On Holocaust Revisionism

Is There Proof for the Traditional View of the Holocaust?

Largely as a result of advances in knowledge, three major court battles, and the impact of the Internet, Holocaust revisionism has enjoyed phenomenal growth from the mid-1980s until the present time. In 1985 and again in 1988, German-born publisher Ernst Zündel was put on trial in Canada for allegedly publishing “false news” about the Jewish Holocaust. During both trials the best evidence for and against the traditional view of the Holocaust was presented to the courts.

In winter/spring of 2000 there was another event of prime importance in regard to the current debate about the alleged Jewish Holocaust. British historian David Irving sued Jewish historian Deborah Lipstadt and her publisher, Penguin Books, in the High Court of London, claiming that he was libeled in her anti-revisionist tome, Denying the Holocaust: the Growing Assault on Truth and Memory.

Lipstadt and company’s defense attorneys assembled a team of world-renowned Holocaust experts as part of their campaign to discredit Irving and validate Lipstadt’s claims. The presiding judge, Charles Gray, was presented with the best evidence and arguments in favor of the traditional view of the Holocaust. What did Judge Gray conclude?

In regard to the allegedly incriminating words and statements in Nazi documents that are employed to “prove” the Nazis had a policy to exterminate all the Jews, Judge Gray concluded that many of these words and statements are of an equivocal nature and are capable of being interpreted in a manner that is consistent with Holocaust revisionist theory. He wrote:[1]

“A considerable number of documents were scrutinized in an attempt to ascertain whether the words in question [ausrotten, vernichten, liquidieren, evakuieren, umsiedeln and abschieben] were being used or understood in a genocidal sense. Irving contended that most of these words are properly to be understood in a non-genocidal sense. Longerich [one of Lipstadt’s expert witnesses] agreed that most, if not all, of these words are capable of being used in a non-genocidal sense. For example, ausrotten [exterminate or uproot] can bear such anodyne meanings as ‘get rid off’ or ‘wipe out’ without connoting physical extermination. But he asserted that its usual and primary meaning is ‘exterminate’ or ‘kill off,’ especially when applied to people or to a group of people as opposed to, for example, a religion.”

In a similar vein Judge Gray noted:[2]

“It is also accepted by [Lipstadt’s team of Holocaust experts] that in certain respects the documentary evidence, including the photographic evidence, is capable of more than one interpretation.”

In regard to the evidence for mass genocide in the Nazi concentration camps, Gray admitted:[3]

“What is the evidence for mass extermination of Jews at those camps? The consequence of the absence of any overt documentary evidence of gas chambers at these camps, coupled with the lack of archeological evidence, means that reliance has to be placed on eyewitness and circumstantial evidence.”

Referring to the evidence used to “prove” the Nazis used gas chambers and crematoria for mass murder, Judge Gray drew this eye-opening conclusion:[4]

“[C]ontemporaneous documents, such as drawings, plans, correspondence with contractors and the like, yield little clear evidence of the existence of gas chambers designed to kill humans. Such isolated references to the use of gas as are to be found amongst these documents can be explained by the need to fumigate clothes so as to reduce the incidence of disease such as typhus. The quantities of Zyklon-B [the gas allegedly used by the Nazis to commit mass murder in the gas chambers] delivered to the camps may arguably be explained by the need to fumigate clothes and other objects.”

Gray noted that even the architectural plans of the buildings that allegedly housed the homicidal gas chambers do not contain any incriminating evidence:

None of these drawings refers overtly to any part of the buildings being designed or intended to serve as gas chambers whether for fumigation or extermination purposes. In particular the drawings for [the supposed gas chamber of Krema II at Birkenau] make no provisions for ducts or chimneys by means of which Zyklon-B pellets might be inserted through the roof.[5]

The same holds true for the extant ruins of the Nazi concentration camps. Gray pointed out that they contain almost no evidence for the traditional view of the Holocaust:[6]

“[Lipstadt’s team of Holocaust experts] accept that the physical evidence remaining at the site of Auschwitz provides little evidence to support the claim that gas chambers were operated there for genocidal purposes.”

To be sure, Judge Gray does believe the evidence converges to the conclusion that the Nazis did have a policy to exterminate world Jewry, and Jews were killed in large numbers in the “Auschwitz gas chambers,” but he virtually admitted that the best evidence presented to him by a team of world-renowned Holocaust experts is weak.

Convergence of Evidence? Proof of the Holocaust?

Any critique of the traditional view of the Holocaust must incorporate an analysis of the method by which historians attempt to prove it. It is called a “convergence of evidence” – an ensemble of written documents, eyewitness testimony, photographs, the ruins of the surviving camps themselves, and population demographics that supposedly points to only one conclusion: the Nazis planned to exterminate all the Jews, gas chambers were used to implement this plan, and approximately 6,000,000 were murdered. Once again, Judge Gray explained this methodology.

The judge stated that it is important “to keep well in mind the diversity of the categories of evidence for the ‘gas chambers’ and the extent to which those categories are mutually corroborative.”[7] Gray summarized Lipstadt and company’s case by concluding “there exists…a ‘convergence’ of evidence which is to the ordinary, dispassionate mind overwhelming that hundreds of thousands of Jews were systematically gassed to death at Auschwitz.”[7]

In regard to the “eyewitness evidence” for the “gas chambers,” he stated that while he acknowledged “that reliability of the eye-witness evidence is variable, what is to me striking about that category of evidence is the similarity of the accounts and the extent to which they are consistent with the documentary evidence.”[8]

Gray added:[9]

“The various categories of evidence do ‘converge’ in the manner suggested by [Lipstadt and company’s Holocaust experts]. My overall assessment of the totality of the evidence that Jews were killed in large numbers in gas chambers at Auschwitz is that I would require exceedingly powerful reasons to reject it. Irving has argued that such reasons do exist.”

Judge Gray’s final conclusion was as follows:[10]

“Having considered the various arguments advanced by Irving to assail the effect of the convergent evidence relied on by the Defendants, it is my conclusion that no objective, fair-minded historian would have serious cause to doubt that there were gas chambers at Auschwitz and that they were operated on a substantial scale to kill hundreds of thousands of Jews.”

