Critique of the Matt Cockerill vs. Thomas Dalton Debate, Part 3

Matt Cockerill writes on page five:

“Finally, let me address a few of the eyewitnesses who have corroborated German extermination policy. It is well-known even by deniers that the testimonial evidence contradicts their case. Deniers typically respond to this by alleging – without evidence – that all or most witnesses at Nuremberg and other legal proceedings had been coerced into their confessions.”

My Response

Actually, a large portion of the eyewitness testimony supports Holocaust revisionists. Matt Cockerill ignores in this debate the extensive eyewitness and scientific testimony establishing that there were no homicidal gas chambers in any of the German concentration camps, and that Germany did not have a program of genocide against the Jews during World War II.

Thies Christophersen is a witness who said that the alleged genocide of Jews during the war never happened. Christophersen supervised about 300 workers, many of them Jewish, at Auschwitz from January to December 1944. On numerous occasions during this period, he visited Birkenau where allegedly hundreds of thousands of Jews were being gassed to death. In a memoir first published in Germany in 1973, The Auschwitz Lie, Christophersen wrote that during the time he was at Auschwitz he did not notice the slightest evidence of mass gassings. In March 1988 at the Ernst Zündel trial in Toronto, he also successfully answered numerous pointed questions by the prosecuting attorney about his experiences at Auschwitz.

After The Auschwitz Lie was published, Christophersen received thousands of letters and calls. He wrote regarding these letters and calls:[1]

“Many of those who contacted me can confirm my statements, but are afraid to do so publicly. Some of those are SS men who were brutally mistreated and even tortured in Allied captivity. I also immediately contacted those who claimed to know more about mass gassings. My experiences were precisely the same as those of French professor Paul Rassinier. I have not found any eyewitnesses. Instead, people would tell me that they knew someone who knew someone else, who talked about it. In most cases the alleged eyewitnesses had died. Other supposed eyewitnesses would quickly begin to stammer and stutter when I asked a few precise questions. Even Simon Wiesenthal had to finally admit before a Frankfurt district court that he was actually never in Auschwitz. All of the reports I have heard about are contradictory. Everyone seemed to tell a different story about the gas chambers. They couldn’t even agree about where they were supposed to have been located. This is also true of the so-called scholarly literature, which is full of contradictions.”

The historical blackout forces have sought to intimidate German eyewitnesses from writing about their observations in the German concentration camps. When Thies Christophersen published The Auschwitz Lie in 1973, he was charged with “popular incitement,” “contempt against the state,” and defamation of the Jews, who now enjoy special protection in Germany. Christophersen spent a year in prison even though the charge of popular incitement was eventually dropped. All Christophersen had done was to write about his experiences while he was working at Auschwitz in 1944.[2]

Another eyewitness who did not see any evidence of genocide of the Jews is Dr. Wilhelm Stäglich. Dr. Stäglich, a German judge, visited Auschwitz several times during the Second World War as a German orderly officer of an Anti-aircraft Detachment. Dr. Stäglich published the following account of his visits to Auschwitz:[3]

“On none of these visits did I see gassing installations, crematoria, instruments of torture, or similar horrors. The camp gave one the impression of being well-kept and very well-organized… The camp reminded me of the German Labor Front camp in which I served out my six-month stretch in the Labor Service, except that Auschwitz was, of course, considerably larger…None of the inmates behaved as though they were in fear of mistreatment, let alone death.

On the later point, one encounter with inmates especially sticks in my memory. As some comrades and I were standing near the camp one evening, we caught sight of a big gang of inmates returning to camp from work in the industrial plants. They were escorted by a relatively small contingent of SS-men – mostly older people – and seemed to be thoroughly undisciplined.

They talked loudly among themselves, laughing all the while. Two or three inmates dropped out of line when they spotted us, opened their flies, and made water. Although this gesture could have been interpreted as a sign of contempt for German men in uniform, the SS guards ignored it completely. Later, whenever I heard that mortal terror prevailed in the concentration camps, I had to recall this incident. That is hardly the way people who are in constant fear of death behave.”

