reveals that the simple preparation of the chamber for an execution demands two days' work for two employees, occupying eight hours work per day each. Once the chamber is ready, the operation itself goes through 47 stages. This procedure sheet comes nowhere near describing the complications of each of the 47 tasks. Let us take as an example: “Empty Chamber (Body Removed).” In actuality, these words signify the following: the doctor and his two assistants must, after waiting the stipulated time, enter the room wearing gas masks, rubber aprons and rubber gloves; the doctor must tousle the hair of the dead man to expel the molecules of hydrocyanic acid which may have remained there; the two assistants must carefully wash the body with a hose; they must in particular wash the mouth and all the other apertures of the body; they must not forget to carefully wash the bend of the elbows and the bend of the knees. just a glance at one of these small gas chambers, constructed in order to kill a single condemned man, renders ridiculous those premises of stone wood, and plaster which are represented as being former German “gas chambers.” If the American gas chambers are made exclusively of steel and glass, then it is for reasons of good sense and for reasons more specifically technical. The first reason is that the acid has a tendency to adhere to the surface and even to penetrate certain materials, so therefore it is necessary to avoid such materials. The second reason is that, when the ventilators empty the chamber of air, there is a risk of implosion, so therefore the structure has remarkably thick walls of steel and glass. The very heavy steel door can only be closed with a handwheel.
- The Polish Communists themselves recognize that the tattooing had as its aim the hindering of flight, and the facilitating of identifying captured escapees. See: Contribution à l'histoire du KL-Auschwitz, Musée d'Etat d'Auschwitz, 1968, p16 and p99.
- Louis De Jong, Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, Munich, 1969, Heft 1, ppl-16: “Die Niederlande und Auschwitz” (The Netherlands & Auschwitz … ). Sensitive to the delicate nature of these kinds of revelations, the director of the review, H. Rothfels, explains in a foreword the reason why he has consented to publish this study. The reason is that Louis De Jong, not being a German, could not possibly be suspected of being an apologist for National Socialism; on the contrary, as director of an official institute like that in Amsterdam, he had given all desirable pledges of his seriousness. This preface gives some idea of the situation in which German historians find themselves. There are certain truths which they cannot utter without being suspected of being apologists for Nazism. It is also important to note that Mr. Louis De Jong is even less suspect because he is of Jewish origin.
- These aerial photographs have been revealed to the general public by Dino A. Brugioni and Robert G. Poirer in a pamphlet entitled The Holocaust Revisited. Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Commerce, National Technical Information Service, Washington, DC, ST 79-10001, 19pp. The booklet is somewhat curious in that it was researched in the authors' free time, not during CIA time, and this is the reason why the authors cannot enter into any correspondence regarding the contents! The two authors offer an interesting example of blindness. They attempt at all costs to adapt the photographic reality with what they believe to have been the reality of Auschwitz, according to three Exterminationist works. There is a spectacular contradiction between the photos and the commentaries which they attach.
- Article 19 of the Statue of the International Military Tribunal states: “The Tribunal shall not be bound by technical rules of evidence [ … ].” Article 21 states: “The Tribunal shall not require proof of facts of common knowledge but shall take judicial notice thereof [ … ]. “
- Prison et déportation, Paris, Spes, 1947, p77.
- The pretended “gas chamber” of Dachau today bears the following inscription worded in five languages (German, English, French, Italian, Russian):
GASKAMMER getarnt als “Brausebad” — war nicht in Betrieb
GAS CHAMBER disguised as a “shower room” — never used
CHAMBRE A GAZ “chambre de douche” camouflée — ne fut jamais utilisée
I have asked Frau Barbara Distel, director of the Dachau Museum, and Dr. Guerisse, president of the International Committee of Dachau, headquartered at Brussels, what induced them to describe an incomplete premises as a “gas chamber"; because one wonders how it is possible to know that an unfinished building is due to become, once achieved, something no one has ever seen in his life! Equally, I wished to ascertain if expert technical, scientific, forensic, or legal opinions were consulted about these premises. On this second point the reply was in the negative. On the first point I received no reply at all. Does not every visitor to Dachau have the right to have clarification there and then? Has not every German the right to demand proof from his accusers, in support of their terrible accusation? For it is indeed a terrible accusation to suggest that such and such a person had constructed an abominable instrument with the intention of killing human beings in a sort of human abattoir. - See “Réflexions sur 1'étude de la déportation” (Reflections on the Study of Deportation") by Germaine Tillion, in the special issue entitled “Le Système concentrationnaire allemand 1940-1944” ("The German Concentration Camp System 1940-1944") of the Revue d'Histoire de la Deuxième Guerre Mondiale (Review of WWII History) of July 1954. Consult pages 16, 17, 20, 21, 24, 26, and especially note 2 of page 17, note 2 of page 18 and note 1 of page 20.