The following example will illustrate to the reader how questionable “convergence of evidence” proofs for the traditional view of the Holocaust really are. In their article on the Treblinka concentration camp, historian Mark Weber and attorney Andrew Allen collected six pieces of evidence that point to the conclusion that Jews and others were murdered in steam chambers at the site.[11] Let us list each of them.

According to an “eyewitness” account received in November 1942 in London from the Warsaw ghetto underground organization, Jews were supposedly exterminated in death rooms with “steam coming out of the numerous holes in the pipes.”[12]

In 1943 the New York Times published more “eyewitness” testimony regarding the mass murder of Jews in the alleged Treblinka steam chambers. This account provided readers with essential details about the operation of these steam chambers.[13]

In The Black Book of Polish Jewry, a 1943 work sponsored by an array of respected dignitaries like Albert Einstein and Eleanor Roosevelt, the Treblinka steam story was again given in detail.[14]

Another book, Lest We Forget, published in New York in 1943 by the World Jewish Congress, describes how Jews were steamed to death and provides a diagram showing the location of the purported boiler room that produced the fatal steam.[15]

According to a 1944 “eyewitness” account compiled by the OSS, the principal U.S. intelligence agency, Jews at Treblinka “were in general killed by steam and not by gas as had been first suspected.”[16]

In 1945 the Polish government “conclusively proved” the Germans operated these death chambers. They carried out ‘an onsite, physical examination of the steam chambers,’ which was submitted by the Americans as an “expert report” to the Nuremberg Tribunal.[17]

Here we have a convergence of evidence from six sources. The eyewitness testimony is substantiated by the onsite, hands-on investigation of the Polish authorities. This convergence of evidence is even better than the one that Judge Gray heard because it has an onsite, expert study of the murder weapon itself that “conclusively proves” the existence of the steam chambers. Therefore, the Germans must have murdered people in steam chambers at Treblinka. Lo and behold, the pitfalls of such a conclusion!

Historians now tell us there were no steam chambers at Treblinka. The convergence of evidence that “proves” their existence is entirely false. Over the years, the story changed, and today it is alleged that Jews and others were murdered with carbon monoxide gas generated from captured Soviet diesel tank engines.[18] Neither Judge Gray nor Lipstadt and Company’s team of world-renowned Holocaust experts has ever explained why the convergence of evidence for Treblinka steam chambers points to a false conclusion and the convergence of evidence for the Auschwitz gas chambers allegedly points to true conclusion.

Since most of the evidence in the convergence of evidence for the Treblinka steam chambers is not qualitatively different from the evidence in the convergence of evidence for the Auschwitz gas chambers, and since the convergence of evidence for the Treblinka steam chambers leads to a false conclusion, is it not also possible that the convergence of evidence for the Auschwitz gas chambers also points to a false conclusion?

All of the evidence that Holocaust historians use to allegedly “prove” the traditional view of the Holocaust is either very questionable, equivocal (in the sense that it can be also shown to be consistent with revisionist viewpoints), or downright worthless. Indeed, even the ardently anti-revisionist team of Deborah Lipstadt’s world-renowned Holocaust experts was forced to make important concessions in this direction at the famous Irving–Lipstadt trial in London.

Was There a Nazi Policy to Exterminate World Jewry?

One of the key claims of traditional Holocaust historiography is that Hitler and other top Nazi leaders formulated a plan to exterminate world Jewry, commonly called the “Final Solution.”

Holocaust historian and expert witness at the second Zündel trial and the Irving–Lipstadt trial, Christopher Browning, has defined the “Final Solution” as ‘the systematic attempt [of the Nazis] to murder every last Jew, man, woman, and child, within the German grasp.’[19] In other words, it was a program of systematic and total mass murder, with its ultimate goal of “killing every last Jew, man, women and child throughout the reach of the Nazi empire.”[20] He added that the Nazis “committed themselves to a vision of murdering all the Jews of Europe.”[21]

First of all, it was admitted by one of the world’s premier Holocaust historians, Raul Hilberg, at the first trial of Ernst Zündel that there is no document signed by Hitler ordering the extermination of the Jews.[22] In addition, there is no wartime document signed by Hitler or any Nazi official that specifically orders that Jews are to be murdered in gas chambers.

The reader should keep in mind what was virtually admitted by Judge Gray at the Irving–Lipstadt libel trial in London: the documents purporting to “prove” that there was a Nazi policy to exterminate the Jews are equivocal, or capable of more than one interpretation. Thus, there is no direct, unequivocal evidence of a Nazi policy to exterminate Jewry.

So what evidence is there that the Nazis had a policy to exterminate the Jews? In an attempt to prove their case, Holocaust historians again rely upon a so-called “convergence of evidence” – a group of documents, which taken together, allegedly point to the conclusion that there was a Nazi policy to exterminate the Jews. Each document they use is either worthless, unreliable, or equivocal and inconclusive in the sense that it can be shown to be consistent with revisionist theory. Furthermore, they ignore evidence that undermines the claim that the Nazis had a policy to exterminate Jewry.

One of the ways in which we can see that the revisionist view of the “Final Solution” is correct is by examining the best evidence that the believers in the traditional view of the Holocaust put forth as “proof” that there was a Nazi policy to exterminate the Jews.

Holocaust historians are fond of quoting Hitler’s statements to the Hungarian Head of State, Horthy:[23]

“In Poland this state of affairs has been cleared up: if the Jews there did not want to work, they were shot. If they could not work, they were treated like tuberculosis bacilli with which a healthy body may become infected. This is not cruel if one remembers that even innocent creatures of nature, such as hares and deer when infected, have to be killed so they cannot damage others. Why should the beasts that wanted to bring us Bolshevism be spared more than these innocents?”

These same Holocaust historians usually conveniently fail to quote what Hitler told Horthy the previous day. Horthy protested, “But they [the Jews] can hardly be murdered or otherwise eliminated.” Hitler responded, “There is no need for that.”[24]

The gist of what Hitler meant is twofold. First, the Nazis were not attempting to exterminate all the Jews of Europe. Second, as a direct result of certain Nazi policies, a considerable number of Jews would die of disease, starvation, shootings, hangings, and overwork from forced labor. Let it suffice to say that revisionists such as David Irving and Bradley Smith have always emphasized the brutal side of the Third Reich.