Wilhelm Stäglich later published an account of his Auschwitz observations in the October 1973 issue of the magazine Nation Europa. Stäglich’s public challenge to the official version of life at Auschwitz brought forth severe reprisals from the German government. Stäglich was induced to resign his job as a judge in Hamburg, his health having been affected by a harassment campaign against him. German authorities also attempted to deprive Stäglich of his pension, eventually settling on a 20% reduction in his pension over a five-year period. Finally, in a crowning absurdity, Stäglich was deprived of the doctoral degree he had earned at the University of Göttingen in 1951.[4]

Prematurely retired, Stäglich worked for several years on an extensive study of the evidence supposedly substantiating systematic murder by gassing at Auschwitz. The book resulting from his study, Der Auschwitz Mythos, disputes the various “proofs” offered for the Auschwitz myth and is a damning analysis of the postwar trials staged by the Allies. The publication of Der Auschwitz Mythos in West Germany in 1979 caused the defenders of the Holocaust story to censor Stäglich’s book. Nevertheless, all but seven of the 10,000 copies of the first edition of Der Auschwitz Mythos had been sold by the time the book was ordered seized by the German government.[5]

Wilhelm Stäglich wrote in 1984 concerning the intellectual subservience and guilt inculcated in most Germans since the end of World War II:[6]

“We Germans, in spite of the repeated assurances to the contrary of our puppet politicians, are politically and intellectually no longer a sovereign nation since our defeat in the Second World War. Our political subservience, which is apparent in the fact of the breaking up of the Reich and the incorporation of the individual pieces into the extant power blocks of the East and of the West, has had as its consequence a corresponding intellectual subservience. Escape from this intellectual subservience is prevented primarily by the guilt complex inculcated in most Germans through the ‘reeducation’ instituted in 1945. This guilt complex is based primarily on the Holocaust Legend. Therefore, for we Germans the struggle against what I have called the ‘Auschwitz Myth’ is so frightfully important.”

Germany passed laws soon after the publication of Stäglich’s book making it a felony to dispute any aspect of the Holocaust story. Similar laws were eventually passed in the following countries: Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Czech Republic, France, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, and the European Union.[7] The obvious question is: What kind of historical truth needs criminal sanctions to protect it? The Holocaust story would not need criminal sanctions to protect it if it was historically accurate.

Ditlieb Felderer, a revisionist researcher of Jewish descent, testified at the 1985 Ernst Zündel trial that he had conducted 27 separate visits to Auschwitz, where he snapped more than 30,000 color photographs, took soil samples, and conducted infra-red analysis of rooms and buildings. He examined the camp from top to bottom, and sneaked into areas which were off limits to tourists. Zündel testified that Felderer’s photographs were important in the formation of his understanding of the alleged gas chambers at Auschwitz. However, none of Felderer’s photographs was permitted to be offered as evidence by the judge in Zündel’s trial.

Felderer testified that the real Zyklon-B rooms at Auschwitz were delousing chambers. These facilities were designed to save lives by fighting typhus through the fumigation of bedding and clothing. He said that faked or reconstructed exhibits were placed on the guided Auschwitz tour. These fake exhibits included the infamous “execution wall,” which Felderer discovered did not have any bullet holes in the wall. Felderer described Auschwitz as it is now portrayed as being a “Hollywood set” which carries on Zionist and communist propaganda.[8]

Dr. William B. Lindsey, a research chemist employed for 33 years by the DuPont Corporation, testified at the 1985 Ernst Zündel trial that he considered mass homicidal gassings in the camps to be technically impossible. Based on his on-site examination of the alleged homicidal gas chambers at Auschwitz, Birkenau, and Majdanek, Dr. Lindsey stated:[9]

“I have come to the conclusion that no one was willfully or purposefully killed with Zyklon B in this manner. I consider it absolutely impossible.”

Bill M. Armontrout, the Warden of Missouri State Penitentiary, confirmed Dr. Lindsey’s testimony by describing the procedure used in Missouri after the execution of only one person in a homicidal gas chamber. Armontrout testified at the 1988 Ernst Zündel trial:[10]

“After the execution, the ammonia was released and the gas expelled out of the chamber. All staff and witnesses were removed from the area. The ventilation fan ran for approximately an hour before two officers equipped with Scott air-packs (self-contained breathing apparatus which firemen use to enter smoke-filled buildings) opened the hatch of the gas chamber and removed the lead bucket containing the cyanide residue. The two officers wore rubberized disposable clothing and long rubber gloves. They hosed down the condemned man’s body in the chair, paying particular attention to the hair and the clothing because of the cyanide residue, then removed him and placed him on a gurney where further decontamination took place. The officers then hosed the entire inside of the gas chamber with regular cold water.”