- Document of Nuremberg “Paris/Storey” PS-3870: declaration under oath of policeman Hans Marsalek. According to the policeman, the conditions under which Ziereis had admitted the existence and functioning of a “gas chamber” at Mauthausen ought to be reflected upon. The “interrogation” was in fact a pure and simple torture session which lasted from six to eight hours until Ziereis gave up the ghost. The policeman himself stated that he had conducted the interrogation of the commandant for six to eight hours during the night of 22/23 May 1945. He said that Franz Ziereis was gravely wounded; that three bullets had passed through his body and that he knew he was going to die. Today in the museum of Mauthausen one can see a photo taken by flash and which shows Ziereis still alive, while seated near him an internee listens to his words. There are other people in the photo at the bedside of the dying man: possibly General Seibel, commander of the 11th American armored division; and the former doctor of the internees, the deportee Dr. Koszeinski, were there, as the policeman affirmed. That a divisional general and a professional doctor have admitted participating in this torture session reflects greatly on the mentality of those who prized having a “Nazi” in their hands: a “Nazi” is not a man, but a sort of malevolent beast. One can be sure that all the commandants of all the camps were thus regarded. Therefore, the “admissions” which they made or are said to have made are not astonishing. Most of these “admissions” are “Depositions Under Oath” or “Statements” written in English, signed by an Allied officer, who adds: “I hereby certify that I have accurately translated this deposition from English into German to the said deponent [here the name of the German interrogatee is inserted] and that he [the German] fully agrees the contents thereof.” See document D-746(a), D-749(b), etc.
- “Keine Vergasung in Dachau” ("No Gassing in Dachau"), letter by Dr. Martin Broszat, Die Zeit, 19 August 1960, p16 (in the German edition). In the U.S.A. edition: 26 August 1960, p14.
- See the words, which I quote above, in my note 10. Dr. Martin Broszat explains in note 1 of page 167 why he does not give the continuation of Höss’s text. He says that, in this sequence, Höss delivers to us “completely confused data,” ("völlig abwegige Angaben") that he passes off information “which definitely could not be taken seriously” ("müssen these Mitteilungen als gänzlich unzuverlässig gelten"). Dr. Broszat gives an example of one of these aberrations, but he is careful to choose one of the least distorted of them. Fifteen years after the publication of his book, the Poles, in their turn, gave what it is convenient to call the text of Höss’s confessions. And it is here that, for once, one perceives that the “aberrations” were multiplied under the pen of Höss. In order to get some idea, one must refer to the following work: KL-Auschwitz in den Augen der SS (Auschwitz Concentration Camp As Seen By the SS) Auschwitz Museum, Cracow, 1973, ppl35-136. Dr. Broszat has been disqualified in the eyes of all serious historians by his publishing the “Höss Confessions.” With just a little attention and honesty, Broszat ought to have concluded that this “confession” is a mass of absurdities and aberrations, which can only have been dictated to Höss by his Polish Stalinist jailers.
- The expression employed by Dr. Broszat is “above all” ("vor allem"). This rather embarrassed expression seems to me to have been used because Broszat did not wish to make pronouncements on the authenticity or otherwise of the “gas chambers” which are neither in Poland nor in the Old Reich, i.e. Mauthausen in Austria, and Struthof in Alsace.
