Peter Longerich on the “Holocaust”

The Unwritten Order

Holocaust historians have acknowledged that no document of a plan by Germany to exterminate European Jewry has ever been found. In his well-known book on the Holocaust, French-Jewish historian Leon Poliakov wrote that “[…] the campaign to exterminate the Jews, as regards its conception as well as many other essential aspects, remains shrouded in darkness.” Poliakov added that no documents of a plan for exterminating the Jews have ever been found because “perhaps none ever existed.”[3]

British historian Ian Kershaw states that when the Soviet archives were opened in the early 1990s:[4]

“Predictably, a written order by Hitler for the ‘Final Solution’ was not found. The presumption that a single, explicit written order had ever been given had long been dismissed by most historians.”

Many Jewish Holocaust historians also acknowledge that the Wannsee Conference did not discuss the extermination of Europe’s Jews. Israeli Holocaust historian Yehuda Bauer has declared:[5]

“The public still repeats, time after time, the silly story that at Wannsee the extermination of the Jews was arrived at.”

Likewise, Israeli Holocaust historian Leni Yahil wrote in regard to the Wannsee conference:[6]

“[I]t is often assumed that the decision to launch the Final Solution was taken on this occasion, but this is not so.”

When asked in 1983 how the extermination of European Jewry took place without an order, Jewish Holocaust historian Raul Hilberg replied:[7]

“What began in 1941 was a process of destruction not planned in advance, not organized centrally by any agency. There was no blueprint and there was no budget for destructive measures. They were taken step by step, one step at a time. Thus, came about not so much a plan being carried out, but an incredible meeting of minds, a consensus–mind reading by a far-flung bureaucracy.”

On January 16, 1985, under cross-examination at the first Ernst Zündel trial in Toronto, Raul Hilberg confirmed that he said these words.[8] Thus, Hilberg stated that the genocide of European Jewry was not carried out by a plan or order, but rather by an incredible mind reading among far-flung German bureaucrats.

Longerich agrees with Hilberg that Hitler never made a written order to murder Jews. Instead, Longerich claims that Hitler only issued oral instructions. Longerich writes:[9]

“When he [Hitler] did speak about the subject, he used formulations that certainly left room for interpretation or deliberately concealed the true state of affairs. Hitler’s behavior in this respect was initially determined by the desire for secrecy. The murder of the European Jews was treated as classified information by the organs of the Third Reich on principle, which is to say that no public discussion of the topic whatsoever was permitted.”

Longerich assumes that Hitler never made a written order to murder European Jewry because of the lessons he learned from his written order to murder mentally-ill Germans in his euthanasia program. He claims that Hitler did not want to assume responsibility for the genocide of European Jewry by making an unambiguous written order.[10]

Longerich is correct that Hitler authorized in writing the German euthanasia program.[11] However, Longerich provides no credible evidence why Hitler decided not to issue a written order to exterminate European Jewry. Longerich absurdly assumes that Hitler learned his lesson from his written authorization of the euthanasia program, as if Hitler thought he would be found innocent if he never made a written order to exterminate Europe’s Jews.

Himmler’s Speeches

Longerich uses speeches by Heinrich Himmler to attempt to prove that Hitler ordered the extermination of European Jewry. He writes that Himmler expressed himself very clearly in the years 1943 and 1944 about the murder of European Jews by his SS. Longerich says that even if Himmler did not name one particular name, Himmler’s listeners knew perfectly well that it was Hitler who had given him this commission.[12]

Himmler’s Posen speech of October 4, 1943, has been called “the best evidence” to prove the Holocaust happened.[13] Himmler stated in this speech:[14]

“I am referring here to the evacuation of the Jews, the extermination of the Jewish people. This is one of the things that is easily said: ‘The Jewish people are going to be exterminated,’ that’s what every Party member says, ‘sure, it’s in our program, elimination of the Jews, extermination—it’ll be done.’”

Most translations of Himmler’s Posen speech assume that the German word “ausrotten” means murder or extermination. David Irving, who is very fluent in the German language, testified at the second Ernst Zündel trial that this is an incorrect translation of the word “ausrotten”:[15]

“There is no doubt that in modern Germany the word ausrotten now means murder. But we have to look at the meaning of the word ausrotten in the 1930s and 1940s, as used by those who wrote or spoke these documents. In the mouth of Adolf Hitler, the word ausrotten is never once used to mean murder, and I’ve made a study of that particular semantic problem. You can find document after document which Hitler himself spoke or wrote where the word ausrotten cannot possibly mean murder.”

