by Mark Weber
from
CoDoh
Website
|
Mark Weber is editor of
The Journal of Historical Review,
published by the Institute for Historical Review. He studied history
at the University of Illinois (Chicago), the University of Munich,
Portland State University, and Indiana University (M.A., 1977).
For five days in March 1988, he
testified as a recognized expert witness on the "final solution" and
the Holocaust issue in a Toronto District Court case. He is the
author of many published articles, reviews and essays on various
aspects of modern European history.
Weber has been a guest on numerous
radio talk shows, and on the nationally-syndicated "Montel Williams"
TV program. |
Nearly everyone has heard that the Germans
killed some six million Jews in Europe during the Second World War.
American television, motion pictures, newspapers and magazines hammer away
on this theme.
In Washington, DC, an enormous official
Holocaust Museum has been built.
Scholars Challenge
Holocaust Story
During the past decade, though, more and more "revisionist" historians,
including respected scholars such as Dr. Arthur Butz of Northwestern
University, Prof. Robert Faurisson of the University of Lyon in
France and best-selling British historian David Irving, have been
challenging the widely-accepted extermination story.
They do not dispute the fact that large numbers of Jews were deported to
concentration camps and ghettos, or that many Jews died or were killed
during the Second World War.
Revisionist scholars have, however, presented
considerable evidence to show that there was no German program to
exterminate Europe's Jews, that numerous claims of mass killings in "gas
chambers" are false, and that the estimate of six million Jewish
wartime dead is an irresponsible exaggeration.
Many Holocaust Claims
Abandoned
Revisionists point out that the Holocaust story has changed quite a lot over
the years. Many extermination claims that were once widely accepted have
been quietly dropped in recent years.
At one time it was alleged that the Germans gassed Jews at Dachau,
Buchenwald and other concentration camps in Germany proper. That part of the
extermination story proved so untenable that it was abandoned more than 20
years ago.
No serious historian now supports the once supposedly proven story of
"extermination camps" in the territory of the old German Reich.
Even famed "Nazi hunter" Simon Wiesenthal
has acknowledged that,
"there were no extermination camps on German
soil."
(note 1)
Prominent Holocaust historians now claim that
masses of Jews were gassed at just six camps in what is now Poland:
Auschwitz, Majdanek, Treblinka, Sobibor, Chelmno and Belzec. However, the
"evidence" presented for "gassings" at these six camps is not qualitatively
different than the "evidence" for alleged "gassings" at the camps in Germany
proper.
At the great Nuremberg trial of 1945-1946 and during the decades following
the end of the Second World War, Auschwitz (especially Auschwitz-Birkenau)
and Majdanek (Lublin) were generally regarded as the most important "death
camps." For example, the Allies alleged at Nuremberg that the Germans killed
four million at Auschwitz and another 1.5 million at Majdanek.
Today, no reputable historian accepts these
fantastic figures.
In addition, more and more striking evidence has been presented in recent
years that simply cannot be reconciled with the allegations of mass
exterminations at these camps. For example, detailed aerial reconnaissance
photographs taken of Auschwitz-Birkenau on several random days in 1944
(during the height of the alleged extermination period there) were made
public by the CIA in 1979.
They show no trace of the piles of corpses,
smoking chimneys and masses of Jews awaiting death, all of which have been
alleged and would have been clearly visible if Auschwitz had indeed been an
extermination center.
We now also know that the postwar "confession" of Auschwitz commandant
Rudolf Höss, which is a crucial part of the Holocaust extermination
story, is a false statement that was obtained by torture. (note 2)
Other Absurd Holocaust
Claims
At one time it was also seriously claimed that the Germans exterminated Jews
with electricity and steam, and that they manufactured soap from Jewish
corpses.
For example, at Nuremberg the United States
charged that the Germans killed Jews at Treblinka, not in gas chambers, as
is now claimed, but by steaming them to death in "steam chambers." (note 3)
Such bizarre stories have also been quietly abandoned in recent
years.
