Institute for Historical Review

The Holocaust: Let's hear both sides

by Mark Weber

Nearly everyone has heard that the Germans killed some six million Jews
in Europe during the Second World War. American television, motion
pictures, newspapers and magazines hammer away on this theme. In
Washington, DC, an enormous official Holocaust Museum has been built.

Scholars Challenge Holocaust Story

During the past decade, though, more and more "revisionist" historians,
including respected scholars such as Dr. Arthur Butz of Northwestern
University, Prof. Robert Faurisson of the University of Lyon in France and
best-selling British historian David Irving, have been challenging the
widely-accepted extermination story.

They do not dispute the fact that large numbers of Jews were deported
to concentration camps and ghettos, or that many Jews died or were killed
during the Second World War. Revisionist scholars have, however, presented
considerable evidence to show that there was no German program to
exterminate Europe's Jews, that numerous claims of mass killings in "gas
chambers" are false, and that the estimate of six million Jewish wartime
dead is an irresponsible exaggeration.

Many Holocaust Claims Abandoned

Revisionists point out that the Holocaust story has changed quite a lot
over the years. Many extermination claims that were once widely accepted
have been quietly dropped in recent years.

At one time it was alleged that the Germans gassed Jews at Dachau,
Buchenwald and other concentration camps in Germany proper. That part of
the extermination story proved so untenable that it was abandoned more
than 20 years ago.

No serious historian now supports the once supposedly proven story of
"extermination camps" in the territory of the old German Reich. Even famed
"Nazi hunter" Simon Wiesenthal has acknowledged that "there were no
extermination camps on German soil." (note 1)

Prominent Holocaust historians now claim that masses of Jews were
gassed at just six camps in what is now Poland: Auschwitz, Majdanek,
Treblinka, Sobibor, Chelmno and Belzec. However, the "evidence" presented
for "gassings" at these six camps is not qualitatively different than the
"evidence" for alleged "gassings" at the camps in Germany proper.

At the great Nuremberg trial of 1945-1946 and during the decades
following the end of the Second World War, Auschwitz (especially
Auschwitz-Birkenau) and Majdanek (Lublin) were generally regarded as the
most important "death camps." For example, the Allies alleged at Nuremberg
that the Germans killed four million at Auschwitz and another 1.5 million
at Majdanek. Today, no reputable historian accepts these fantastic
figures.

In addition, more and more striking evidence has been presented in
recent years that simply cannot be reconciled with the allegations of mass
exterminations at these camps. For example, detailed aerial reconnaissance
photographs taken of Auschwitz-Birkenau on several random days in 1944
(during the height of the alleged extermination period there) were made
public by the CIA in 1979. They show no trace of the piles of corpses,
smoking chimneys and masses of Jews awaiting death, all of which have been
alleged and would have been clearly visible if Auschwitz had indeed been
an extermination center.

We now also know that the postwar "confession" of Auschwitz commandant
Rudolf Höss, which is a crucial part of the Holocaust extermination story,
is a false statement that was obtained by torture. (note 2)

Other Absurd Holocaust Claims

At one time it was also seriously claimed that the Germans exterminated
Jews with electricity and steam, and that they manufactured soap from
Jewish corpses. For example, at Nuremberg the United States charged that
the Germans killed Jews at Treblinka, not in gas chambers, as is now
claimed, but by steaming them to death in "steam chambers." (note 3)

Such bizarre stories have also been quietly abandoned in recent
years.

Disease Claimed Many Inmates

The Holocaust extermination story is superficially plausible. Everyone
has seen the horrific photos of dead and dying inmates taken at
Bergen-Belsen, Nordhausen and other concentration camps when they were
liberated by British and American forces in the final weeks of the war in
Europe. These unfortunate people were victims, not of an extermination
program, but of disease and malnutrition brought on by the complete
collapse of Germany in the final months of the war. Indeed, if there had
been an extermination program, the Jews found by Allied forces at the end
of the war would have long since been killed.

In the face of the advancing Soviet forces, large numbers of Jews were
evacuated during the final months of the war from eastern camps and
ghettos to the remaining camps in western Germany. These camps quickly
became terribly overcrowded, which severely hampered efforts to prevent
the spread of epidemics. Furthermore, the breakdown of the German
transportation system made it impossible to supply adequate food and
medicine to the camps.

Captured German Documents

At the end of the Second World War, the Allies confiscated a tremendous
quantity of German documents dealing with Germany's wartime Jewish policy,
which was sometimes officially referred to as the "final solution." But
not a single German document has ever been found which even refers to an
extermination program. To the contrary, the documents clearly show that
the German "final solution" policy was one of emigration and deportation,
not extermination.

Consider, for example, the confidential German Foreign Office
memorandum of August 21, 1942. (note 4) "The present war gives Germany the
opportunity and also the duty of solving the Jewish problem in Europe,"
the memorandum notes. The policy "to promote the evacuation of the Jews
[from Europe] in closest cooperation with the agencies of the Reichsführer
SS [Himmler] is still in force." The memo noted that "the number of Jews
deported in this way to the East did not suffice to cover the labor
needs."