Longerich writes that the word “ausrotten” or “ausrottung” means extirpation.[16] Deborah Lipstadt writes that virtually all Holocaust historians agree that the use of this term by Nazi leaders in conjunction with Jews from the summer of 1941 on is an unambiguous euphemism for “physical annihilation.”[17]

Lipstadt says that David Irving at her trial contended that the word “ausrottung” meant to literally uproot, as in the enforced emigration—but certainly not murder—of Jews. Irving read a speech Hitler gave immediately after Kristallnacht to prove his point: “I look at the intellectual class among us…you could ausrottung them…but unfortunately you need them.” Irving argued that Hitler could not have been referring to actual killings when he used the word “ausrottung,” because this speech was made in 1938 when nobody was being liquidated.[18]

Lipstadt writes that Longerich quickly responded to Irving, “Except the 90 people who just died the night before.” Longerich added:[19]

“This is the most brutal killing which happened in Germany since, I think, the Middle Ages. There are more than 90 people, I would say several hundred people possibly were killed the last night, and in this atmosphere, Hitler is giving a press conference and speaks about the ausrottung of intellectuals. […] Look again at the historical content […] this is an atmosphere which is dominated by brutality and a kind of absence of public order and law.”

Despite the possible ambiguity of this example, Deborah Lipstadt and Peter Longerich ignore the numerous examples where German leaders used the word “ausrotten” or “ausrottung” in a context when they could not possibly have meant murder. David Irving gave some examples in his testimony at the second Ernst Zündel trial:[20]

“In August 1936, Hitler dictated the famous memorandum of the four-year plan which contains the phrase ‘if the Bolsheviks succeed in entering Germany, it will lead to the ausrotten of the German people.’ Now, clearly, he doesn’t mean that if the Bolsheviks invade Germany it will lead to the murder of 50 million Germans. He is saying it will lead to the end of Germany as a national state, as a power, as a factor, an end of the German people. He says the same to the Czechoslovakian President Emil Hácha, on March the 15^th, 1939. Hácha has just signed away Czechoslovakia’s independence in a midnight session with Hitler and Hitler says to him afterwards, ‘It is a good thing that you signed because otherwise it would have meant the ausrotten of the Czechoslovakian people.’ Hitler didn’t mean, ‘If you hadn’t signed, I would have had to kill 8 million Czechs.’ What he is saying [is], ‘If you hadn’t signed, I would have ended Czechoslovakia’s existence as a separate country.’”

Since Hitler didn’t use the word “ausrotten” to mean murder, and since Hitler and Himmler spoke the same language, there is no reason to believe that Himmler was speaking about the murder of the Jews in his widely-quoted 1943 Posen speech.

The “Holocaust by Bullets”

Longerich states that the Einsatzgruppen and German Wehrmacht murdered many hundreds of thousands of Jews in the occupied Soviet territories. Since the bodies of these murdered Jews have not been found, Longerich and other Holocaust historians claim they were cremated in what is called Aktion 1005.[21] An article in the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust defines this operation:[22]

“Operation 1005, code name for a large-scale activity that aimed to obliterate the traces of the murder of millions of human beings by the Nazis in occupied Europe.”

It is unrealistic to assume that Aktion 1005 succeeded and that Germans exhumed and burned such a large number of dead bodies. This would mean that, within a period of 13 months, the Germans had to have emptied thousands of mass graves in Soviet territory of more than 463,000 square miles–all without leaving behind any material or documentary traces. The mass exhumation of such a large number of bodies in such a short period of time is quite impossible.[23]

Furthermore, we know that no Soviet planes discovered and photographed the burning of these bodies, because otherwise the Soviets would have exploited the photographs for propaganda purposes. The thousands of pyres burning through the night would have been photographed by the Soviets if such mass exhumations had actually taken place.[24]

Jewish historian Yitzhak Arad attempts to explain away these problems by stating that Aktion 1005 was both a highly classified operation and a failure:[25]

“Aktion 1005 was a highly classified operation. Orders and reports were given and received verbally, and no German documents were saved to provide evidence. The SS, which was responsible for the operation, did everything in its power to prevent a leak of information on the site…

There is no way of knowing how many corpses were cremated in the course of the operation—hundreds of thousands, certainly, possibly even millions. But millions of corpses remained in the pits in which they had been buried. This tangible evidence—the corpses of millions of Jews and non-Jews, murdered by Nazi Germany and its collaborators in the occupied Soviet territories—remained for posterity. In its main objective—destroying the evidence of mass murder—Aktion 1005 failed.”

The problem with Arad’s explanation is that neither the Soviets nor anyone else have found mass graves in which large numbers of Jews were supposedly buried in the Soviet Union. Germar Rudolf writes:[26]

“After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, numerous mass graves, containing altogether hundreds of thousands of bodies of victims of the Soviets, were discovered, excavated, and investigated. Not only was the number of victims determined, but in many cases the specific cause of death as well. In the same regions where many of these mass graves were found, one million Jews are said to have been shot by the Einsatzgruppen. Yet no such grave has ever been reported found, let alone dug and investigated, in the more than half a century during which these areas have been controlled by the USSR and its successor states.”