- In an all too familiar fashion with this subject matter, Dr. Broszat looked perhaps as if he attempted to back-pedal on his original courageous statement of 19 August 1960. He has written, or has had written by his Institute staff, letters or articles where he appears on the surface to retract his Die Zeit statement. In reality, in studying the texts closely, one gets the impression that Dr. Broszat is merely paying lip service to any retraction, and is still sticking to what he wrote in 1960. See the following texts:
- Reply of Frau Dr. S. Noller on 26 October 1967 to Paris-Match journalist Pierre Joffroy. This reply is published in part in the book by Pierre Serge Choumoff (pp. 73-74) which I mentioned in note 7.
- Preface by Dr. Broszat to a study by Frau Dr. Ino Arndt and Dr. Wolfgang Scheffler which appeared in Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte April 1976 and entitled: “Organisierter Massenmord an Juden in NS-Vernichtungslagern” ("Organized Mass Murder of Jews in Nazi Extermination Camps"), pp. 105-135; preface: pp. 105-112).
- Reply of Frau Dr. Ino Arndt on 25 November 1977 to Professor Egon G. L. Rieder. This reply was published by MUT-Verlag, January 1979. (Address: 3901 Asendorf, West Germany).
- On Treblinka, as well as on Belzec, Sobibor and Chelmno, see NS-Vernichtungslager im Spiegel deutscher Strafprozesse (Nazi Extermination Camps Reflected in German Courts), by Adalbert Rückerl, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, original edition 1977. Adalbert Rückerl and the Exterminationists are not lucky with Treblinka. They say that in Treblinka there were “gas chambers.” Many books give some details about them. As a matter of fact, all those people forget the Nuremberg document PS-3311: according to this “Certificate” of 5 December 1945, the mass killing was done by suffocation in steam-filled chambers!
- Le Système concentrationnaire nazi (1933-1945) (The Nazi Concentration Camp System (1933-1945), thesis, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1968, pp. 541-544.
- Höss had been tortured. It is from the Poles themselves that we know this. They authorized him to say this in his confession. There might have been several motives for this authorization on the part of instructing judge Jan Sehn. As Höss indulged in praises of the kindness of his jailers at Cracow, it may well be that Sehn wished to give us the idea that, if Höss had previously come out with absurdities because of his torture by the British, then on this occasion, in Cracow prison, he was expressing himself with complete freedom. In his “ingenuousness” in admitting everything they wanted to his British torturers, Höss had gone so far as to speak of the “extermination camp” of “Wolzek near to Lublin.” However, Wolzek never existed, neither near to Lublin nor anywhere in Poland. Höss, however, cited this mythical camp in document NO-1210 of 14 March 1946, then in document PS-3868 of 5 April 1946, and also in document NI-034 of 20 May 1946. Out of terrible embarrassment, an attempt has been made to pretend that Belzec is this “Wolzec camp,” which is in itself absurd, since in document PS-3868 Höss precisely states that there were “three other extermination camps in the General Government: Belzek (sic), Treblinka, and Wolzek” ("drei weitere Vernichtungslager in Generalgouvernment: Belzek, Treblinka und Wolzek"). This absurd solution ("Wolzek is Belzec"!) has been imposed by the “Bible” of the Exterminationists' research: The Holocaust / The Nuremberg Evidence (Part One: Documents) edited by Yad Vashem in Jerusalem and at the YIVO Institute in New York, 1976 (see p. 544). A solution even less acceptable has been proposed by the attorney Adalbert Rückerl in note 5 of pages 37/38 of the work which I quote above in my note 29. This lawyer has no qualms about saying that Wolzek is in reality … Sobibor! It would be endless work to quote all the aberrations contained in the papers that the British military justice made Höss sign. To take only one other example here, Höss said that there was situated at Treblinka an installation for gassing by “gasmobiles” (mobile gas-trucks, or gas-vans) which he later sited at Chelmno! The British made him say “Treblinka” (NO-1210 & PS-3868) whereas the Poles made him say “Culmhof” (NO-4498B). However, the distance as the crowflies is nearly 250km between Treblinka, which is to the east of Warsaw, and Kulmhof (or Culmhof or Chelmno-on-Ner), which is to the