Another key document in the “convergence-of-evidence proof” is Heinrich Himmler’s Posen speech to his SS leaders in October 1934.[24] He allegedly stated:[25]

“I want to talk to you, quite frankly, on a very grave matter. Among ourselves it should be mentioned quite frankly, and yet we will never speak of it publicly. Just as we did not hesitate on June 30th 1934 to do the duty we were bidden, and stand comrades who had lapsed up against the wall and shoot them, so we have never spoken about it and will never speak of it.”

Himmler continued:

“I mean the clearing out of the Jews, the extermination of the Jewish race. It’s one of those things it is easy to talk about, ‘the Jewish race is being exterminated,’ says one party member, ‘that’s quite clear, it’s in our program—the elimination of the Jews, and we’re doing it, exterminating them.’”

Dr. Browning claimed that here is “proof” that the Nazis had a policy to exterminate the Jews. He claims that Himmler literally says:[26]

“It is our policy to exterminate the Jews.”

First of all, David Irving pointed out at the second trial of Ernst Zündel that a key part of this document appears to have been retyped, which in itself makes the document suspect. Himmler’s original words may have been changed to appear more incriminating than they really were by Allied prosecutors.[27]

But let us give the opposition the benefit of the doubt and assume Himmler really did say what the document claims he said.

Revisionist historian Mark Weber, who read Himmler’s Posen speech and listened to parts of it on recording, pointed out that Himmler gave similar speeches within the same time period, such as the one given to naval officers in Weimar on December 16, 1943. In the latter speech, Weber noted, Himmler made clear what he really meant by the incriminating passage in the Posen speech. Himmler said that he had a policy that when Jews were shot in the Soviet East for partisan and other illegal activities, or as Soviet commissars, that he also, as a rule, had the wives and children of those Jews shot as well. Thus, Weber concluded, Himmler was speaking in exaggerated language and was not referring to an overall extermination program. [28]

There are other documents that support Weber’s interpretation. In his writings, Israeli historian Yehuda Bauer has referred to a Himmler memorandum that would suggest that he was opposed to the genocide of whole nations. Bauer wrote:[29]

“Certainly before 1941 they [the Nazis] did not envisage mass murder, as Himmler’s memorandum on the treatment of alien nationals of May 25, 1940 for instance shows, because this says that the idea of a physical destruction of a nation is a Bolshevik concept unacceptable to Germans.”

This strongly suggests that Himmler in principle was opposed to the physical annihilation of whole races.

Undoubtedly, though, Holocaust historians will resort to the claim that Himmler may have opposed mass murder of the Jews before the war, but he changed his mind during the war and ended up aiding and abetting their mass genocide. Here, they jump from the frying pan into the fire, as another Himmler memorandum undermines this claim. The head of the SS camp administration office sent a directive dated December 28, 1942, to Auschwitz and the other concentration camps. It sharply criticized the high death rate of inmates due to disease, and ordered:[30]

“Camp physicians must use all means at their disposal to significantly reduce the death rate in the various camps.”

Finally, the directive stressed that “the Reichsführer SS [Heinrich Himmler] has ordered that the death rate absolutely must be reduced.” Ordering that the death rate of all inmates, including Jews, be reduced is inconsistent with the claim that Himmler was trying to wipe out the entire Jewish people.

In all fairness, Himmler’s Posen speech is equivocal in the sense that it could be interpreted to be consistent with both traditionalist and revisionist views of the Holocaust. Himmler realized that Nazi policies were resulting in the deaths of many Jews – but this is different from an overall policy to exterminate all the Jews.

Many Holocaust historians also claim that a passage from the Wannsee Protocol offers further evidence the Nazis planned to exterminate the Jews. Penned by Adolf Eichmann, this document was the product of a NS conference held on January 20, 1942. Consider the following passage:[31]

“The remnant [of the Jews] that eventually remains will require suitable treatment; because it will without doubt represent the most resistant part, it consists of a natural selection that could, on its release, become the germ-cell of a new Jewish revival.”

It is claimed that the statement – “The remnant that eventually remains will require suitable treatment” – can only mean the Nazis planned to exterminate the Jews.[32]

The last statement in the previous passage undermines this interpretation. It clearly says this remnant of the Jews on its release could become the germ-cell of a new Jewish revival. As Dr Robert Faurisson pointed out, this means the Germans intended to release (to liberate) those Jews who worked hard; they would constitute an elite, a germ cell of a new Jewish development.[33] The Nazis realized that as a result of their policies many Jews would die from overwork and exhaustion. A brutal outlook indeed, but it is not the same as a plan to exterminate all the Jews.

Traditionalist historians of the Holocaust ignore a convergence of evidence that supports the revisionist theory that Hitler did not order the extermination of Jewry.

A document found after the war in the files of the Reich Ministry of Justice records Hitler’s thinking on the Jews. This Nazi memorandum of State Secretary Franz Schlegelberger in the spring of 1942 noted that Hitler’s Chief of Chancellery, Dr Hans Lammers, had informed him:[34]

“The Fuhrer has repeatedly declared to him [Lammers] that he wants to see the solution of the Jewish problem postponed until after the war.”

Once again on July 25, 1942, Hitler emphasized this determination to remove all Jews from Europe after the war:[35]

“After this war is over, I will rigorously hold to the view […] that the Jews will have to leave and emigrate to Madagascar or some other Jewish national state.”

Finally, there is the summary of NS Jewish policy, a memo dated August 21, 1942, from German official Martin Luther, which contains a most revealing passage. Point 8 states:[36]

“On the occasion of a reception by the Reich Foreign Minister on November 26, 1941 the Bulgarian Foreign Minister Popoff touched on the problem of according like treatment to the Jews of European nationalities and pointed out the difficulties that the Bulgarians had in the application of their Jewish laws to Jews of foreign nationality.

The Reich Foreign Minister answered that he thought this question brought up by Mr. Popoff not uninteresting. Even now he could say one thing to him, that at the end of the war all Jews would have to leave Europe. This was an unalterable decision of the Fuehrer and also the only way to master this problem, as only a global and comprehensive solution could be applied and individual measures would not help very much.”

Here we have a convergence of evidence from three sources that shows that Hitler did not order the wartime extermination of all of Jewry, as he expected them to be around at the war’s end, when they would be required to leave Europe.