Disease Claimed Many
Inmates
The Holocaust extermination story is superficially plausible. Everyone has
seen the horrific photos of dead and dying inmates taken at Bergen-Belsen,
Nordhausen and other concentration camps when they were liberated by British
and American forces in the final weeks of the war in Europe.
These unfortunate people were victims, not of an
extermination program, but of disease and malnutrition brought on by the
complete collapse of Germany in the final months of the war. Indeed, if
there had been an extermination program, the Jews found by Allied forces at
the end of the war would have long since been killed.
In the face of the advancing Soviet forces, large numbers of Jews were
evacuated during the final months of the war from eastern camps and ghettos
to the remaining camps in western Germany. These camps quickly became
terribly overcrowded, which severely hampered efforts to prevent the spread
of epidemics.
Furthermore, the breakdown of the German
transportation system made it impossible to supply adequate food and
medicine to the camps.
Captured German
Documents
At the end of the Second World War, the Allies confiscated a tremendous
quantity of German documents dealing with Germany's wartime Jewish policy,
which was sometimes officially referred to as the "final solution."
But not a single German document has ever been
found which even refers to an extermination program. To the contrary, the
documents clearly show that the German "final solution" policy was one of
emigration and deportation, not extermination.
Consider, for example, the confidential German Foreign Office
memorandum of August 21, 1942. (note 4)
"The present war gives Germany the
opportunity and also the duty of solving the Jewish problem in Europe,"
the memorandum notes.
The policy,
"to promote the evacuation of the Jews [from
Europe] in closest cooperation with the agencies of the Reichsfuehrer SS
[Himmler] is still in force."
The memo noted that,
"the number of Jews deported in this way to
the East did not suffice to cover the labor needs."
The document quotes German Foreign Minister
von Ribbentrop as saying that,
"at the end of this war, all Jews would have
to leave Europe. This was an unalterable decision of the Fuehrer
[Hitler] and also the only way to master this problem, as only a global
and comprehensive solution could be applied and individual measures
would not help very much."
The memorandum concludes by stating that the,
"deportations [of Jews to the East] are a
further step on the way of the total solution... The deportation to the
[Polish] General Government is a temporary measure. The Jews will be
moved on further to the occupied [Soviet] eastern territories as soon as
the technical conditions for it are given."
This unambiguous document, and others like it,
are routinely suppressed or ignored by those who uphold the Holocaust
extermination story.
Unreliable Testimony
Holocaust historians rely heavily on so-called "survivor testimony" to
support the extermination story.
But such "evidence" is notoriously unreliable.
As one Jewish historian has pointed out,
"most of the memoirs and reports [of
"Holocaust survivors"] are full of preposterous verbosity, graphomanic
exaggeration, dramatic effects, overestimated self-inflation, dilettante
philosophizing, would-be lyricism, unchecked rumors, bias, partisan
attacks and apologies."
(note 5)
Hitler and the 'Final
Solution'
There is no documentary evidence that Adolf Hitler ever gave an order to
exterminate the Jews, or that he knew of any extermination program. Instead,
the record shows that the German leader wanted the Jews to leave Europe, by
emigration if possible and by deportation if necessary.
A document found after the war in the files of the Reich Ministry of Justice
records his thinking on the Jews. In the spring of 1942, State Secretary
Schlegelberger noted in a memorandum that Hitler's Chief of Chancellery,
Dr. Hans Lammers, had informed him:
"The Fuhrer has repeatedly declared to him [Lammers]
that he wants to see the solution of the Jewish problem postponed until
after the war is over."
(note 6)
And on July 24, 1942, Hitler emphasized his
determination to remove all Jews from Europe after the war:
"The Jews are interested in Europe for
economic reasons, but Europe must reject them, if only out of
self-interest, because the Jews are racially tougher. After this war is
over, I will rigorously hold to the view... that the Jews will have to
leave and emigrate to Madagascar or some other Jewish national state."
(note 7)
Himmler's SS and the Camps
Jews were an important part of Germany's wartime labor force, and it was in
Germany's interest to keep them alive.
The head of the SS camp administration office sent a directive dated Dec.