north-west of Warsaw. Therefore, Jan Sehn authorized his prisoner to enlighten us at the manner in which he had been treated before enjoying the comforts of Cracow prison. The British seriously mishandled him, Höss says, even up to the point where he was forced to sign a statement, the contents of which he did not understand. He begins by writing this in his confession to the Poles at Cracow: “Es würde mir übel zugesetzt durch die Field-Security-Police” ("I was ill-treated by the Field Security Police"). And then he adds: “Unter schlagenden Beweisen kam meine erste Vernehmung zustande. Was in dem Protokoll drin steht, weiss ich nicht, obwohl ich es unterschrieben habe. Doch Alkohol und Peitsche waren auch fur mich zuviel.” ("My first interrogation took place under duress. I do not know what was recorded in the statement, even though I signed it. Because, alcohol and the whip were too much, even for me.") Höss adds that, after being transferred some days later to Minden-on-Weser to the main interrogation center in the British zone, he was subjected to even more brutal treatment on the part of the British attorney; a major. ("Dort wurde mir noch mehr zugesetz durch den 1. englischen Staatsanwalt; einem Major.") He said that the regime of the prison corresponded to the attitude of the Major. For three weeks he was not allowed to wash or shave. For three weeks he was kept in handcuffs. After transfer to Nuremberg, his stay under house arrest had the effect upon him of a stay in a sanitarium; an ideal stay in comparison with what he had experienced. But the interrogations, conducted exclusively by Jews, were terrible, not from a physical, but from a psychological aspect. His interrogators left him in no doubt as to the fate which awaited him, namely in eastern Europe. After his transfer to Poland, he experienced anew more terrible trials, but suddenly the attorney appeared and henceforth Höss was treated with surprisingly kind attention ("anständig und entgegenkommend.") All these details can be found on pages 143-147 of Kommandant in Auschwitz (see my note 10 above). What Höss has not mentioned is the result of these physical and spiritual tortures undergone before his delivery to the Poles. On 5 April 1946, ten days before his appearance at the Nuremberg trial, a stupefying affidavit had been extorted from him, which he had signed even though it was not in his mother tongue, but in … ENGLISH! It is document PS-3868. Before the Tribunal, on 15 April 1946, American attorney Amen read out the text of the affidavit, in front of Höss. The declarations regarding Auschwitz made a sensation. As for Höss himself, he impressed everyone by his “apathy” (sic). His responses were for the most part restricted to a “yes” when Colonel Amen asked him if everything that he had read was accurate. This “apathy” was described by the observers as “schizoid” or an approximation thereof. These observers — all of them antipathetic to Höss — could not imagine how much the adjective “schizoid,” which in the mind was insulting, was in fact accurate and reflected a terrible reality, for Höss was in a dual condition; he was “two men at one time,” slandered, stupefied, divided into two or nearly so: “schizoid” is an accurate adjective as one could find to describe a man tortured physically and psychologically, and who, as he said in his confession, himself wondered why on earth he had been brought before this formidable tribunal. It is necessary to read the text of the dialog between Colonel Amen and the witness Höss dated 25 April 1946, in volume XI p. 425ff of the main trial at Nuremberg (IMT). References are to the French edition.
- Concerning the tortures systematically inflicted by the Americans on their German prisoners, one would to well to refer to the book by A.R. Butz (The Hoax of the Twentieth Century) in the passages concerning justice Gordon Simpson or judge Charles F. Wennersturm. I also recommend one of the finest books ever written in favor of the rights of man: Manstein, His Campaign and his Trial (London, Collins, 1951) by Sir Reginald Paget, and endowed with an outstanding preface by Lord Hankey. On page 109 the author mentions that the American Simpson/Van Roden/Laurenzen commission of inquiry had reported “among other things, that of the 139 cases they had investigated, 137 (German soldiers and officers) had had their testicles permanently destroyed by kicks received from the American War Crimes Investigation team.”