On January 23, 1942, three days after the Wannsee Conference, Hitler told his associates:[37]

“The Jew must clear out of Europe. Otherwise no understanding will be possible between Europeans. I restrict myself to telling them they must go away. If they break their pipes on the journey, I can’t do anything about it. But if they refuse to go voluntarily, I see no other solution but extermination.”

By failing to quote the rest of Hitler’s statements, Holocaust historians divorce their chosen details from the overall context, thus distorting what Hitler really meant. In the next paragraph, Hitler said:[38]

“A good three or four hundred years will go by before the Jews set foot again in Europe. They’ll return first of all as commercial travelers, then gradually they’ll become emboldened to settle here – the better to exploit us.”

Hitler’s meaning is clear. He had no plans to physically exterminate all of the Jews, as he realized they would still be around hundreds of years from now. Yet, he clearly realized the brutality of his plans to rid Europe of the Jews; many would die as a result of his policies, and many of the ones that did not leave voluntarily would be shot or would die of disease or starvation. (All of this evidence is consistent with Holocaust revisionist theory.) A brutal and evil policy indeed, but it is not the same as a policy to exterminate all Jews in gas chambers and to make them disappear from the face of the earth.

So how does one know the revisionist view of the “Final Solution” is correct? By a convergence of evidence. There is no unquestionable, authentic, and genuine Third Reich document ordering Jewry to be exterminated. Some of the documents used by Holocaust historians to “prove” the Nazis had a master plan to exterminate Jewry are capable of dual interpretations – interpretations that are consistent with either a revisionist or traditionalist point of view. Finally, there is a series of documents that strongly suggest that the Nazis did not order the mass extermination of all of Jewry.

Of course, there is much more that needs to be said on this matter, and in this short article we have just scratched the surface. Indeed, a whole book on this matter is needed for a thorough treatment.

Did the Homicidal Gas Chambers Exist?

At the first trial of Ernst Zündel, Holocaust historian Raul Hilberg admitted that there is no scientific proof that Jews were exterminated in Nazi gas chambers. Another anti-revisionist historian and believer in the Nazi gas chamber claims, Arno Mayer, admitted the following:[39]

“Sources for the study of gas chambers are at once rare and unreliable. Even though Hitler and the Nazis made no secret of their war on the Jews, the SS operatives dutifully eliminated all traces of their murderous activities and instrument. No written orders for gassing have turned up thus far. The SS not only destroyed most camp records, which were in any case incomplete, but also razed nearly all killing and cremating installations well before the arrival of Soviet troops. Likewise, care was taken to dispose of the bones and ashes of the victims.”

The different reports by former gas chamber expert Fred Leuchter, German chemist Germar Rudolf, and Austrian engineer Walter Lüftl collectively show that the Nazis did not use gas chambers to mass murder Jews.[40]

Yet, not surprisingly, Holocaust traditionalists reject these reports and maintain their religious faith in the “Hitler gas chambers.”

The main reason that revisionists believe all “eyewitness claims” of the “gas chambers” are false is that they contradict known material facts and the physical properties of the alleged gassing agent, Zyklon-B. French revisionist scholar Dr Faurisson has made this point perfectly clear for years.

The safety and time factors involved in the supposed gassing of millions of people with Zyklon-B pesticide render the “eyewitness descriptions” of this procedure as highly improbable, if not scientifically impossible. According to industrial documents NI-9098 and NI-9912 (both Nuremberg trial documents), the time required for the Zyklon gas to take effect ranges from 6 to 32 hours.[41] According to the prevailing “Hitler gas chamber” story (constructed mainly from “eyewitness” accounts), all of the gas chamber victims were dead within about five minutes after the introduction of the Zyklon-B, although Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höß claimed that death might take as long as 15 minutes.[42] Obviously, within the short time span of 20 minutes, the gas would not have reached the deadly concentration (in all parts of the gas chamber) that is necessary to kill all the victims.

Bodies shoved up against the alleged “wire mesh columns” would have prevented efficient gas flow. The Zyklon crystals would have been tightly packed in the alleged “wire mesh columns,” inhibiting the evaporation of the gas from the crystals. Also, if the “gassing” took place in the winter, fall, or spring, the low temperatures would have inhibited the evaporation of the gas from the Zyklon crystals. And just as important, chemistry expert Germar Rudolf noted that at a temperature of 59°F, in a highly humid environment, it is highly probable that the carrier substance would release not more than 10% of the hydrogen cyanide during the first five to ten minutes.[43]

In the January 16, 1979, issue of Le Monde, Dr Robert Faurisson wrote:

“All the testimonies [of the alleged gassing procedure], regardless of how vague or conflicting they may be on other points, are in accord on at least this point: the team of workers would open the place [gas chamber] either ‘immediately’ or a ‘little after’ the deaths of the victims. It is my contention, that this point alone constitutes the touchstone of false testimony.”

That is, according to the “eyewitnesses of the gas chambers,” half-an-hour (at most) after the release of the gas all of the victims were dead. If this were so, the area would have been saturated with the deadly gas. The workers who allegedly entered the area to remove the corpses would have died from hydrogen cyanide poisoning. There is solid empirical evidence supporting this claim.

The “convergence of evidence” scheme for “proving” the “Holocaust” to a large extent depends upon eyewitness testimonies. Since Holocaust historians have condemned the practice of choosing only that evidence which supports one’s theory and ignoring the rest, we must include in this scheme one of the most important eyewitness testimonies of the “gas chambers,” that of David Olère.

In Jean-Claude Pressac’s Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers, there are Olère’s drawings of the “gas chambers” after the gassing of the victims allegedly occurred.[44] In one drawing we see the workers (some are bare-chested/shirtless) removing the corpses from the chambers after a mass gassing. In both sketches none of the workers is wearing a gas mask or special suit to protect himself from the residual pockets of hydrogen cyanide that would inevitably remain after a mass gassing. In fact, considering the inefficient type of exhaust systems that were allegedly installed, there would have been such a large amount of hydrogen cyanide left after a mass gassing that it would have poisoned anyone (by way of inhalation or through skin absorption) who was not wearing a gas mask or protective suit.[45]

A recent tragic incident with hydrogen cyanide supports this claim. The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio) reported that 23-year-old Scott Dominguez descended into a tank that once held hydrogen cyanide, and later phosphoric acid, in order to clean it. When this unfortunate worker began chipping away at the chemical film and hosing it down with water, hydrogen cyanide gas was produced. Just like the workers in Olère’s drawings who supposedly removed the corpses from the “Hitler gas chambers” or the gold from the teeth of gassed victims, Dominguez was working without any safety equipment – no gas mask or protective suit. He was overcome and had to be carried away by emergency firefighters. This hapless man suffers from permanent brain damage because of his exposure to hydrogen cyanide.[46] This tragic episode strongly supports Faurisson’s claim that those workers who allegedly removed the Jewish bodies from the Auschwitz “gas chambers” would have been overcome by hydrogen cyanide poisoning – another good reason to reject the Holocaust mass-gassing story.

