Book Announcements
Rudolf Reder versus Kurt Gerstein
Authored by Carlo Mattogno
Carlo Mattogno, Rudolf Reder versus Kurt Gerstein: Two False Testimonies on the Bełżec Camp Analyzed, Castle Hill Publishers, Uckfield, 2021, 218 pages, 6”×9” paperback, bibliography, index, ISBN 978-1-59148-266-6. Available from Armreg Ltd at https://t.ly/y6GNv. See the book excerpt in this issue.
In 1989, The Institute for Historical Review published the PhD thesis of French historian Henry Roques titled The ‘Confessions’ of Kurt Gerstein, a critical analysis of a pivotal “eyewitness” account about the alleged Belzec Extermination Camp. For many years now, this book has been out of print. For a while we considered asking the IHR for a license to put this book back in print, as we have done before with Stäglich’s The Auschwitz Myth and Sanning’s Dissolution of Eastern European Jewry. However, considering that the book, originally written in French in the mid-1980s, was in need of some serious updates, and that Italian scholar Carlo Mattogno had himself written a study on Gerstein that was published in 1985 (Il rapporto Gerstein: Anatomia di un falso), we decided to ask him to write a new, updated study. Yet instead of regurgitating what he himself and Roques had stated neatly some 35 years ago, he expanded on the theme by including the other witness of the Belzec Extermination Camp, Rudolf Reder (yes, there are only two essential witnesses about this camp!), and write a comparative analysis of these two witness accounts, which are both highly contradictory in many regards, and highly implausible in their own way. We issued it in both a German and English edition in short sequence, profiting from the synergy effects such dual translations bring about. This is Volume 43 of our prestigious series Holocaust Handbooks.
Only two witnesses have ever testified substantially about the alleged Bełżec Extermination Camp: The survivor Rudolf Reder and the SS officer Kurt Gerstein. For 40 years, Gerstein’s testimonies were the main source of Western mainstream historiography in their attempt to reconstruct what transpired at the infamous Bełżec Camp, where Gerstein said millions of Polish Jews were murdered with Diesel-engine exhaust gases in 1942.
Critical, revisionist voices were raised about Gerstein’s statements early on, spearheaded by a passing remark by Paul Rassinier in his 1961 book Ulysse trahi par les siens (Odysseus Betrayed by His Own), followed by a critical analysis of Gerstein’s claims in his 1964 book Le drame des juifs européens (The Drama of the European Jews), and culminating in the 1985 doctoral dissertation on The Confessions of Kurt Gerstein by French historian Henri Roque. As a result, Gerstein’s testimonies are now discredited even among mainstream historians. One of them classified Gerstein’s account as “a questionable source, and in some respects, it must even be classified as a fantasy.”
In contrast to Western historians, Polish scholars focused on the testimonies of former Bełżec inmate Rudolf Reder early on. After Gerstein had been discredited, Western historians started using Reder’s various depositions to fill the narrative void created by Gerstein’s ignoble removal from the Holocaustian Hall of Fame.
In the first part, the present study presents all of Reder’s various statements in an English translation, then subjects them to critical scrutiny in the second part, demonstrating that they also are “a questionable source” that “must even be classified as a fantasy.” After summarizing and explaining the many absurdities of Gerstein’s claims in Part 3, the author juxtaposes both testimonies, which are for the most part utterly incommensurate.
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Part 4 of this book is printed earlier in this issue of Inconvenient History.
The Holocaust: Facts versus Fiction
Authored by Germar Rudolf
Germar Rudolf, The Holocaust: Facts versus Fiction. An information brochure on a topic that still impacts many societal and political issues, possibly more than ever, Castle Hill Publishers, Uckfield, 2021, 32 pages, 6”×9” brochure. Available from Armreg Ltd as a download free of charge at https://t.ly/7eMqM.
After having issued a German version of this brochure last year, we launched an English translation of it early this year, with several updated editions released since. This is an inexpensive, attractive information brochure on the Holocaust that can serve to educate the masses. It gives a condensed overview of the latest research results of critical historians on the Holocaust, and contains references to a wide range of resources where the reader can find more on the subject. The PDF version is available free of charge. This brochure replaces our book program, and we strive to add a copy of it in each parcel they send out to new customers, and to some of our returning customers as well. The complete text is reproduced in this issue of Inconvenient History.
This concise information brochure explains the most-important revisionist arguments about the Holocaust on 32 pages. It contains plenty of references to further reading, with most of the titles mentioned being accessible free of charge. It doubles as our book catalogue, as all of our books are introduced in it while we explain what relevance each books has in the greater picture of reexamining history. You can download this brochure as at https://t.ly/7eMqM. Please note that this brochure is not protected by copyright. New customers who order printed material from us will receive a free copy of this brochure with their order. [Editor’s remark: That offer is currently (2024) not valid.]
Miscellaneous Books
Castle Hill released German translations of two books, which, for one of them, resulted in the release of a new, corrected and updated edition of the equivalent English-language edition as mentioned:
- Carlo Mattogno, Die Schaffung des Auschwitz-Mythos, with the equivalent 2nd edition of The Making of the Auschwitz Myth.
- Carlo Mattogno, Rudolf Reder gegen Kurt Gerstein, the equivalent of the afore-mentioned book Rudolf Reder versus Kurt Gerstein.
Castle Hill furthermore issued a new German edition of Paul Rassinier’s Was nun, Odysseus?, as well as a German version of the afore-mentioned brochure The Holocaust: Facts versus Fiction (Der Holocaust: Fakten versus Fiktion).
Bibliographic information about this document: Inconvenient History, 2021, Vol. 13, No. 1
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