- Dr. Engineer Dürrfeld was the temporary director of the Buna factory at Auschwitz. In document NI-034 Höss was attributed with saying that Dr. Dürrfeld was aware of the gassing of human beings at Birkenau and that he had spoken of it to his colleagues. However in document NI-11046, Dr. Dürrfeld replied: “It is a sorry fact that I heard of (these gassings) first through the radio and through the newspaper reports. I must say that it is a brand of infamy for the German people, that I must say.” See also document NI-9542 for Otto Ambros or document NI-11631 for Kurt Rosenbaum. These men confirmed that they had never known anything about the “gassings” despite the fact that they were well placed in order to know everything which took place at Auschwitz. Inmates also had the courage to write that they had never seen any “gas chambers” at Auschwitz or Birkenau, although they were located close to the place where these “chambers” were supposed to be. This is the case for Benedikt Kautsky, the Austrian Social Democrat, of Jewish origin. He lived in various concentration camps, as well as Auschwitz, for nearly seven years. His mother died at Birkenau on 8 December 1944 at the age of 80. In Teufel und Verdammte (Devil and Damned) Vienna, Verlag der Wiener Volksbuchhandlung (Vienna People’s Press), 1948, he writes, (p3l6), that he has not personally seen those “gas chambers” in the camp. However, this admission does not prevent him from later providing a kind of description of that which he had never seen! He does that on the word of those who “have seen.”
- I make allusion here to certain of the defendants at the Frankfurt Trial (1963-1965); a trial which Hermann Langbein purports to give an account of in his Der Auschwitz Prozess, a book which I previously cited in note 9. Franz Hofmann would have employed the expression “assisting to push"; but curiously he employed the plural: “we have [ … ] pushed together” ("haben wir [. ] mitgeschoben") (p. 241). Hans Stark is supposed to have helped a hospital attendant to discharge gas through an aperture in the roof of the “gas chamber"; but Stark is confused, very vague, and the president of the court gives the impression before all of making Stark recite a text (p. 439).
- One ought to devote the greatest possible attention to volume 42 which is the last of the volumes of the documents of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. This volume opens with the very long document (153 pages) PS-862. It is a summary presented by the British colonel Airey Neave (who was eventually himself murdered in 1979 by the Irish Republican Army). Neave had been charged with summarizing a host of investigations carried out in Allied prisoner of war camps. He states what is also reported in the document “Politische Leiter 54” (p. 348): the 26,674 former political directors interrogated have declared that it was only after the capitulation in May 1945 that they first heard of the extermination of the Jews in the camps termed (by the Allies) “extermination camps.” ("Sie von einer Vernichtung von Juden in sog. Vernichtungslagern erst nach der Kapitulation in Mai 1945 Kenntnis erhielten.")
- In private correspondence, Dr. Robert Servatius, who was a defense lawyer at the Nuremberg IMT (1945-1946) and who defended Adolf Eichmarm at the “Trial in Jerusalem” (1961), has written to me of “the persons pretended to have been gassed” ("der in Auschwitz angeblich vergasten Personen") in his letter dated 21 June 1974 and of “the pretended gassing” ("der behaupteten Vergasung") in his letter dated 22 February 1975. This world-famous lawyer summarizes in one succinct phrase the reason why German defense counsel take great care not to raise the question of the “gas chambers” before a tribunal: it seems, he says, “that for the defense, the problem of the existence of the gas chambers faded into the background, compared with the question of the participation of their clients in the pretended gassing.” ("Anachenend[??? Webmaster] ist die Frage der Existenz von Gaskammern für die Verteidiger züruckgetreten gegenüber der Frage der Beteiligung ihrer Mandaten an der behaupteten Vergasung.") It cannot be put better. In response to one of my questions about Eichmann, the lawyer specified that Eichmann had declared (to whom? the response is not clear on this point) that he had never seen a gas chamber and that he had never been told about any. (Letter of 22 February 1975.) The stenograph transcripts of the trial (which can be consulted in several languages at the Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaire in Paris) prove that Eichmann had apparently known nothing about these “gas chambers” except what he had read of them in prison in Höss’s “confession” (see the session of 19 April 1961, pages JI-MJ to 02-RM).
- It was on French television that M. Albert Naud, visibly moved, made this impromtu declaration (Channel 2, “L'huile sur le feu” ("Oil on the Fire") broadcast by Philippe Bouvard, October 1976).
- This complacent lawyer was Anton Reiners of Frankfurt am Main.
- Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, Chicago, Quadrangle Books, 1961 & 1967; Gerald Reitlinger, The Final Solution, 2nd edition, London, Vallentine-Mitchell, 1968; H. G. Adler, Der Verwaltete Mensch, Tübingen, Mohr (Siebeck), 1974; Hermann Langbein, Menschen in Auschwitz, Vienna, Europa Verlag, 1974; Olga Wormser-Migot, Le Système concentrationaire nazie (1933-1945), Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1968; Serge Klarsfeld, Le Mémorial de la déportation des Juifs de France, Klarsfeld Foundation, BP 137-16, 75763 Paris Cedex 16, 1978.
- Extract from what the Germans call the “Bormann Diaries” ("Bormann Vermercke"). The final part of these “Bormann Diaries” has been published in France under the title of Le Testament politique de Hitler (The Political Testament of Hitler), French version and preface by Francois Genoud, Paris, Arthème Fayard, 1959, pp. 71-72.
- “Dass sie deshalb [wegen ihrer Konfession] verfolgt worden waren, wie ich glaubte, liess manchmal meine Abneigung gegenüber ungünstigen Äusserungen über sie fast zum Abscheu werden” (Mein Kampf (My Struggle), Munich, NSDAP, 1942, p. 55). “Die grossen Meister der Lüge” ("The great masters of the lie"): these are Schopenhauer’s words, revived by Hitler (p. 253 of Mein Kampf, ibid.).
- Declaration published in the Jewish Chronicle, London, of 8 September 1939, pl.
- Daily Express, London, 24 March 1933, pl.
- “Nach Beendigung des Krieges werde er [Hitler] sich rigoros auf den Standpunkt stellen, dass er Stadt für Stadt zusammenschlage, wenn nicht die Drecksjuden rauskämen und nach Madagaskar oder einem sonstigen jüdischen Nationalstaat abwanderten.” ("After the ending of the war, he [Hitler] would rigorously adopt the standpoint that he would demolish town after town, if the Jewish dregs did not decamp and emigrate to Madagascar or to some other national Jewish homeland.") See Henry Picker, Hitlers Tischgespräche in Führerhauptquartier (Hitler’s Table Talk at the Führer’s HQ), published by Percy Henry Schramm ( … ), Stuttgart, 1963, p. 471.
- Texts and facts abound which prove that the German authorities forbade and punished these excesses, even when Jews were the victims. I will quote only one text and two facts. This text is of General von Roques dated 29 July 1944, on the Russian front (document NOKW-1620). As to facts, they are reported in document NOKW-501. Here is the first fact: in the spring of 1944, at Budapest, a lieutenant killed a Jewess who wished to denounce him for having stolen some of her property, along with some of his men. A German military tribunal condemned the officer to death and he was executed, while several of his men and NCOs were condemned to long terms in prison. Here is the second fact: near to Rostov, USSR, two soldiers were condemned to death by a German military tribunal (and executed?) for having killed the only Jewish inhabitant of a village. One finds these examples and many other facts of the same genre in the 42nd and final volume of the IMT Nuremberg transcripts. Unfortunately, this volume is ignored by just about everyone. It is particularly ignored by the judiciary who permit the invoking of “what happened at Nuremberg' but do not, however, pay sufficient attention to re-reading the actual documentation produced by the CONQUERORS passing judgment on the VANQUISHED. The historian can allow this superficiality even less when he realizes that these same conquerors have committed two very grave injustices: 1. They were the ones who sorted the captured German documents, without allowing any access by the defense; 2. They have selected out of this and other selections when they published the 42 volumes, without including some of the documentary evidence deposited by the defense. It is vitally important to realize that even today — 35 years after the war — the Allies still maintain in secret an impressive quantity of German documents, out of which they have already selected those items which, in their eyes, could show Germany in a bad light. Imagine the mountain of “war crimes” which could be adjudicated with such procedures by an “International Military Tribunal” if it was the CONQUERED being able to judge their CONQUERORS! But to return to the question of “excesses” or of “war crimes,” I would suggest that the German army, and in particular the Waffen-SS, were certainly very tough both in combat and in the '4mopping-up” operations against the partisans, but they showed themselves to be in a certain way much less threatening toward civilian non-combatants than other armies. In principle, the more disciplined and controlled an army is, the less the civilian population ought to fear excesses of all kinds. Using this rule of thumb, it would follow that bands of partisans -whatever sympathy can be felt for their cause-are nearly always more of a threat to the civilians.