28, 1942, to every concentration camp, including Auschwitz. It sharply
criticized the high death rate of inmates due to disease, and ordered that,
"camp physicians must use all means at their
disposal to significantly reduce the death rate in the various camps."
Furthermore, it ordered:
"The camp doctors must supervise more often
than in the past the nutrition of the prisoners and, in cooperation with
the administration, submit improvement recommendations to the camp
commandants... The camp doctors are to see to it that the working
conditions at the various labor places are improved as much as
possible."
Finally, the directive stressed that,
"The Reichsfhrer SS [Himmler] has ordered
that the death rate absolutely must be reduced."
(note 8)
The head of the SS department that supervised
the concentration camps, Richard Gluecks, sent a circular letter to
each camp commandant dated January 20, 1943. In it he ordered:
"As I have already pointed out, every means
must be used to lower the death rate in the camp."
(note 9)
Six Million?
There is no real evidence for the incessantly repeated claim that the
Germans exterminated six million Jews. It is clear, though, that millions of
Jews "survived" German rule during the Second World War, including many who
were interned in Auschwitz and other so-called "extermination camps."
This fact alone should raise serious doubts
about the extermination story.
A leading newspaper of neutral Switzerland, the daily Baseler Nachrichten,
carefully estimated in June 1946 that no more than 1.5 million European Jews
could have perished under German rule during the war. (note 10)
One-Sided 'Holocaustomania'
Even after more than 40 years, the stream of Holocaust films and books shows
no sign of diminishing.
This relentless media campaign, which Jewish historian Alfred Lilienthal
calls "Holocaustomania," portrays the fate of the Jews during the Second
World War as the central event of history. There is no end to the
heavy-handed motion pictures, the simplistic television specials, the
vindictive hunt for "Nazi war criminals," the one-sided "educational
courses," and the self-righteous appearances by politicians and celebrities
at Holocaust "memorial services."
Britain's chief rabbi, Immanuel Jakobovits, has accurately described
the Holocaust campaign as,
"an entire industry, with handsome profits
for writers, researchers, film-makers, monument builders, museum
planners and even politicians." He added that some rabbis and
theologians are "partners in this big business."
(note 11)
Non-Jewish victims just don't merit the same
concern.
For example, there are no American memorials,
"study centers," or annual observances for Stalin's victims, who vastly
outnumber Hitler's.
Who Benefits?
The perpetual Holocaust media blitz is routinely used to justify enormous
American support for Israel and to excuse otherwise inexcusable Israeli
policies, even when they conflict with American interests.
The sophisticated and well-financed
Holocaust media campaign is crucially important to the
interests of Israel, which owes its existence to massive annual subsidies
from American taxpayers.
As Prof. W.D. Rubinstein of Australia has
candidly acknowledged:
"If the Holocaust can be shown to be a
Zionist myth,' the strongest of all weapons in Israel's propaganda
armory collapses."
(note 12)
Jewish history teacher Paula Hyman of
Columbia University has observed:
"With regard to Israel, the Holocaust may be
used to forestall political criticism and suppress debate; it reinforces
the sense of Jews as an eternally beleaguered people who can rely for
their defense only upon themselves. The invocation of the suffering
endured by the Jews under the Nazis often takes the place of rational
argument, and is expected to convince doubters of the legitimacy of
current Israeli government policy."
(note 13)
One major reason that the Holocaust story has
proven so durable is that the governments of the major powers also have a
vested interest in maintaining it. The victorious powers of the Second World
War - the United States, Soviet Russia and Britain - have a stake in
portraying the defeated Hitler regime as negatively as possible.
The more evil and satanic the Hitler regime
appears, the more noble and justified seems the Allied cause.
For many Jews, the Holocaust has become both a flourishing business and a
kind of new religion, as noted Jewish author and newspaper publisher
Jacobo Timerman points out in his book,
The Longest War.
He reports that many Israelis, using the word
Shoah, which is Hebrew for Holocaust, joke that,
"There's no business like Shoah business."