Holocaust historians attempt to explain away the fact that the Zyklon-B gas traces are much, much greater in the Auschwitz delousing chambers (where no one was ever gassed) than in the Auschwitz “homicidal gas chambers” (where large numbers were supposedly gassed).[47]

The explanation goes like this: first, millions did not die in any one gas chamber; second, the chambers were never operated continuously, around the clock 365-days-a-year; third:[48]

“Lice take much longer to succumb to Zyklon-B than humans do, who absorb it through their lungs and die in a matter of minutes (the delousing of clothing took twelve to eighteen hours). And minutes after the prisoners died, the gas was let out of the chambers (and the bodies removed), preventing the long-term build-up of residue in most cases.”

Even if millions did not die in any one supposed gas chamber, the standard Holocaust story still insists that large numbers did die in each gas chamber. Allegedly, approximately 400,000 were gassed in Krematorium II and 350,000 in Krematorium III.[49] And it is still a part of the standard Holocaust history that the alleged gas chambers were in operation for long periods of time. Krematorium II allegedly functioned as a homicidal gas chamber from March 1943 to November 1944; Krematorium III was supposedly used in a similar fashion from June 1943 to November 1944.[49]

And, most important, it is claimed that the reason there was no long-term build-up of cyanide residue in the “gas chambers” is that hydrogen cyanide gas was in contact with the walls, pillars, and ceilings for only very brief periods of time. This is clearly a fallacious line of reasoning. Because of the inefficient exhaust systems that were allegedly installed in the “gas chambers,” there would have been a large amount of hydrogen cyanide left after a mass gassing that would have permeated the brickwork.[50]

However, even if we give the believers in “Hitler gas chambers” the benefit of the doubt and assume that (a) the ventilation systems could reduce the amount of gas in the chambers to tolerable levels 20 to 30 minutes after a homicidal gassing (with only residual amounts of hydrogen cyanide remaining), and (b) the chambers were washed down after the gassings with water in order to wash away the deadly hydrogen cyanide,[51] the conditions would still have been conducive to the development of the long term build-up of cyanide residue.

As the authoritative Nuremberg document NI-9921 makes clear, hydrogen cyanide is water-soluble and has extraordinarily great penetrating powers.[52] Robert Jan Van Pelt, an expert witness at the Irving-Lipstadt trial, estimates that 350,000 people were killed in Morgue 1, an alleged homicidal gas chamber. At 2,000 people per gassing, that comes out to 175 gassings, or approximately 117 hours of the gas chamber being exposed to hydrogen cyanide.[53]

Since hydrogen cyanide has great penetrative powers, at least some of the gas would have penetrated far enough into the brickwork to escape being washed away after each gassing. Furthermore, hydrogen cyanide is water-soluble. After the hosing down, numerous water droplets containing dissolved hydrogen cyanide (in addition to the natural moisture in the chamber which would have dissolved hydrogen cyanide) would have remained on the walls, floors, and ceilings to react with the iron in the walls, ultimately leading to a cyanide residue build-up. Indeed, certified chemist Rudolf uncovered the case of a German church that had visible cyanide residue staining after only one fumigation with Zyklon-B.[54]

Considering all of the aforementioned, one is justified in concluding that the conditions would have been conducive for the long-term build-up of visible cyanide residue – if the structures were indeed used as homicidal gas chambers.

Gas chamber expert Fred Leuchter took forensic samples from an Auschwitz delousing chamber and the alleged gas chambers. Since a large amount of iron cyanide compounds were found in the delousing chamber (where all parties agree that no one was gassed) and only miniscule amounts were found in the homicidal “gas chamber” samples, Leuchter concluded that no gassings occurred in the alleged “gas chambers.”

In an attempt to refute Leuchter’s findings, Holocaust true believers rely upon the claims made by Dr James Roth, the chemist who analyzed Leuchter’s samples. He made this statement:[55]

“I do not think the Leuchter results have any meaning. Hindsight being 20/20, the test was not the correct one to have been used for the analysis. [Leuchter] presented us with rock samples anywhere from the size of your thumb to half the size of your fist … You have to look at what happens to cyanide when it reacts with a wall. Where does it go? How far does it go? Cyanide is a surface reaction; it is probably not going to penetrate more than 10 microns. A human hair is 100 microns in diameter. Crush this sample up. I have just diluted that sample 10,000, 100,000 times. If you are going to look for it you are going to look on the surface only. There is no reason to go deep because it is not going to be there.”

In other words, when the hydrogen cyanide was released into the “gas chamber," it would have come in contact with the walls and then bonded with the iron in the brick only on the surface, forming an iron-cyanide complex. His theory implicitly assumes that the cyanide compounds would not migrate and diffuse throughout the brickwork.

The empirical evidence and the findings of Germar Rudolf undermine Roth’s viewpoint. There are blue iron cyanide stains on the outside of the walls of the Auschwitz delousing facilities. Rudolf noted:[56]

“the patchy characteristic [of the blue iron cyanide stains on the outside walls of the delousing facilities] shows clearly that soluble cyanide compounds have slowly migrated through the brickwork to the outside surface.”

The whole point is this: even if we give Roth the benefit of the doubt and assume that the hydrogen cyanide would have bonded with the iron only on the surface of the “gas chamber” walls, the iron cyanide compounds would migrate and penetrate the brickwork. Roth’s crucial claim that one looks for cyanide compounds only on the surface and not deep within the brick is untenable. Leuchter and associates are correct in claiming that one must look throughout the entire sample – not just on the surface – for iron cyanide compounds.

