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Number 75,
December 2000
Contents
and now... our front page! The Odyssey of a Revisionist: Juergen Graf Finds Asylum in IranGeorge BrewerOver the past several years, the Swiss Juergen Graf has emerged as one of the most powerful voices in the revisionist community. Yet, in accordance with legislation specifically designed to shut down revisionist voices in the Alpine republic, Graf was found guilty of a Swiss "racial hatred" statute in 1998. His appeals exhausted, Graf was recently to begin serving his sentence, until he began to hear that some revisionists incarcerated in German speaking countries were not emerging from confinement alive. As a result, he has been forced to flee his native country, pursuing a now familiar odyssey for those who seek historical truth. BackgroundGraf, who is in his mid 40's, originally followed the career path of a secondary school teacher. One is tempted to think that he was following in the footsteps of another secondary school teacher, Oswald Spengler, whose Decline of the West remains one of the apexes of 20th Century cultural criticism. But something happened. In the early 1990's, Graf became concerned about the decline in Swiss culture, uncontrolled immigration into Switzerland and throughout the rest of Europe, and the remorseless use of the Holocaust icon to pursue these and other social engineering projects. So he turned his impressive intellect (Graf uses 18 languages in his research) to the fate of the Jewish people in World War Two.The result was a number of studies in the early '90's that quickly made a reputation for the Swiss scholar. These include The Holocaust Swindle and The Holocaust Under the Scanner, as well as a scientific monograph on witness testimonies, and even a novel on the difficulties revisionists encounter. Nearly all of these books were written prior to the Swiss law that went into effect in 1995, which, by labeling revisionist writings as "race hatred" effectively criminalized any open historical discussion of key issues of WWII. Within a year and a half, pressure was brought to bear on the Swiss judiciary to enforce the new law. Thus, in April 1996, Graf, as well as his elderly publisher, were charged with violating Switzerland's "hate crimes" statute; that is, for the crime of disseminating Graf's books. Of course, in a technical sense the application of the law was wrong in the first place, since it violated the basic principle that no crime can be assessed by law retroactively, but that didn't stop the Nuremberg court and it wasn't going to stop the Swiss courts, either. After two years, Graf and his co-defendant were put on trial. The Inquisition of Juergen GrafThe trial began at 8 o'clock on the morning of July 17, 1998 and finished the same day. First, Graf sought to have Dr. Robert Faurisson, the pre-eminent revisionist author, appear on his behalf However, the court lost no time in dismissing Faurisson's petition to appear before the tribunal. Instead, Wolfgang Froehlich, an Austrian engineer, was the sole witness allowed for Graf.Froehlich is a certified engineer in Austria and has extensive experience in fumigations, including those using cyanide gas. The prosecutor, Aufdenblatten, violated a basic rule of cross examination -- never ask a question whose answer you cannot predict -- when he asked Froehlich his opinion as to whether he felt that gassings were possible with Zyklon B. Froehlich's testimony, spoken with authority, denied even the possibility
of homicidal gassing with the German pesticide, and was greeted with
loud applause by the spectators in the courtroom. The prosecutor was
reduced, in his impotent rage, to threats, which fairly well exposed
the absence of the rule of law in this courtroom. Aufdenblatten said:
"I hereby request the court to bring an indictment against this witness for racial discrimination or I will do it myself."In other words, simple scientifically valid and qualified testimony now constitutes a hate crime in the People's Republic of Switzerland! Graf's co-defendant, the elderly publisher Foerster, then took the
stand for two hours, although the defendant could barely cope with the
rigors of testimony. (Foerster died a few weeks later, before the Swiss
State could put him behind bars.) Then Graf took the stand and offered
a broad and detailed defense of his writings and the trends of modem
revisionism. After closing speeches from the prosecutor and defense
attorneys, Graf had the last word, quoting a Swiss revisionist compatriot:
"As in earlier historical times, it is a sign of weakness to attempt to enforce a dogma by force. The exponents of the Jewish extermination thesis may -win trials based on censorship today; but they will lose the last trial before the court of future generations."In the end, such eloquence helped neither Graf nor Foerster. They were found guilty of "race hatred," Graf receiving a prison sentence of 15 months, Foerster 12 months, and both were heavily fined. AftermathAlthough the trial decision was handed down in great haste, clearly Graf had some breathing room due to the appeals process. He put the time to good use. Already in 1995 he had worked with Carlo Mattogno in doing path-breaking research in the Auschwitz archives located in Moscow, and there were several other such trips throughout Eastern Europe. In the last two years Graf had co-authored two important new documentary studies with the Italian savant: Maidanek (1998) and Stutthof (1999) (both, Castle Hill Publishers, UK).In addition, Graf has kept up a busy speaking schedule, including an appearance at the conference of the IHR (Institute for Historical Review), held in may 2000. Not only did Graf's participation contribute to the strong overall success of that conference - the first IHR conference in six years - but his talk on that occasion quickly stimulated widespread discussion. Graf's paper, which has since been published in the Journal of Historical Review, deals with the problem of accounting for the hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews allegedly deported to Auschwitz in the spring and summer of 1944. Truly, Graf has managed to keep himself involved in almost every significant trend in modem revisionism, even under the threat of prison. Lost, Stolen or StrayedHowever, it was inevitable that at some point the Swiss government would insist that Graf start to serve his sentence. Over the past two years Graf had gradually resigned himself to being a prisoner on behalf of intellectual freedom. But in recent months he had been made aware of a frightening prospect: according to several reports, a number of prisoners of conscience in jails in German-speaking Europe have died mysteriously in recent times, including three in Austria alone. A prisoner of conscience is one thing, a martyr is something else. Unable to recant, Graf sought refuge. After stop-overs in Russia and Turkey, Graf has been welcomed into exile in Iran.Of course it is hard to predict what will be the next stop in the odyssey of Juergen Graf. He has escaped prison and a possible de facto "death sentence. But at the same time, revisionism has suffered a serious blow. 'However much freedom is accorded him in Iran, it seems fairly certain that Graf's involvement in revisionism will not be able to maintain its previously high levels so long as he is forced to live in exile. Forced exile, of course, is just one of the stratagems of the enemies of historical revisionism, and in this particular case Graf s misfortune mirrors the fate of the exiled German scientist Germar Rudolf. There have been other schemes, too, ranging from career and personal destruction (Fred Leuchter, David Irving), attempted censorship (Ernst Zundel, Fred Toeben), and imprisonment (Guenther Deckert, Udo Walendy, and again Fred Toeben), all with a view to stifling intellectual curiosity. These efforts may, in the short term, muffle the voice of revisionism. But they will never silence it. When Ulysses was fated to make his 20-year odyssey after the fall of Troy, his wife and son could only try to maintain the integrity of the kingdom. Penelope, raveling and unraveling the tapestry that would confer the kingship of Ithaca, and Telemachus, by refusing the blandishment of the suitors, both kept faith with the exiled Ulysses. Today, for every revisionist silenced by prison, exile, personal destruction, or even fire and car bombs, there are thousands of silent Penelopes and Telernachuses keeping the faith, however much they have been intimidated into silence. Yet, when the enemies of revisionism create an epic structure of suffering for revisionists, suffering which revisionists have never sought, these enemies also guarantee an epic outcome. In that outcome, truth always prevails, the heroes will return, and like Ulysses, they will be known by the scars they bear.
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Committee for Open Debate on the
Holocaust, Bradley R. Smith, Director - Post Office Box 439016,
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