Thus, the undocumented and imaginary Aktion 1005 supported by Longerich and other historians provides no evidence of a German program of genocide against Jews.

Carlo Mattogno concludes:[27]

“Orthodox Holocaust historiography has never proven that the authorities of the Reich planned and carried out a general plan on an institutional level to eliminate the bodies of the victims of the Einsatzgruppen and other associated units by means of a systematic operation of exhumation and cremation of bodies.”

The Aktion Reinhardt Camps

Like most historians, Peter Longerich believes the Aktion Reinhardt camps of Treblinka, Sobibor and Belzec were pure extermination camps. He states in his book Holocaust that 1,274,166 Jews had been killed in the Aktion Reinhardt camps by the end of 1942. Longerich bases his statement on the Höfle telegram from January 1943, which shows that this many Jews had been sent by then to the Aktion Reinhardt camps. Longerich assumes that all Jews sent to the Aktion Reinhardt camps were murdered.[28]

However, the Aktion Reinhardt camps were transit camps rather than extermination camps. The demographic studies, the statements from Heinrich Himmler, the reports of transfers of Jews from the Aktion Reinhardt camps to Auschwitz and Majdanek, the lack of credible forensic evidence that mass exterminations occurred at these camps, the photographic and engineering evidence, the impossibility of disposing of so many bodies in such a short period of time, the relative lack of secrecy and security in the camps, and the small size of the areas where the bodies were supposedly buried all indicate that the Aktion Reinhardt camps were transit camps.[29]

The impossibility of disposing of so many bodies in such a short period of time proves the absurdity that all Jews sent to the Aktion Reinhardt camps were exterminated. Historians universally acknowledge that none of the Aktion Reinhardt camps had crematoria. By contrast, German concentration camps such as Buchenwald, Bergen-Belsen and Dachau had crematoria even though mass killings are not alleged to have taken place at these camps. Why wouldn’t the Germans have also built crematoria at the Aktion Reinhardt camps, since such crematoria would have been far more necessary to accomplish the mass killings?[30]

According to Holocaust historians, the bodies of Jews gassed at the Aktion Reinhardt camps were first buried in mass graves. The bodies were later exhumed and burned in the open air.[31]

Based on several cremation experiments, Carlo Mattogno determines that 160 kg of wood are needed to cremate a human body weighing 45 kg. He calculates that the burning of 870,000 bodies at Treblinka would have left 1,950 tons of human ashes, plus 11,100 tons of wood ashes. The total volume of ashes would have amounted to approximately 48,400 cubic meters. Also, 139,200 metric tons of wood would have been required for the incineration of the bodies. Since human teeth and bones cannot be completely destroyed through open air cremations, myriads of teeth and bone fragments would have been scattered at the site of the former camp.[32]

Even if Mattogno’s calculations are significantly inflated, the mass extermination of approximately 870,000 people at Treblinka would have left huge amounts of human and wood ashes as well as teeth and bones. The fact that large quantities of these have not been found indicates that mass exterminations of inmates did not take place at Treblinka.

Although enormous amounts of fuel would have been needed to cremate the hundreds of thousands of alleged corpses, there is no credible documentary record or witness recollection of the great quantities of firewood that would have been required. According to Polish-Jewish historian Rachel Auerbach, fuel to burn bodies was not needed at Treblinka because the bodies of women, which had more fat, “were used to kindle, or, more accurately put, to build the fires among the piles of corpses […].” Even more incredible, she wrote that “blood, too, was found to be first-class combustion material.”[33] Auerbach’s explanation of how bodies were burned at Treblinka is total nonsense.

Jewish “Holocaust” Survivors

Peter Longerich writes that “no witnesses were to fall into the hands of the Allies. That meant that the prisoners were either to be murdered or ‘evacuated’ from one camp to the other. The SS saw the prisoners who were ‘fit for work’ as living capital that would be exploited to the bitter end.”[34]

A problem with Longerich’s statement is that a large number of Jewish children survived the so-called Holocaust. Carlo Mattogno has prepared a long list of children and twins at Auschwitz who survived the camp.[35] These children were not “fit for work” and could not have survived the war if Auschwitz-Birkenau had been the extermination camp it is claimed to be.

Another problem with Longerich’s statement is that a large number of disabled Jewish adults who were not fit for work survived their internment at Auschwitz-Birkenau. For example, Anne Frank’s father, Otto Frank, contracted typhus at Auschwitz and was sent to the camp hospital to recover. He remained at Auschwitz-Birkenau when the Germans abandoned the camp in January 1945, survived the war, and died in Switzerland in August 1980.[36] If Auschwitz-Birkenau had been a place of mass exterminations, why would the German authorities leave behind thousands of disabled Jews such as Otto Frank to testify to their genocide?