The document quotes German Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop as saying
that "at the end of this war, all Jews would have to leave Europe. This
was an unalterable decision of the Führer [Hitler] 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."

The memorandum concludes by stating that the "deportations [of Jews to
the East] are a further step on the way of the total solution ... The
deportation to the [Polish] General Government is a temporary measure. The
Jews will be moved on further to the occupied [Soviet] eastern territories
as soon as the technical conditions for it are given."

This unambiguous document, and others like it, are routinely suppressed
or ignored by those who uphold the Holocaust extermination story.

Unreliable Testimony

Holocaust historians rely heavily on so-called "survivor testimony" to
support the extermination story. But such "evidence" is notoriously
unreliable. As one Jewish historian has pointed out, "most of the memoirs
and reports [of "Holocaust survivors"] are full of preposterous verbosity,
graphomanic exaggeration, dramatic effects, overestimated self-inflation,
dilettante philosophizing, would-be lyricism, unchecked rumors, bias,
partisan attacks and apologies." (note 5)

Hitler and the 'Final Solution'

There is no documentary evidence that Adolf Hitler ever gave an order
to exterminate the Jews, or that he knew of any extermination program.
Instead, the record shows that the German leader wanted the Jews to leave
Europe, by emigration if possible and by deportation if necessary.

A document found after the war in the files of the Reich Ministry of
Justice records his thinking on the Jews. In the spring of 1942, State
Secretary Schlegelberger noted in a memorandum that Hitler's Chief of
Chancellery, Dr. Hans Lammers, had informed him: "The Führer has
repeatedly declared to him [Lammers] that he wants to see the solution of
the Jewish problem postponed until after the war is over." (note 6)

And on July 24, 1942, Hitler emphasized his determination to remove all
Jews from Europe after the war: "The Jews are interested in Europe for
economic reasons, but Europe must reject them, if only out of
self-interest, because the Jews are racially tougher. 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."
(note 7)

Himmler's SS and the Camps

Jews were an important part of Germany's wartime labor force, and it
was in Germany's interest to keep them alive.

The head of the SS camp administration office sent a directive dated
Dec. 28, 1942, to every concentration camp, including Auschwitz. It
sharply criticized the high death rate of inmates due to disease, and
ordered that "camp physicians must use all means at their disposal to
significantly reduce the death rate in the various camps." Furthermore, it
ordered: "The camp doctors must supervise more often than in the past the
nutrition of the prisoners and, in cooperation with the administration,
submit improvement recommendations to the camp commandants ... The camp
doctors are to see to it that the working conditions at the various labor
places are improved as much as possible."

Finally, the directive stressed that "The Reichsführer SS [Himmler] has
ordered that the death rate absolutely must be reduced." (note 8)

The head of the SS department that supervised the concentration camps,
Richard Gluecks, sent a circular letter to each camp commandant dated
January 20, 1943. In it he ordered: "As I have already pointed out, every
means must be used to lower the death rate in the camp." (note 9)

Six Million?

There is no real evidence for the incessantly repeated claim that the
Germans exterminated six million Jews. It is clear, though, that millions
of Jews "survived" German rule during the Second World War, including many
who were interned in Auschwitz and other so-called "extermination camps."
This fact alone should raise serious doubts about the extermination
story.

A leading newspaper of neutral Switzerland, the daily Baseler
Nachrichten, carefully estimated in June 1946 that no more than 1.5
million European Jews could have perished under German rule during the
war. (note 10)

One-Sided 'Holocaustomania'

Even after more than 40 years, the stream of Holocaust films and books
shows no sign of diminishing.

This relentless media campaign, which Jewish historian Alfred
Lilienthal calls "Holocaustomania," portrays the fate of the Jews during
the Second World War as the central event of history. There is no end to
the heavy-handed motion pictures, the simplistic television specials, the
vindictive hunt for "Nazi war criminals," the one-sided "educational
courses," and the self-righteous appearances by politicians and
celebrities at Holocaust "memorial services."

Britain's chief rabbi, Immanuel Jakobovits, has accurately described
the Holocaust campaign as "an entire industry, with handsome profits for
writers, researchers, film-makers, monument builders, muse-um planners and
even politicians." He added that some rabbis and theologians are "partners
in this big business." (note 11)

Non-Jewish victims just don't merit the same concern. For example,
there are no American memorials, "study centers," or annual observances
for Stalin's victims, who vastly outnumber Hitler's.

Who Benefits?

The perpetual Holocaust media blitz is routinely used to justify
enormous American support for Israel and to excuse otherwise inexcusable
Israeli policies, even when they conflict with American interests.