Dr. Roth stands corrected. The Leuchter results do have meaning. Photographs and film footage clearly show large, highly conspicuous, deep-blue cyanide stains on the outside walls of some Birkenau delousing chambers.[57] Here is empirical evidence that undermines Roth’s claim. The chemical products of the exposure to hydrogen cyanide are present on the inside and outside walls of the delousing chamber, thus undermining Roth’s claims that the gas would have penetrated only the surface of the bricks, and that the resulting cyanide compounds would be found only on the surface of the brick and not throughout the entire brick.

Holocaust historians make another false statement that can be disproved by the empirical evidence. They say “the bricks Leuchter examined had been exposed to nearly half a century of weather by the time he took his samples, so his results should come as no surprise.”[58] In other words, a half-century of exposure of the walls of the alleged gas chamber to wind, rain, snow, etc. would have washed all the cyanide residue out of the bricks. But the outside walls of the delousing chamber were exposed to the elements for a half-a-century and the blue cyanide stains are still present. They did not weather away.

Is Holocaust Revisionism a Neo-Nazi Movement that Will Destroy Democratic Institutions?

One of the most damaging, oft-repeated, and false accusations leveled against Holocaust revisionism is that it is an extremist neo-Nazi movement, the ultimate purpose of which is to destroy democratic political systems and reintroduce Nazi totalitarianism. Expressing this widely-held sentiment, a major opponent of Holocaust revisionism, Dr Michael Shermer, described Holocaust revisionists as a “small but vocal group of anti-Semites, neo-Nazis, and political radicals who would like to see the return of National Socialism.”[59] Notice that Shermer is imputing to all revisionists a covert desire to restore the Third Reich, or bring on the Fourth.

A cursory review of the evidence will easily demonstrate the falsity of these claims.

Laird Wilcox, an expert on political extremism, estimated in 1989 that a minority (up to 25%) of Holocaust revisionists were Nazi apologists, which means, of course, that the vast majority (75%) at the time were not.[60] In the decade that followed Wilcox’s estimate, revisionism has attracted a much wider audience which surely reduces this figure significantly. Holocaust revisionism’s opponents make it a point to ignore this important piece of evidence whenever they invoke the “revisionism = Nazism” canard.

The father of Holocaust revisionism, Paul Rassinier, was a pacifist, former communist and left-wing socialist who opposed the Nazis during World War II and because of his activities in the French Resistance was incarcerated by the Germans in Nazi concentration camps.[61] Indeed, this association of liberal and left-wing intellectuals with Holocaust revisionism has continued in France to this day. The French–Jewish historian and bitter opponent of revisionism, Pierre Vidal-Naquet, has noted that at the core of revisionism in France is a left-wing, revolutionary group, La Vielle Taupe.[62]

The French revisionist scholar, Robert Faurisson, is a life-long apolitical liberal who never had any sympathies with Nazism. Another prominent, left-of-centre French intellectual who is sympathetic to Holocaust revisionism is Serge Thion.

The famous French political philosopher, Roger Garaudy, is a former leftist communist theoretician who converted to Islam. He is also a noted proponent of Holocaust revisionism in France.

One of the premier spokesmen for Holocaust revisionism in America is Bradley Smith. His former wife was Jewish; his present wife is of Mexican descent. For numerous years prior to this involvement with the revisionist movement, he was a liberal free-speech advocate. Clearly, he hardly fits the mold of a neo-Nazi “white supremacist.”

Prominent American revisionist author and activist Michael Hoffman II has expressed stringent criticism of Adolf Hitler and Nazism. He wrote:[63]

“Hitler was a disaster for Germany. He took fully legitimate ideas about organic community and rootedness to the soil and twisted them into a modern counterfeit. In the name of fighting the Bolshevik police state, he created one of his own. In the name of military prowess, he rendered his people defenseless before the merciless devastation of RAF bombers of the British Empire…He crusaded against Communism and ended up communizing half of Europe. Hitler is the pre-eminent failure and incompetent of this historical era.”

Regarding Nazism as a political system, Hoffman’s judgment is equally harsh and accurately reflects the consensus of opinion among many revisionists whom I have associated with:[63]

“The Nazi system was suited to an ant-hill comprised of servants, lackeys and toadies automatically obeying ‘supreme leaders’ whose vision was corrupted by the mindless adulation they commanded. How I chuckle sardonically when I stand amid howling Jewish mobs and bands of know-nothing reporters as they accuse all revisionists of trying to ‘revive Hitler’ and having a ‘secret agenda’ of ‘neo-Nazism.’”

Clearly, this is hardly the talk of a “neo-Nazi.”

The fact of the matter is that Holocaust revisionists cannot be politically stereotyped as they represent a wide range of political opinion – leftist, liberal, conservative, and rightist. Holocaust revisionism is a movement that does indeed contain a visible minority of neo-Nazis, but the majority of revisionists cannot be categorized as such.

In their Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It? Michael Shermer and co-author Alex Grobman wrote:[64]

“Some Holocaust deniers, particularly those with extremist right-wing leanings, might gain greater acceptance if the crime [of the Holocaust] attached to fascism had never actually happened. Without the Holocaust perhaps fascism would be a more acceptable alternative to democracy.”

Long before there ever was a Jewish Holocaust legend, the majority of people of Western democracies rejected totalitarian fascist movements, thus showing that fascism is not a more acceptable alternative to democracy in the minds of most European peoples.

Stephen Roth, a former director of the Institute of Jewish Affairs (London), explained why he believes that Holocaust revisionism is the most effective weapon in the “neo-Nazi” arsenal:[65]

“If the crimes of the Nazis can be wiped off the record of history, if the Nazis regime can be whitewashed and made to appear as admittedly somewhat disciplinarian and tough on law and order, but basically harmless and more efficient than our allegedly lax Western democracies with their growing disorder, their crimes, violence, and riots, then the neo-Nazis would have won a great victory. The system advocated by them would also look harmless and acceptable, and the ideological resistance to it, largely based on awareness of the horrors of the past, would be undermined—particularly among younger people who have no personal experience of Nazi rule.”

Should the revisionists succeed in convincing the peoples of Western democracies that the “gas chambers” never existed, however, these peoples would still harbor considerable resistance to the philosophy, political system, and policies implemented during the Third Reich. The National Socialists advocated a command state, with one-party control of society and censorship of the press. By contrast, inherent in the modern political culture of the West is acceptance of a multi-party state, independence of the press from overt political control, and a disdain for open regimentation.

