Letters
The Delr Yassin Massacre
In his letter in the Sept.-Oct. 1997 Journal, B.H. of Jerusalem, Israel, writes that “the Deir Yassin 'massacre' is a myth.”
This is not true. Jewish-American scholar Alfred Lilienthal, the author of several important books on the Middle East, wrote in detail about this wanton and unprovoked massacre in his valuable study, The Zionist Connection (pages 153-158).
Jewish terrorists carried out the April 1948 massacre of 254 inhabitants of the Palestinian village of Deir Yassin, mostly old men, women and children, to strike fear in the hearts of the Arabs and panic them into fleeing the country. The plan worked.
As Menachem Begin later proudly admitted in his memoir, The Revolt, reports about Deir Yassin and similar incidents provoked a “maddened, uncontrollable stampede. Of the about 800,000 Arabs who lived on the present territory of the state of Israel, only 165,000 are still there … The Arabs, who began fleeing in panic, shouting 'Deir Yassin!' … The political and economic significance of this development can hardly be overestimated.”
F.M.
Los Angeles
New CODOH Ad Campaign
Bradley Smith and his Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust (CODOH) have been placing advertisements in newspapers offering a $250,000 reward to anyone who will sponsor a debate on the Holocaust issue, to be broadcast on prime time nationwide television, between Smith and a representative of the Zionist Anti-Defamation League.
I have paid for publication of this ad in our local daily paper. Smith deserves support for this bold initiative. He can be reached at CODOH, [outdated… well, if you read this, you've found us already; ed.], or on-line at www.codoh.com.
Harvey Taylor
Nicolaus, Calif
Truth's Beacon
Congratulations on the remarkable May-June [1998] issue. The Journal seems to get better all the time!
We value the great work you're doing to uncover the facts. With all their power, the forces of darkness are often temporarily able to obstruct the radiance of truth. In spite of the barrage of monstrous lies, you are succeeding not only in upholding, but in increasing, the brightness of truth's beacon. I rejoice with you.
I.H.
East Bridgewater, Mass.
Authentic Nazi 'Secret Speech'?
Recently I came across the enclosed front-page article from the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot of December 6, 1940, which appears under the sensational headline: “Secret Speech Outlines Plans of Hitler for World Mastery; Defeat of America Included.” It claims to be the text of an address delivered in May 1940 by Walther Darré, Germany's Agriculture Minister, “to a number of high German officials.” Life magazine also published the text of this speech, the paper reports.
In this address, Darré boasts that Germany is “predestined to rule the whole world.” He describes Africa (of all places!) as the “the natural and indisputable 'living space' of Germany.” Ruling everywhere, he declares, will be a new German “aristocracy” that “will have slaves assigned to it, these slaves to be their property and to consist of landless, non-German nationals.” Darré supposedly also boasts that “The United States will be forced by Germany to complete and final capitulation … Mr. Roosevelt will then beg the Führer on his knees…”
Can you tell me if this speech is authentic or propaganda?
J.S.
Hawley, Penn.
This “secret speech” is a fraud. From numerous German documents confiscated after the war, and from many other sources, we know that this “speech” is radically inconsistent with the thinking of the country's leaders, and with German policy. We know, for example, that Hitler strenuously sought to avoid conflict with the United States. And just about the last high-ranking German official who might conceivably have mouthed the arrogant nonsense in this “secret speech” would have been Darré, who had no responsibility for foreign policy. If this speech actually had any foundation in reality, some trace of it would have been discovered among the voluminous records confiscated at the end of the war, and it would have been cited endlessly as indisputable proof of Hitler's perfidy and aggressive intentions.
This “secret speech” is typical of the many anti-German propaganda lies aimed at the American public during this period to build support for President Franklin Roosevelt's secret campaign to bring the United States into war against Germany. In a radio address broadcast nationwide on October 27, 1941, Roosevelt himself solemnly announced that he had “in my possession a secret map, made in Germany by Hitler's government” that supposedly proved German plans to take over Latin America. “That map, my friends, makes clear the Nazi design not only against South America but against the United States as well.”