- This was described as “Operation Keelhaul.” See Julius Epstein, Operation Keelhaul, Devin-Adair, 1973; Nikolai Tolstoy, The Secret Betrayal 1944-1947, Scribners, 1977; Arthur R. Butz, The Hoax of the Twentieth Century, IHR, 1979, pp248-249. The term “keelhaul” speaks for itself; this English verb signifies “inflicting the punishment of hauling the victim from one side to the other of a ship, by causing him to pass under the keel.”
- I must mention that during the same period, and without any military necessity, our American and South African allies rigorously applied segregation against Blacks (which was denounced sometimes in the French “collaborationist” newspapers).
- Speech made at Posen on 6 October 1943, published on page 169 of Discours secrets de Heinrich Himmler, Paris Gallimard, 1978. This is the French translation of “secret” talks from 1933-1945, together with other speeches. The German edition: Geheimreden 1933 bis 1945 und andere Ansprachen, Propylaen Propylaen Verlag, 1974. This work should be approached with caution, particularly its French edition.
- The text of the “Madagaskar Projekt” is little known. It can however be found at the CDJC in Paris. It bears number 172 of the Israeli police (General Headquarters, 6th bureau). it seems that this document was only brought to light in 1961 on the occasion of the Eichmann Trial. It is composed of a letter from Theodor Dannecker, dated 15 August 1940, addressed to Legation Secretary Rademacher, and of the report itself which seems to be, moreover, a draft unsigned and undated. The reference number at the CDJC is DXII-172.
- See the letter of reference of Rademacher to ambassador Bielfeld dated 10 February 1942 (document NG-5770).
- “Total Solution” ("Gesamtlösung") and “Final Solution” ("Endlösung") are the two interchangeable terms employed by Göring in his famous letter of 31 July 1941 addressed to Reinhard Heydrich. The Exterminationists have expatiated interminably upon this very short letter (document PS-710) and, in particular, upon these two words used by Göring. They have all the more speculated on this text since they have — at least for some of them — cynically cut short the first half of his first phrase where a clear and neat explanation is provided of the sense which Göring wished to give to these words. These words in fact imply EMIGRATION or EVACUATION ("Auswanderung oder Evakuierung"). Gerald Reitlinger indulges himself in quoting in full the little letter except for the beginning of it where the reader finds three suspension points instead of “Auswanderung oder Evakuierung"! The reader of Reitlinger thus sees that the beginning of the phrase is missing and he therefore believes that there is certainly nothing important about the absent fragment! It is indeed difficult to act more dishonestly than Reitlinger (see Gerald Reitlinger, Die Endlösung (The Final Solution), translated from English into German by J. W. Brugel, 4th edition revised and corrected, Berlin, Colloquium Verlag, 1961, p92). One will find the text, unmutilated, on page 12 of the remarkable work by Wilhelm Stäglich: Der Auschwitz Mythos / Legende oder Wirklichkeit (The Auschwitz Myth / Legend or Truth), Tübingen, Grabert Verlag, 1979. Wilhelm Stäglich is this former judge at Hamburg who has suffered incessant persecution since 1973 because of his Revisionist convictions.
- Mention is made of these births in the “Kalendarium” of Hefte von Auschwitz (Pages of Auschwitz), edited by the State Museum at Oswiecim (Auschwitz), in particular in volumes 7 and 8. The Germans maintained a register of all births, including Jews. They kept a record of everything. Every surgical operation, for example, was noted, with the name of the inmate, his registration number, the object and the result of the operation (in Latin), the date, and the signature of the surgeon. At the crematoria, the extraction of a tooth from a corpse was made the object of an incident report ("Meldung"). This last point, on its own, renders absurd the legend of largescale massacres with extraction of teeth on a quasi-industrial scale.
