Author: Paul Grubach

Dr. Wilhelm Stäglich (born Nov. 11, 1916, Berlin, Germany; died April 5, 2006) was a German judge and historian. He studied law and political science at the Universities of Rostock and Göttingen, from where he received a doctorate in law in 1951. For years, he served as a finance-court judge in Hamburg. He was the author of numerous articles on legal and historical subjects. During the Second World War he served from mid-July to mid-September 1944 as an Ordonnanzoffizier (orderly officer) on the staff of an anti-aircraft detachment stationed near the Auschwitz Camp. As part of his duties, he maintained contact with the SS camp command, and had unlimited access to the Auschwitz Main Camp, where the command was headquartered. Disturbed by the obvious discrepancies between what he had witnessed during the war at Auschwitz, and the portrayal of the camp that emerged at war’s end, he resolved to speak out... and had to suffer the consequences of persecution.

Read more about him here.

Letters

Corrective Power Richard Phillip's letter [in the May-June Journal, pp. 46-47] is an excellent illustration of the corrective power of historical revisionism. However, a few of his points require correction. German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck tried to appease France over the issue of Alsace-Lorraine, and nearly succeeded in reaching a reconciliation. It is not true…

An Open Letter to the President of West Germany

23 November 1988 The President of the Federal RepublicRichard von Weizsäcker5300 Bonn Mr. President: You have repeatedly expressed yourself publicly on questions pertaining to Germany's history in this century (the first time was in your speech of 8 May 1945 before the West German parliament). The content and tone of your statements shows that you…

Historians Wrangle over the Destruction of European Jewry

International historical conventions dealing with the question of the “destruction of the Jews during World War II” have been rare up to now, the consensus being that such events were superfluous. On that subject, historians had fundamentally adhered to what had been pronounced as “historical fact” at the various show trials held by the victorious…

West German Court Rejects Judge Stäglich’s Appeal

While an officer in a German anti-aircraft unit in 1944, Wilhelm Stäglich was for several months stationed in the vicinity of the Auschwitz concentration camp. The postwar doubts he expressed about alleged mass exterminations carried out at Auschwitz have led to twenty years of disciplinary proceedings, including his early retirement from the judiciary with a…

'Der Auschwitz Mythos': A Book and Its Fate in the German Federal Republic

“To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.”—President Abraham Lincoln [retranslation] I was not yet acquainted with these wards of Lincoln when, after the Second World War, I repeatedly expressed doubts in conversations with a wide range of people about the alleged atrocities in German concentration camps. It simply appeared to…

West German Justice and So-Called National Socialist Violent Crimes

When I speak of so-called National Socialist (hereinafter: NS) crimes of violence, this correctly indicates my conviction that the legend of the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" is a fiction. This is not the place to present a detail-by-detail rebuttal of this myth; others have already done so most adequately. In any case, as…

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