The sophisticated and well-financed Holocaust media campaign is
crucially important to the interests of Israel, which owes its existence
to massive annual subsidies from American taxpayers. As Prof. W.D.
Rubinstein of Australia has candidly acknowledged: "If the Holocaust can
be shown to be a ÔZionist myth,' the strongest of all weapons in Israel's
propaganda armory collapses." (note 12)

Jewish history teacher Paula Hyman of Columbia University has observed:
"With regard to Israel, the Holocaust may be used to forestall political
criticism and suppress debate; it reinforces the sense of Jews as an
eternally beleaguered people who can rely for their defense only upon
themselves. The invocation of the suffering endured by the Jews under the
Nazis often takes the place of rational argument, and is expected to
convince doubters of the legitimacy of current Israeli government policy."
(note 13)

One major reason that the Holocaust story has proven so durable is that
the governments of the major powers also have a vested interest in
maintaining it. The victorious powers of the Second World War -- the
United States, Soviet Russia and Britain -- have a stake in portraying the
defeated Hitler regime as negatively as possible. The more evil and
satanic the Hitler regime appears, the more noble and justified seems the
Allied cause.

For many Jews, the Holocaust has become both a flourishing business and
a kind of new religion, as noted Jewish author and newspaper publisher
Jacobo Timerman points out in his book, The Longest War. He
reports that many Israelis, using the word Shoah, which is Hebrew for
Holocaust, joke that "There's no business like Shoah business." (note
14)

The Holocaust media campaign portrays Jews as totally innocent victims,
and non-Jews as morally retarded and unreliable beings who can easily turn
into murderous Nazis under the right circumstances. This self-serving but
distorted portrayal is meant to strengthen Jewish group solidarity and
self-awareness.

A key lesson of the Holocaust story for Jews is that non-Jews are never
completely trustworthy. If a people as cultured and as educated as the
Germans could turn against the Jews, so the thinking goes, than surely no
non-Jewish nation can ever be completely trusted. The Holocaust message is
thus one of contempt for humanity.

Holocaust Hatemongering

The Holocaust story is sometimes used to promote hatred and hostility,
particularly against the German people as a whole, eastern Europeans and
the leadership of the Roman Catholic church.

The well-known Jewish writer, Elie Wiesel, is a former Auschwitz inmate
who served as chairman of the official U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council. He
received the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize. This dedicated Zionist wrote in his
book, Legends of Our Time: "Every Jew, somewhere in his
being, should set apart a zone of hate -- healthy, virile hate -- for what
the German personifies and for what persists in the German." (note 15)

Let Both Sides Be Heard

As even defenders of the orthodox extermination story concede,
skepticism about the Holocaust story has grown dramatically in recent
years.

Responding to this trend, officials in some countries -- including
France and Israel -- have made it a crime to challenge the Holocaust
story. Revisionists in France and Germany have been heavily fined for
their views. Teachers in the United States and elsewhere have been
summarily dismissed from their positions for daring to doubt the Holocaust
story. Criminal thugs have brutally attacked prominent Holocaust
revisionists; one was even killed for his views.

In spite of desperate restrictions on free speech, frantic media
attacks against those who "deny the Holocaust," a seemingly perpetual
Holocaust media campaign, and even physical attacks, considerable headway
is being made. More and more thoughtful people in the United States and
around the world are willing to express doubts about at least some of the
more sensational Holocaust claims.

Summary

The Holocaust extermination story is breaking down as suppressed
evidence becomes better known, and as more people become aware of the
facts about what is certainly the most hyped and politicized chapter of
modern history.

Artificially maintaining the hatreds and passions of the past prevents
genuine reconciliation and lasting peace.

Revisionism promotes historical awareness and international
understanding. That's why the work of the Institute for Historical Review
is so important and deserves your support.

Notes

Books and Bookmen, London, April 1975, p. 5, and in
Stars and Stripes (Europe), Jan. 24, 1993, p. 14.

Ruper Butler, Legions of Death (England: 1983), pp.
235-237, and R. Faurisson, Journal of Historical Review,
Winter 1986-87, pp. 389-403.

Nuremberg document PS-3311 (USA-293). IMT blue series, Vol. 32, pp.
153-158; IMT, Vol. 3, pp. 566- 568.; NMT green series, Vol. 5, pp. 1133,
1134.

Nuremberg document NG-2586-J. NMT green series, Vol. 13, pp.
243-249.

Samuel Gringauz in Jewish Social Studies (New York),
January 1950, Vol. 12, p. 65.

Nuremberg document PS-4025. D. Irving, Göring: A
Biography (New York: 1989), p. 349.

H. Picker, Hitlers Tischgesprche im Führerhaupt
quartier (Stuttgart: 1976), p. 456.

Nuremberg document PS-2171, Annex 2; NC and A red series, Vol. 4,
pp. 833-834.

Nuremberg document NO-1523; NMT green series, Vol. 5, pp. 372-373.

Baseler Nachrichten, June 13, 1946, p. 2.

H. Shapiro, "Jakobovits," Jerusalem Post (Israel), Nov.
26, 1987, p. 1.

Quadrant (Australia), Sept. 1979, p. 27.

New York Times Magazine, Sept. 14, 1980, p. 79.

The Longest War (New York: Vintage, 1982), p. 15.

Legends of Our Time (New York: Schocken Books, 1982),
chap. 12, p. 142.

Main | Leaflets | Journal | Books | Contact us | Search | Support IHR | Subscribe