Obviously, such a difficult and time-consuming procedure would not be an effective means of quickly executing hundreds of thousands of people as allegedly happened to the Jews at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Another credible eyewitness is the Austrian-born Canadian Maria Van Herwaarden, who was interned at Birkenau starting in 1942. Van Herwaarden testified at the 1988 Ernst Zündel trial that she saw nothing at Birkenau that resembled mass murder. She did testify, however, that many of the inmates at Birkenau died of typhus and some inmates committed suicide.[11] No prosecution witnesses were called during this trial because the prosecution knew of no survivors who could withstand cross examination by Zündel’s defense attorney.

The failure of Jewish eyewitnesses to provide credible testimony at the 1985 Ernst Zündel trial caused Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz to write that the trial was “a total victory for Holocaust deniers and a total disaster for Holocaust survivors and the Jewish people.”[12]

The failure of the prosecutors in the 1985 Zündel trial to find effective witnesses also caused Jewish political scientist Robert Kahn to write:[13]

“If the concept of ‘symbolic victory’ is sometimes difficult to apply precisely, the 1985 prosecution of Ernst Zündel clearly backfired. What had been an attempt to silence Zündel, and possibly use the legal system to repudiate denial, became instead a public relations coup for the Toronto publisher and his supporters.”

The unreliability of eyewitness testimony of the Holocaust story has been commented on by some historians. Jewish historian Samuel Gringauz, for example, criticized what he called the “hyperhistorical” nature of most Jewish survivor testimony. Gringauz wrote that “most of the memoirs and reports are full of preposterous verbosity, graphomanic exaggeration, dramatic effects, overestimated self-inflation, dilettante philosophizing, would-be lyricism, unchecked rumors bias, partisan attacks and apologies.”[14]

Some German defendants also did not live to see the beginning of their trials. For example, Richard Baer, the last commandant of Auschwitz, conveniently died before the beginning of his trial in Frankfurt, Germany. He was arrested in December of 1960 in the vicinity of Hamburg. Baer during his pretrial questioning adamantly refused to confirm the existence of homicidal gas chambers at Auschwitz during World War II.

Baer died in June 1963 under mysterious circumstances while being held in pretrial custody. An autopsy performed on Baer at the Frankfurt-am-Main University School of Medicine stated that the ingestion of an odorless, non-corrosive poison could not be ruled out as the cause of his death. There was no further probe into the cause of Baer’s death, and Chief Public Prosecutor Fritz Bauer ordered his body cremated. Conveniently, the Auschwitz trial in Frankfurt, Germany began shortly after Baer’s death. The statements Baer made during his pretrial interrogations were not read into the trial record. With Baer’s death the prosecutors at the Auschwitz trial were able to attain their primary objective – to reinforce the gas chamber myth and establish it as an unassailable historical fact.[15]

It has been widely known ever since the illegal abduction of Adolf Eichmann in Argentina that the Israeli Mossad has immense capabilities. Given the fact that Chief Public Prosecutor Bauer was a Zionist Jew, which should have precluded him from heading the pretrial investigation, it is quite possible that the forces of international Jewry were able to murder Baer while he was in jail. If anyone knew the truth about the gas chamber allegation, it was Baer, the last commandant of Auschwitz. Baer’s untimely death prevented him from giving testimony that would have contradicted the official Holocaust narrative. Baer’s death was certainly a relief for the promoters of the Auschwitz trial.[16]

Matt Cockerill writes on page five:

“But this response fails to account for the numerous perpetrators who voluntarily confessed outside of trial, in completely non-coercive contexts. Such perpetrators include Adolf Eichmann, who confessed his knowledge of and role in German extermination policy to former Waffen-SS member Willem Sassen in Argentina, before the Israelis arrested him; former German Minister of Armaments Albert Speer, who privately wrote in a 1971 letter to the widow of a Belgian resistance leader that he had known about the extermination of the Jews and lied about this publicly; and the Palestinian-Arab Nazi collaborator Hajj Amin al-Husseini, who spent most of the war in Berlin, reported in his memoirs that, in mid-1943, Himmler told him that 3 million Jews had already been murdered.”

Matt adds on page 38:

“I have yet to hear an even vaguely coherent explanation for these non-coercive confessions from any denier, and you avoided them altogether in your rebuttal.”