(note 14)
The Holocaust media campaign portrays Jews as
totally innocent victims, and non-Jews as morally retarded and unreliable
beings who can easily turn into murderous Nazis under the right
circumstances. This self-serving but distorted portrayal is meant to
strengthen Jewish group solidarity and self-awareness.
A key lesson of the Holocaust story for Jews is that non-Jews are never
completely trustworthy. If a people as cultured and as educated as the
Germans could turn against the Jews, so the thinking goes, then surely no
non-Jewish nation can ever be completely trusted.
The Holocaust message is thus one of contempt
for humanity.
Holocaust
Hatemongering
The Holocaust story is sometimes used to promote hatred and hostility,
particularly against the German people as a whole, eastern Europeans and the
leadership of the
Roman Catholic church.
The well-known Jewish writer, Elie Wiesel, is a former Auschwitz
inmate who served as chairman of the official U.S. Holocaust Memorial
Council. He received the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize.
This dedicated Zionist wrote in his book,
Legends of Our Time:
"Every Jew, somewhere in his being, should
set apart a zone of hate - healthy, virile hate - for what the German
personifies and for what persists in the German."
(note 15)
Let Both Sides Be Heard
As even defenders of the orthodox extermination story concede, skepticism
about the Holocaust story has grown dramatically in recent years.
Responding to this trend, officials in some countries - including France and
Israel - have made it a crime to challenge the Holocaust story. Revisionists
in France and Germany have been heavily fined for their views. Teachers in
the United States and elsewhere have been summarily dismissed from their
positions for daring to doubt the Holocaust story. Criminal thugs have
brutally attacked prominent Holocaust revisionists; one was even killed for
his views.
In spite of desperate restrictions on free speech, frantic media attacks
against those who "deny the Holocaust," a seemingly perpetual Holocaust
media campaign, and even physical attacks, considerable headway is being
made.
More and more thoughtful people in the United
States and around the world are willing to express doubts about at least
some of the more sensational Holocaust claims.
Summary
The Holocaust extermination story is breaking down as suppressed evidence
becomes better known, and as more people become aware of the facts about
what is certainly the most hyped and politicized chapter of modern history.
Artificially maintaining the hatreds and passions of the past prevents
genuine reconciliation and lasting peace.
Revisionism promotes historical awareness and international understanding.
That's why the work of the Institute for Historical Review is so important
and deserves your support.
Notes
1. Books and Bookmen, London, April 1975, p.
5, and in Stars and Stripes (Europe), Jan. 24, 1993, p. 14.
2. Ruper Butler, Legions of Death (England: 1983), pp. 235-237, and R.
Faurisson, Journal of Historical Review, Winter 1986-87, pp. 389-403.
3. Nuremberg document PS-3311 (USA-293). IMT blue series, Vol. 32, pp.
153-158; IMT, Vol. 3, pp. 566- 568.; NMT green series, Vol. 5, pp. 1133,
1134.
4. Nuremberg document NG-2586-J. NMT green series, Vol. 13, pp. 243-249.
5. Samuel Gringauz in Jewish Social Studies (New York), January 1950,
Vol. 12, p. 65.
6. Nuremberg document PS-4025. D. Irving, G°ring: A Biography (New York:
1989), p. 349.
7. H. Picker, Hitlers Tischgesprche im Fuehrerhaupt quartier (Stuttgart:
1976), p. 456.
8. Nuremberg document PS-2171, Annex 2; NC and A red series, Vol. 4, pp.
833-834.
9. Nuremberg document NO-1523; NMT green series, Vol. 5, pp. 372-373.
10. Baseler Nachrichten, June 13, 1946, p. 2.
11. H. Shapiro, "Jakobovits," Jerusalem Post (Israel), Nov. 26, 1987, p.
1.
12. Quadrant (Australia), Sept. 1979, p. 27.
13. New York Times Magazine, Sept. 14, 1980, p. 79.
14. The Longest War (New York: Vintage, 1982), p. 15.
15. Legends of Our Time (New York: Schocken Books, 1982), chap. 12, p.
142.