Primo Levi, a Jewish Communist, is another disabled Jew who one would think would have been executed at Auschwitz-Birkenau. However, along with about 7,000 to 8,000 additional disabled Jews, Levi was left behind in Auschwitz. Although the Germans could have easily gassed and cremated these Jewish inmates in crematorium V in Birkenau during the first week of January 1945, they let them survive the war to tell their stories about Auschwitz-Birkenau.[37]

German Gas Chambers

Like most historians, Longerich believes that Jews were gassed in homicidal gas chambers at Auschwitz. He writes:[38]

“On 17 and 18 July [1942] Himmler visited Auschwitz and used the opportunity to witness a demonstration of how people were murdered in a gas chamber.”

Longerich further writes:[39]

“And on 21 July, for the first time, ‘Jews incapable of work’, whom Himmler had insisted be deported, were separated from the other deportees immediately on arrival and murdered in the gas chambers.”

The forensic evidence, however, refutes the possibility of homicidal gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Reports, articles, testimony, books and videos from Fred Leuchter, Walter Lüftl, Germar Rudolf, Friedrich Paul Berg, Dr. William B. Lindsey, Carlo Mattogno, John C. Ball, Dr. Arthur Butz, Dr. Nicholas Kollerstrom, Wolfgang Fröhlich and David Cole have proven that there were no homicidal gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau. The books The Real Case for Auschwitz by Carlo Mattogno[40] and The Chemistry of Auschwitz by Germar Rudolf[41] are probably the best books available for anyone wanting to make a thorough study of this subject.

Longerich also writes that the Germans used gas vans to murder Jews in the Soviet-occupied territories.[42] In regard to the gas vans, Ingrid Weckert writes:[43]

“There is no document to indicate that [homicidal] ‘gas vans’ had ever come up for discussion in the Third Reich. The term dates from post-war times […]. To automatically connect the term ‘Special Motor Vehicle’ with the murder of Jews reveals gross ignorance of the facts…To date, no vehicle which clearly could have served as [a] ‘gas van’ has ever been found.”

Longerich does not provide any information of how the alleged German homicidal gas chambers operated. This is typical of virtually all Holocaust historians. American engineer Friedrich Paul Berg wrote about the Holocaust literature that “as far as the actual mechanics of the extermination process are concerned, about all one ever finds is an occasional short and vague description.”[44] Longerich never provides even a short or vague description of how German homicidal gas chambers operated.

Berg concluded concerning the evidence provided for the alleged German Diesel gas chambers:[45]

“Ultimately, the burden of proof for the mass gassing allegations must be on the accusers. Until now, their best evidence for CO gassings has failed to meet the most basic standards that credible evidence must pass to satisfy reasonable people.”

Conclusion

Deborah Lipstadt writes that during her trial her defense attorney, Richard Rampton, “passed me his completed sketch of a smiling, almost beatific, Saint Peter—who, except for his halo and wings, bore an uncanny resemblance to Peter Longerich.” Rampton also approached Longerich to thank him after his testimony at the trial. Lipstadt writes that Longerich looked at Rampton and said, not without some bitterness:[46]

“The Nazis stole our political identity. And now people like Irving are attempting to steal it again.”

However, in my opinion, it is court historians such as Longerich who are stealing Germany’s political and historical identity. German children are taught from early childhood to view the Third Reich as solely bad, wrong, criminal and despicable. In the spring of 2001, Anna Rau, the 17-year-old daughter of German president Johannes Rau, was interviewed by a German television station. Anna Rau discussed what was taught about history in school:[47]

“As to the question what we are learning in school when history is taught, I can answer simply with the term National Socialism. Nothing else seems to matter. Everything about the Second World War really gets on my nerves. It is always the same. They start with Hitler, then we talk about Anne Frank, and on the day when we should take a walk in the forest, we have to go and see the movie Schindler’s List instead. And this continues when we go to church where in place of learning our religious confirmation instructions we are taught more about the ‘Holocaust.’ The final result is obviously that we just don’t want to hear about that stuff anymore. It drains us emotionally, and eventually leads to callousness.”

Wilhelm Stäglich, a German judge and author of the book Auschwitz: A Judge Looks at the Evidence, wrote in 1984 about the intellectual subservience and guilt inculcated in most Germans after World War II:[48]

“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 soon passed laws after the publication of Stäglich’s book making it a felony to dispute any aspect of the Holocaust story. The obvious question is: What kind of historical truth needs criminal sanctions to protect it? The official Holocaust story would not need criminal sanctions to protect it if it was historically accurate. The goal is to make Germans feel guilty about a genocide they never committed, while making a criminal of anyone who contests the fraudulent Holocaust story.

Notes