My Response

Adolf Eichmann is the first alleged perpetrator that Matt claims voluntarily confessed to his knowledge and role in Germany’s extermination policy outside of trial in a non-coercive context. The link Matt provides is to an article by the Jewish Virtual Library. In this article, Eichman is quoted as saying:

“I didn’t care about the Jews deported to Auschwitz, whether they lived or died. It was the Fuehrer’s order: Jews who were fit for work would work, and those who weren’t would be sent to the Final Solution.”

Thus, according to this article, Eichmann said that Hitler ordered Jews who were unfit for work to be sent to the Final Solution. However, the Germans did not use the term “Final Solution” to mean extermination. Instead, Germany’s Final Solution was to send Jews out of Germany through emigration and deportation.[17] Hitler never said to Adolf Eichmann that Jews unfit for work would be exterminated.

The documentary evidence indicates that a high percentage of the inmates at Birkenau were disabled. Oswald Pohl, in a secret report to Heinrich Himmler dated April 5, 1944, stated that there were 67,000 inmates in the entire Auschwitz-Birkenau camp complex, of which 18,000 were unable to work. In Birkenau there were a total of 36,000 inmates, of whom “approximately 15,000 are unable to work.”[18] Such high percentages of disabled inmates at Auschwitz-Birkenau are not consistent with a program of mass extermination.

Auschwitz-Birkenau also served as a transit camp for children and detainees unfit for work. This is indicated by a note dated July 21, 1942, concerning a telephone conversation that took place the day before. SS-Hauptsturmführer Theodor Dannecker wrote:[19]

“The question of the evacuation of children was discussed with SS-Obersturmbannführer Eichmann. He decided that transports of children are to take place as soon as transports into the General Government are again possible. SS-Obersturmführer Nowak promised to provide about six transports to the General Government at the end of August/beginning of September, which may contain Jews of all kinds (also those unfit for work and old Jews).”

Numerous sick and disabled Jews were transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau and survived. For example, Primo Levi and Otto Frank were disabled Jews who one would think would have been executed at Auschwitz-Birkenau. However, along with about 7,000 to 8,000 additional disabled Jews, Levi and Frank were left behind in Auschwitz. Although the Germans could have executed Primo Levi, Otto Frank and the other disabled Jews in a few days, the Germans let them survive to tell their stories about Auschwitz-Birkenau.[20]

Eichmann is also quoted in this article as saying that an SS brigade commander told him they “put sprinklers in the showers that looked just like a showerhead,” and then they would “bring in the idiots and throw inside hydrogen cyanide.”

Hydrocyanic acid, however, cannot be used to safely kill people. In March 1992, a prominent Austrian engineer named Walter Lüftl made headlines when he wrote a report stating that the stories of mass extermination of Jews in gas chambers at Auschwitz and Mauthausen are impossible for technical reasons and because they are incompatible with observable laws of nature. At the time of his report, Lüftl was a court-recognized expert engineer who headed a large engineering firm in Vienna.

Lüftl stated that although the hydrocyanic acid contained in the Zyklon B can kill quickly and certainly, the handling requirements for Zyklon B rule out any significant use of Zyklon B for the mass killing of people. Lüftl stated that during the ventilation process after a gassing, Zyklon B would still retain approximately 92% of its hydrocyanic acid content, and would thus continue releasing hydrocyanic acid gas. Lüftl asked: How could the gas chamber operators get rid of the remaining Zyklon B from the midst of dead corpses, without lengthy ventilation periods, and without causing mass deaths outside the gas chambers? Lüftl concluded that because of operational and time considerations, quasi-industrial killing using Zyklon B would be impossible.[21]

Some eyewitnesses have claimed that prussic acid was streamed through shower heads into homicidal gas chambers at Mauthausen. However, these claims are not credible. Germar Rudolf writes:[22]

“Zyklon B consists of the active ingredient, hydrogen cyanide, adsorbed on a solid carrier material (gypsum) and only released gradually. Since it was neither a liquid nor a gas under pressure, the hydrogen cyanide from this product could never have traveled through narrow water pipes and shower heads. Possible showers, or fake shower heads, could therefore only have been used to deceive the victims; they could never have been used for the introduction of this poison gas. There is general unanimity as to this point, no matter what else might be in dispute.”