Indeed, historian Francis Nicosia considers this an important factor in England’s refusal to ally with national socialist Germany during the 1930s. He points out that there was a fundamental irreconcilability between the national socialist and English political philosophies and systems.[66] Furthermore, the populations of the democracies, particularly America, seem fixed in the belief that a certain quota of disorder and dishonor – from riots and street crime to political and economic corruption – is an acceptable price to pay for the maintenance of the democratic society. If Holocaust revisionism is not a neo-Nazi movement, why do its opponents and critics continually label it as such?

What they are trying to accomplish, I believe, is very simple. If people end up believing that Holocaust revisionism is, in essence, a neo-Nazi movement, many will say, “Because Holocaust revisionism is a part of evil neo-Nazism, it must be a false doctrine.” This is an ad hominem line of “reasoning” which is logically fallacious but very psychologically appealing to large segments of the population. The truth or falsity of a theory (such as Holocaust revisionism) is independent of the political leanings of its proponents. As the philosopher of science Karl Popper noted, it does not matter where hypotheses come from, only whether they explain the evidence they are based on, whether they are subject to disproof, and whether they can hold up to attempts to disprove them.[67]

In short, this “revisionism = Nazism” accusation is simply an ideological battering ram utilized by revisionism’s opponents to discredit and undermine the entire Holocaust revisionist movement.

The Holocaust Legend and the Racial Double Standard

Holocaust revisionism is a historical school of thought and not a political movement. Yet, revisionism has profound political implications.

In the mid-1970s revisionist Richard Harwood noted the negative impact that the Holocaust doctrine had on nationalism in general, white nationalism in particular. In his booklet which received world-wide attention, Harwood pointed out “the accusation of the Six Million [murdered Jews] is not only used to undermine the principle of nationhood and national pride, but threatens the survival of the [white] Race itself.” Harwood was claiming that the masses have been conditioned to think in terms of this chain of associations: white nationalism, white supremacy, racism, Hitlerism, Auschwitz, and mass murder of minorities. So the reasoning continues: because white/European nationalism led to the Holocaust, Europeans should renounce nationalist separatism and integrate with non-Europeans. In this sense, Harwood concluded, the Holocaust doctrine is a threat to the survival of the European racial–cultural heritage.[68]

Expressing a predominant “moral” judgment of our time, the Gentile historian Michael Shermer and the Jewish historian Alex Grobman condemn Harwood because he “maintains that immigration and assimilation lead to racial impurity and the destruction of Western culture, an argument of racist ideology found in many European countries and parts of America today.”[68]

In her famous book, Denying the Holocaust, Deborah Lipstadt specifically condemned white Gentile Holocaust revisionists who oppose the integration of Europeans with non-whites: “These [revisionist] publications constitute vivid examples of the relationship between Holocaust denial, racist nationalism, and anti-Semitism.” She then discussed a specific example of “this evil, white racist nationalism,” the work of Richard Harwood:

Harwood echoed the familiar extremist charge that the Anglo-Saxon world faced the gravest danger in its history: the presence of “alien races” in its midst. Linking Holocaust denial and the defense of the “race,” he argued that unless something was done to halt the immigration and assimilation of non-Caucasians, Anglo-Saxons were certain to experience not only “biological alteration” but the “destruction” of their European culture and heritage.[69]

At the Irving–Lipstadt trial, David Irving was labeled a “racist” because he was accused of opposing intermarriage between whites and non-whites. Even D.D. Guttenplan, an anti-Irving journalist who covered the trial, hinted at the racial double standard at work here. He wrote:[70]

“it was hard not to feel queasy listening to Rampton [the defense attorney for Lipstadt] quiz Irving about his attitude toward ‘intermarriage between the races’ – on behalf of a defendant who has written, ‘We [Lipstadt and her fellow Jews] know what we fight against: anti-Semitism and assimilation [of Jews and non-Jews], intermarriage [between Jews and non-Jews] and Israel-bashing.’”

So let us get this straight. According to Lipstadt and a large segment of the Western academic establishment, it is “extremist and evil” for European Gentiles to oppose the intermarriage and integration of whites with non-whites, but it is “right, good and moral” for Jews to oppose the intermarriage and integration of Jews with non-Jews.

If it is a characteristic of “racism” to preserve the “racial purity” of one’s own ethnic group, then history shows that organized Jewry can be labeled “racist.” Commenting upon a major study of Jewish genetics published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the New York Times noted:[71]

“The analysis provides genetic witness that these [Jewish] communities have, to a remarkable extent, retained their biological identity separate from their host populations, evidence of relatively little intermarriage or conversion into Judaism over the centuries.”

In a major study of Judaism, California psychology professor Kevin MacDonald concluded:[72]

“The organized Jewish community is the only ethnic or religious community in the United States that continues to attempt to limit outmarriage or discourage conversions and intermarriage [between Jews and non-Jews].”

The conservative movement of Judaism, the largest branch of the faith, is on record as being officially opposed to intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews.[73]

These findings are consistent with the claim that, historically, Jewish culture has been largely successful in preserving the “racial purity” of Jewry. There is a hypocritical racial double standard that plagues the contemporary “moral” values in the Western World. You see, it is “right and moral” for Jews to remain separate from non-Jews and preserve their unique genetic identity, but it is “morally wrong” for Gentiles to do the same – according to the prevailing moral judgments of our time.

Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, was quoted as follows:[74]

“I referred previously to our [Jewish] assimilation [with Gentiles]. I do not for a moment wish to imply that I desire such an end. Our national character is too glorious in history and, in spite of every degradation, too noble to make its annihilation desirable.”

Here, Herzl stated an enduring principle of Zionism – that Jewish assimilation with non-Jews would lead to the annihilation of the Jewish national character. The Western mass media and Western governments are very supportive of political Zionism and everything that it stands for. Yet, when Gentiles of European descent say that white assimilation with non-whites will lead to the annihilation of the European racial/cultural character, they are usually immediately condemned as “evil racists” by the same governments and media groups that ardently support Zionism.

Consider the following statement by Jewish Middle East analyst, Mitchell Bard, made in Ohio’s most important newspaper, The Plain Dealer:[75]

“Most Israelis have argued that Israel cannot remain a Jewish state or a democracy if it incorporates the occupied territories because Palestinians would alter the nation’s demographic balance. The result would be a bi-national state in which Arabs would wield substantial power.”