In this same speech, Roosevelt claimed to have “another document made in Germany by Hitler's government,” this one a “detailed plan to abolish all existing religions.” Like the purported speech by Darré, these “documents” are fabrications. (See “Roosevelt's 'Secret Map' Speech,” Spring 1985 Journal, pp. 125-127.)
– The Editor
Doesn't Believe
I'm very angered by this 68 [sic] questions and answers on the holocaust. I do not think this paper should be given out. I cannot believe that people believe in this. 6 million Jews were killed and they are my ancestors …
I'm a Jewish teenage girl, 15 years old. My family lives in Israel and my grandparents lived through it, they were luck[y], but my parents' aunts and uncles and other family members were being killed not because there ugly, pretty but because they were Jewish.
[unsigned and sent anonymously]
Lambasting Indians
I am writing to express my displeasure at the inclusion of Mark Twain's polemic against the American Indian, “The Noble Red Man,” in the May-June [1998] issue. To dump mercilessly on a people for being starving beggars, especially by a member of the group that is responsible for the destruction of their natural support infrastructure, I find disgusting. The appearance of this meanspirited, racist diatribe in an otherwise insightful and well-balanced periodical is most unfortunate.
A.S.
Ridgewood, New York
In publishing Mark Twain's essay in the May-June issue, you copy the same Jewish treatment of Gentiles that is deservedly criticized in the review of Kevin MacDonald's book that appears in the same issue. Such inconsistency does you no good. If we have the right to describe any other ethnic group spitefully, we should not be offended when others describe us in the same way.
[by Internet]
Your lambasting the poor Indians in the May-June issue was an unfortunate departure from your primary area of concern. I'm enclosing a money order for a donation [$25], and a book order.
K.C.
Ithaca, New York
More, Please
Congratulations on your article on Jewish terrorism in France in the March-April 1996 issue. It was mind-boggling and deserves the widest possible circulation. Please continue to expand upon the “Six Million” issue while keeping in mind its critically important role in today's world.
Also very good was the lengthy essay in the Jan.-Feb. [1996] issue on the Inquisition and the “Jewish Question” in Spain. I very much hope you will continue to publish similarly detailed accounts on the Jewish impact in history. Such essays serve to bring this crucial issue into the open. More, more please!
W.P.
Madison, Ind.
Christophersen's Grave Vandalized
From January to December 1944, Thies Christophersen was a German army officer stationed at the Auschwitz camp complex. In a widely-distributed memoir, first published in 1973, he wrote about the reality of the notorious internment center. His memoir was one of the first important works to forthrightly and skeptically confront Auschwitz extermination claims. “During the time I was in Auschwitz,” he wrote in his report, “I did not notice the slightest evidence of mass gassings.”
Driven from Germany, this pioneer revisionist writer and courageous fighter for truth in history was forced to live in exile in countries where his “thought crimes” are not illegal. Then, in declining health, he returned to northern Germany to spend his final days in his beloved homeland. (See “Thies Christophersen” in the May-June 1997 Journal, p. 32)
But even his death in February 1997 did not put a stop to the hounding by the “never forgive, never forget” crowd. Several months after his passing, unknown vandals dug up Thies Christophersen's grave stone and hauled it away.
L.B.
Menlo Park, Calif
A Minor Error
My respect for Kevin MacDonald's insight and courage grew as I read your persuasive review of his recently-published study, Separation and its Discontents. It's a wonder that this work was published by a well-regarded, “establishment” publisher.
I am writing, though, to point out a minor error. MacDonald is quoted as writing: “Jewish religious consciousness centers to a remarkable extent around the memory of persecution. Persecution is the central theme of the holidays of Passover, Hanukkah, Purim, and Yom Kippur.” While this is certainly true of the first of the three-named Jewish holidays, it is not accurate to say that persecution is a central theme of the “Day of Atonement.”
According to the book of Leviticus (16:29-34), Yahweh told Moses that the Hebrews should forever observe this solemn day as “an everlasting statute unto you, that once a year atonement may be made for the people of Israel for all their sins.”
E. Svedlund
Seattle
We welcome letters from readers. We reserve the right to edit for style and space. Write: [… since defunct, don't write; ed.]
Bibliographic information about this document: The Journal of Historical Review, vol. 17, no. 4 (July/August 1998), pp. 39f.
Other contributors to this document: n/a
Editor’s comments: n/a