Former German Minister of Armaments Albert Speer is Matt Cockerill’s second example of a German who voluntarily confessed outside of trial to an extermination program in a completely non-coercive context. Matt provides a link to a Guardian article to support his claim. This link says that Speer privately wrote in a letter to the widow of a Belgian resistance leader that he had known about the extermination of the Jews, and lied about this publicly.

In his letter written on December 23, 1971, Speer wrote:

“There is no doubt – I was present as Himmler announced on October 6, 1943 that all Jews would be killed.”

Speer continued:

“Who would believe me that I suppressed this, that it would have been easier to have written all of this in my memoirs?”

Speer, who died in London in 1981, had denied knowing about the Holocaust in his best-selling 1969 book, Inside the Third Reich, as well as in lengthy interviews with the British author Gitta Sereny, who wrote a biography about him.

However, as I discuss in another article, Heinrich Himmler’s famous Posen speech on October 6, 1943 does not indicate a German program of extermination of Europe’s Jews. The fact that Speer attended this meeting does not mean he knew about a German program of genocide against Jews. Speer’s statement in his letter is not a confession that he knew about an extermination program of Jews and lied about it publicly.

Matt finally states that Palestinian-Arab Hajj Amin al-Husseini reported in his memoirs that, in mid-1943, Himmler told him that 3 million Jews had already been murdered. Matt references a Tablet article written on October 21, 2015 by Jonathan Zalman for his statement. The exact words used by al-Husseini in his memoirs are not quoted in this article.

The book Nazis, Islamists, and the Making of the Modern Middle East states that the meeting between Himmler and al-Husaini occurred in Zhitomir, and can only be told now because of materials from the Russian archives. The authors of this book write:[23]

“Getting down to business, Himmler informed al-Husaini that the Nazis had already killed 3 million Jews and were making great progress on developing nuclear weapons. He was trying to persuade his guest that Germany would win the war and make him ruler over much of the Middle East.”

It is uncertain why Himmler would lie to al-Husaini about Germany killing 3 million Jews. However, we do know that Himmler lied to al-Husaini about Germany making great progress in developing nuclear weapons. Germany had only a very small group of people working on a nuclear reactor. Germany never came close to developing nuclear weapons during the war.[24]

Himmler almost certainly knew about Germany’s lack of progress in developing nuclear weapons. In my opinion, Himmler’s statements were designed to impress al-Husaini. Himmler wanted to convince al-Husaini that Germany was winning the war, and that he should persuade Arab nations to help Germany win the war against international Jewry.

Matt Cockerill writes on page 37:

“You raise the issue of coerced confessions, focusing specifically on Rudolf Höss (tortured by Jewish-British soldiers bent on revenge) and Adolf Eichmann (extrajudicially kidnapped by Israelis). We learned about Höss’ torture at the hands of British soldiers from his memoirs. But these memoirs also emphasize that he was treated well (not tortured) by the authorities at Nuremberg and by the Polish authorities to which he testified. Why accept the reliability of the memoirs for the allegations of torture, but not on Auschwitz as an extermination camp?”

My Response

Rudolf Höss’s allegations of torture are supported by numerous sources in addition to his memoirs.

The British after the war attempted unsuccessfully for many months to find Höss. Frustrated by their inability to locate Höss, the British decided to intimidate his wife and their five children. On March 7, 1945, Jewish British Cpt. Howard Harvey Alexander arrested Höss’s wife Hedwig and interrogated her in a prison cell, but she refused to reveal her husband’s hiding place. Alexander then interrogated Höss’s children, all minors (3 to 16 years old), who had been left behind alone on their farm. Not getting the answers he wanted, Alexander jailed them as well. Hedwig, however, still would not talk.[25]

Since their tactics of imprisonment and intimidation had failed, the British soldiers decided to use a new approach. A noisy old steam train was driven past the rear of the prison. Alexander burst into Hedwig’s cell and informed her that this train was about to take her son to Siberia, and that she would never see him again. Waiting a few moments to let his message sink in, Alexander told Hedwig that she could prevent her son’s deportation if she told him where her husband was living and under what alias. Alexander left Hedwig sitting on her cot with a piece of paper and a pencil. When Alexander returned 10 minutes later, Hedwig had written a note with Höss’s location and his alias.[26]