In more straightforward terms, most Israelis do not want to integrate or assimilate with Palestinians. No mainstream USA newspaper or pro-Zionist U.S.A. government would dare criticize Israeli Jews on this point, but they would be the first to condemn white groups that oppose the integration of whites with non-whites.

If opposition to racial assimilation between ethnic groups is to be classified as “racism,” the 1993 Jewish New Year’s message of Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres was a racist message because it condemned the assimilation of Jews with non-Jews:[76]

“Let me begin by saying that the Jewish people in Israel share the deep concern of our fellow Jews throughout the world over the demographic future of the Jewish people. The open pluralistic societies as well as less fortunate ones have given Jews opportunities to integrate; however, they have also posed the greatest challenge to the task of preserving our Jewish identity, the danger of assimilation.”

Very few, if any, “reputable” intellectuals in the Western world would ever condemn this as a racist message; yet these same hypocritical intellectuals will go out of their way to condemn any other form of non-Jewish racial nationalism. Black American historian Tony Martin asked the most cogent question as to why Jewish assimilation with non-Jews is “bad” for the Jews but black assimilation with whites is “good” for blacks?[76]

Every ethnic group and culture has the right to self-determination and self-preservation. Just as it is morally acceptable for Jews to be concerned about the long-term survival of the Jewish people, so too it should be acceptable for European/Caucasian and other non-Jewish groups to do likewise.

What really lies behind the condemnation of Holocaust revisionism by Zionism and the Gentile elites allied with it?

In Israel, Zionism created an Athenian democracy for Jews but second-class citizenship, even feudal servitude, for non-Jews. Modern Israel is a racially-segregated, apartheid state where Jews lord over non-Jews, especially Palestinian Arabs.[77]

As the Jewish scholars Ian Lustick and Uri Davis have shown, far from working for an integrated society in which Jews and Arabs functioned as social and political equals, the Jews who founded Israel created a society in which Israeli Jews dominate “Israeli” Arabs, a separate and unequal society in which discrimination is part of the established social order.[77] For example, 93% of Israel’s territory had been (until the Supreme Court decision of March 2000) legally defined as land which can be leased and cultivated only by Jews. Key institutions such as the kibbutz (collectivist Jewish settlements, mainly agricultural) are reserved exclusively for Jews, as Israeli scholar Uri Davis has reminded us in his thorough study, Israel: an Apartheid State.[78]

Dr. Lustick has pointed out that the Israeli military is by and large a segregated institution. Most Muslim Arabs, who constitute the overwhelming majority of Israeli Arab citizens, do not serve in the armed forces – they are not conscripted nor are they permitted to volunteer for service.[79] This has important social consequences. In Israel, participation in the armed services is a prerequisite to social advancement and mobility. Cut off from the military, they are cut off from access to one of the main avenues of social advancement.

Christians and Jews cannot intermarry in Israel, and if they are married elsewhere, the marriage is not recognized by the rabbinical court in Israel.[80]

Consider the following facts about Israel, which by contemporary definitions of “racism,” is a racist state. The Law of the Right of Return grants any Jew, but no one else, automatic Israeli citizenship. The Nationality Law discriminates against non-Jews so stringently that many Palestinian residents of Israel (stuck there when Israel captured their land in 1948) were denied citizenship even though their families had lived in Palestine for many generations.[81]

The “Holocaust” has become an ideology in the Marxist sense of the term. Jewish political science professor Norman Finkelstein explains:[82]

“The Holocaust is not an arbitrary but rather an internally coherent construct. Its central dogmas sustain significant political and class interests. Indeed, the Holocaust has proven to be an indispensable ideological weapon. Through its deployment, one of the world’s most formidable military powers [Israel], with a horrendous human rights record, has cast itself as a “victim state,” and the most successful ethnic group [the Jews] in the United States has likewise acquired victim status. Considerable dividends accrue from this specious victimhood – in particular, immunity to criticism, however justified.”

Israel’s declaration of independence asserts “the right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own sovereign nation.”[83] And there is nothing inherently wrong with this. Like every other ethnic group the Jews have the right to self-determination and self-preservation. The problem is, of course, that according to contemporary political mores, Jews are “allowed” to create a state in which Jews are the ruling and dominant ethnic group. Europeans, however, “should” integrate with non-Europeans and live in multi-racial states. And of course, Palestinians must remain subservient to Israeli–Jewish nationalism.

The French revisionist scholar Robert Faurisson, in a span of a few short words, summed up the paradoxical political effect of the Holocaust ideology:[84]

“The ‘Holocaust’ myth serves […] to condemn […] all forms of nationalism and the national idea – except the Israeli and Zionist variety, which the myth, on the contrary, reinforces.”

The Holocaust ideology reflects and serves the interests of the dominant Jewish–Zionist establishment and the Gentile elites aligned with it. In a word, the Holocaust is a distorted body of ideas that “justifies” and “legitimizes” a predominant socio-political agenda, i.e., that European peoples “should” be forced to integrate with non-Europeans, but Israel “should” remain a racially-segregated state where Jews remain the dominant group and are able to lord over and oppress Palestinian Arabs.

White nationalism is based upon two propositions: that European peoples are different from non-Europeans in a genetic and cultural sense, and that Europeans have a right to preserve their unique genetic and cultural heritage. White nationalism (as it is conceived here) is wholly compatible with a democratic society and is not to be confused with Nazism or white supremacy.

It is important to note that the legitimacy of white nationalism and Palestinian nationalism is independent of the truth or falsity of Holocaust revisionism. Even if, for example, it were found that the Nazis did have a plan to exterminate Jewry, that gas chambers were used to implement this plan, and that 6,000,000 Jews were murdered, white/European and Palestinian nationalism would still be legitimate doctrines.

But when revisionist scholars expose the veil of illusions that compose the traditional Holocaust mythology, they are destroying an ideological weapon that is used to undermine two legitimate nationalisms – European/Caucasian and Palestinian. In this sense, Holocaust revisionism is a revolutionary doctrine which will help destroy the hypocritical racial double standard which currently “justifies” the existing socio-political order. When this happens, a more just and rational world order can be created.

Notes