- I have personally made a thorough inquiry regarding the summary executions carried out by the Resistance in a small region of France. I was surprised to find that the gypsy community has paid a heavy tribute in dead: not as a result of deeds by the Germans, but by the Resistance. This inquiry cannot actually be published in France.
- On the existence of a vocational school for masons, see for example the evidence of Franz Hofmann in Hermann Langbein’s work Der Auschwitz Prozess, p. 236. Concerning the team of apprentices ("Lehrlings-Kommandos) see the evidence of detainee Curt Posener in document NI-9808.
- Georges Wellers, l'Etoile jaune à l'heure de Vichy / De Drancy à Auschwitz, (The Yellow Star under the Vichy Era / From Drancy [Transit Camp] to Auschwitz), Paris, Fayard 1973, pp. V, 4, 5, 7.
- The distance from Drancy (near Paris) to Auschwitz (1,250km) was covered, in general, in two days.
- I can only refer here to the cases of Maurice Bardèche, Paul Rassinier, Manfred Roeder, Thies Christophersen, Wilhelm Stäglich, J.G. Burg (a Jew), Hellmut Diwald, Udo Walendy, Arthur R. Butz, and to my own case. No persecution is overlooked: imprisonment, physical violence, fines, arson, careers destroyed, incredibly unjust legal decisions, pure lies, enforced exile. Not one association defending freedom of expression, not one single group of writers, has raised the least protest at the stupefying proceedings of the Springer group in regard to either David Irving or to the university professor Hellmut Diwald. In this field of persecution, Germany is incontestably to the fore. France occupies second place, and South Africa is not far behind.
- This decision dates from 17 May 1979 (Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefährdende Schriften ("X-ratings Board") decision No. 2765). The expert selected was the attorney Adalbert Rückerl (the man who said that when one reads “Wolzek” one must understand “Sobibor"; see my footnote 31). The latter was both a judge and judged, since he was devoted his life and certain of his works to defending a thesis (that of Exterminationism) which Dr. Butz considers, like myself, to be erroneous. The text of the judgment is 55 pages long. Within a few years this text may well emerge as a monument to historical inconsistency. The president of the tribunal was Rudolf Stefen. Professor Konrad Jentsch represented Art ("Kunst"); the writer Bernhard Ohsam Literature; Gunther Roland the teachers ("Lehrerschaft"); the prelate Dir. Dr. Hermann the Church; etc.
- La Guerre Sociale (Class War), No. 3, June 1979, pp. 9-31; BP 88, 75623 Paris Cedex 13. In charge of publication: J. Benhamou.
- This was my case on 29 January 1978 at the national discussion on “Churches and Christians in France during WWII.”
- Among the 42 columes of the (truncated) accounts of the IMT at Nuremberg, see vol. III, pp. 574-575 of the French edition, and read document PS-2738 (affidavit of Wilhelm Höttl).
- Pages 120-122, 125, 128, 136, 141, 149, 157, under the title of “Nahum Goldmann: au nom d'Israël” ("Nahum Goldmann: in the name of Israel"). Nahum Goldmann says that those colossal reparations “constituted an extraordinary innovation in the matter of international rights.” They were not in accordance with the German constitution. He dictated his conditions to Adenauer in 1950. He obtained DM 80 billion; that is 10 to 14 times more than the sum he first expected. He says, “Without the German reparations ( … ) the state of Israel would not have the half of its present infrastructure (1978); every train in Israel is German, the ships are German, as well as electricity, a big part of industry … without mentioning the individual pensions paid to the survivors ( … ). In certain years, the amount of the money that Israel received from Germany would exceed the total amount of money collected from international Jewry- multiplying it by two or three times.” The young German taxpayer of 1979, who has no responsibility in the war of 1939-1945, pays of course his share.
| Author: | Robert Faurisson |
| Title: | The gas chambers: truth or lie? |
| Source: | The Journal for Historical Review |
| Date: | Winter 1981 |
| Issue: | Volume 2 number 4 |
| Location: | Page 319 |
| ISSN: | 0195-6752 |
| Attribution: | “Reprinted from The Journal of Historical Review, PO Box 2739, Newport Beach, CA 92659, USA.” |
| Please send a copy of all reprints to the Editor. | |