A group of about 25 men were sent the night of March 11, 1946 to arrest Höss. Many of them were German Jews such as Alexander. Some had kept their original names, such as Kuditsch and Wiener; others had taken on British-sounding names, like Roberts, Cresswell and Shiffers. There were also English-born soldiers from Jewish families, such as Bernard Clarke and Karl Abrahams. Virtually all of these men were enraged and eager to take out their revenge on Höss.[27]

In 1983, the anti-National Socialist book Legions of Death by Rupert Butler documented that Sgt. Bernard Clarke and other British officers tortured Rudolf Höss into making his confession. The torture of Höss was exceptionally brutal. Neither Bernard Clarke nor Rupert Butler finds anything wrong or immoral in the torture of Höss. Neither of them seems to understand the importance of their revelations. Bernard Clarke and Rupert Butler prove that Höss’s confession was obtained by torture.[28]

Moritz von Schirmeister, a former associate of Joseph Goebbels, confirmed that Höss’s confession was obtained by torture. At Nuremberg, von Schirmeister sat in the backseat of a car together with Höss, with whom he could speak freely during transit. He remembered Höss’s following statement:[29]

“On the things he is accused of, he told me: ‘Certainly, I signed a statement that I killed two and a half million Jews. But I could just as well have said that it was five million Jews. There are certain methods by which any confession can be obtained, whether it is true or not.’”

British Pvt. Ken Jones confirmed that the British used sleep deprivation to break Höss. Jones stated:[30]

“We sat in the cell with him, night and day, armed with axe handles. Our job was to prod him every time he fell asleep to help break down his resistance. When Höss was taken out for exercise, he was made to wear only jeans and a thin cotton shirt in the bitter cold. After three days and nights without sleep, Höss finally broke down and made a full confession to the authorities.”

The International Military Tribunal (IMT) began on November 20, 1945, four months before Höss’s arrest. Whitney Harris, a young American prosecutor at the IMT, was desperate to find a high-ranking German willing to confirm what had taken place in the concentration camps. At Harris’s request, the manacled Höss was transported 300 miles south to Nuremberg.[31]

On April 1, 1946, Höss was taken to a small office to be interviewed by Harris. The three weeks in British captivity had taken their toll on Höss. Höss’s eyes were bloodshot, his cheeks were unshaven and gaunt, and his frame appeared to be fragile. Expecting to meet a larger man, someone who exuded power and brutality, Harris instead observed that Höss was a shrunken man.[32]

While Höss waited in his cell to be called as a witness, he was visited by psychologist Dr. Gustave Gilbert, a New Yorker born to Jewish-Austrian immigrants. Gilbert wrote about Höss:[33]

“In all of the discussions Höss is quite matter-of-fact and apathetic, shows some belated interest in the enormity of his crime, but gives the impression that it never would have occurred to him if somebody hadn’t asked him. There is too much apathy to leave any suggestion of remorse and even the prospect of hanging does not unduly distress him. One gets the general impression of a man who is intellectually normal but with the schizoid apathy, insensitivity and lack of empathy that could hardly be more extreme in a frank psychotic.”

Dr. Gilbert later wrote after Höss’s testimony at the IMT:[34]

“He gave his testimony in the same matter-of-fact, apathetic manner as he had related it to me in his cell.”

Maj. Leon Goldensohn, a U.S. Army psychiatrist, also remarked that “Höss looked blank and apathetic.”[35] It is this author’s opinion that Höss’s “schizoid apathy” and “apathetic manner” were caused by his brutal torture by British soldiers. Höss was not usually described as apathetic before he was tortured.

On April 15, 1946, Höss appeared in court at the IMT. Ernst Kaltenbrunner’s defense lawyer, Dr. Kurt Kauffmann, asked Höss a series of questions designed to prove that Kaltenbrunner had never visited Auschwitz. Höss affirmed that Kaltenbrunner had never visited Auschwitz, and that Kaltenbrunner didn’t order the execution of Jews at this camp.[36]

U.S. prosecutor Col. John Amen next started reading from an affidavit Höss had signed in front of Whitney Harris on April 5, 1946. Höss’s testimony at the IMT was probably the most important and striking evidence presented there of a German extermination program. Höss in his testimony said that more than two and a half million people were exterminated in the Auschwitz gas chambers, and that another 500,000 inmates had died there of other causes.[37] No defender of the Holocaust story today accepts these inflated figures, and other key portions of Höss’s testimony at the IMT are widely acknowledged to be untrue.

Höss’s testimony, however, was reported around the world. A New York Times article described it as the “crushing climax to the case.” The Times in Britain said of Höss’s signed testimony:[38]

“Its dreadful implications must surpass any document ever penned.”

Höss was regarded as the star prosecution witness at the IMT, and his testimony has become the framework for the official Holocaust story.[39]

While Höss was appearing as a witness at Nuremberg, the Polish government sent word that they intended to try Höss for crimes committed in their country. Höss was eventually transported to a tiny basement cell in a prison on the outskirts of Krakow. Dr. Jan Sehn, the leading investigator in the Polish war crimes trials, asked Höss to write about Auschwitz’s operations and many other war-related matters. Sehn eventually persuaded Höss to write his memoirs.[40] Höss was also interrogated 13 times and fully answered all questions.[41]

Höss’s trial began March 11, 1947, before the Supreme National Tribunal of Poland in Warsaw. Dr. Tadeusz Cyprian, the lead prosecutor, presented statements from numerous camp inmates to prove Höss’s guilt. By contrast, neither Höss nor his attorneys introduced any witnesses, relying entirely on the witnesses put forward by the prosecution. As he had done at Nuremberg, Höss remained stoic, answering all questions in a brief, precise manner, without emotions. Similar to Dr. Gustave Gilbert and Dr. Leon Goldensohn at Nuremberg, both Dr. Shen and Dr. Cyprian described Höss as being apathetic.[42]

Höss’s trial ended on March 29, 1947. As expected, on April 2, 1947, Höss was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging. Höss was hanged on April 16, 1947, in front of the old crematorium at the Auschwitz main camp.[43]

In his well-researched book Commandant of Auschwitz, Carlo Mattogno documents that all of Höss’s statements about the so-called Holocaust are wrong, contradictory and absurd. Mattogno writes that Höss’s chronology of events is also fictitious, as are the events (such as gassings) he wove into them.[44]

So, we have established the following facts:

1. Rudolf Höss’s family members had all been imprisoned and intimidated by British soldiers prior to Höss’s capture. A British officer told Höss’s wife that her son would be sent to Siberia if she did not cooperate.
2. Höss was subject to brutal torture by British soldiers.
3. Höss was also subject to sleep deprivation by British soldiers.
4. Dr. Gustave Gilbert and Dr. Leon Goldensohn both described Höss as being blank and apathetic at the IMT.
5. Dr. Jan Sehn and Dr. Tadeusz Cyprian both described Höss as being apathetic at the Polish trial.
6. Neither Höss nor his attorneys introduced any witnesses at the Polish trial, relying entirely on the witnesses put forward by the prosecution.
7. Key portions of Höss’s testimony at the IMT are widely acknowledged to be untrue. Höss was merely repeating the Allied propaganda at the time.

Since Höss’s confessions and testimony had been obtained by torture, sleep deprivation, and fear for his family’s safety, they never should have been allowed into evidence at the IMT and later Polish trial. Höss’s testimony calls into question the legitimacy of both the IMT and later Polish trial. No one should use Höss’s statements as proof of the Holocaust.

Matt Cockerill writes on page 38:

“As to Eichmann, more pertinent than anything he said at trial is what I mentioned in my opening statement: before his kidnapping by the Israelis, Eichmann confessed his involvement in and knowledge of the extermination of the Jews to pro-Nazi friends in Argentina. Are you suggesting that Eichmann’s fellow SS alumnus Willem Sassen, who recorded his discussions with the former, tortured, or hoodwinked Eichmann into making a false confession of genocide?”

My Response

As previously stated in this article, Adolf Eichmann said that Jews who were unfit for work would be sent to the Final Solution based on Hitler’s order. However, the Germans did not use the term “Final Solution” to mean extermination. Instead, Germany’s Final Solution was to send Jews out of Germany through emigration and deportation. Eichmann never made a confession that he knew about a German program of genocide against the Jews to Willem Sassen.

I will also add that in Israel, where emotions ran high concerning the so-called Holocaust, it was impossible for Eichmann to get a fair trial. The inability of the defense to question the reality of the Holocaust story, to cross-examine Jewish prosecution witnesses, to consult with Eichmann in secrecy, to have the case heard by impartial judges, to contest testimony and evidence from the IMT, and the routine admission of hearsay evidence all ensured Adolf Eichmann’s conviction. The result was an unjust verdict that created an inaccurate history of the so-called Holocaust.

Endnotes