jclause said:
Stay inside there daestromer.. Through my hi-power scope I
see written on the side "Cosmoratic Beef Corperation"...
jc the elder
jclause said:
Stay inside there daestromer.. Through my hi-power scope I
see written on the side "Cosmoratic Beef Corperation"...
jc the elder
The point is that a man with august credentials, and fully qualified to
address the matter asserted, after careful investigation and reflection,
that there were no mass murders using Zyklon B at Auschwitz. The result of
expressing his expert opinion on the matter was professional ruin.
Germar Rudolf had successfully completed all the requirements to earn a PhD
in physical chemistry from the Max Plank Institute when he was abruptly
dismissed from his research position, and denied the opportunity to take
the final qualifying exam. The reason he, as Lüftl, was professionally
ruined is that he challenged the orthodox view of what is called "The
Holocaust" in a fundamental way. And he did so using a responsible
scientific approach.
Arthur Butz holds a BS and MS in EE from MIT, and a PhD in EE from the
University of Minnesota. He is categorized by the ADL as an "Extremist"
because he challenged the orthodox view of "The Holocaust".
These men are not idiots. I have, in my hand, the book that Germar Rudolf
published, and for which he is currently serving a 14 month prison sentence
for writing. The entire book is available for download or purchase here:
http://www.vho.org/GB/Books/dth/
Please show me where in this book there is anything justifying imprisonment
on the part of the author.
Rudlof was arrested in the United States of America, and returned to Germany
with full knowledge on the part of the US Government that he would be put
in prison for what he wrote. This is the formal statement of the US
Government in the regard:
http://www.ice.gov/graphics/news/newsreleases/articles/051115chicago.htm
This is what an expert historian, fully qualified to proffer his opinion in
the matter had to say about this book:
<quote url="
http://www.vho.org/GB/Books/dth/fndHoffmann.html">
Preamble
Accredited chemist Germar Rudolf[...] has written me to request an expert
statement regarding an anthology titled Grundlagen zur Zeitgeschichte: Ein
Handbuch über strittige Fragen des 20. Jahrhunderts, edited by Ernst Gauss
and published in 1994 by Grabert-Verlag in Tübingen, Germany. The foremost
issue was to be the question of the work's scientific, i.e., academic
nature, rather than the content per se.
As an historian specializing in recent and East European history, and on the
basis of my decades of professional experience and practice in the academic
service of the Federal Republik of Germany, I am qualified and entitled to
give an expert opinion on the matter in question.
Regarding my personal qualifications, I wish to state that I was a member of
the Militärgeschichtliche Forschungsamt [Centre for Research in Military
History] in Freiburg from 1960 to 1995. For almost three decades my work
has focused exclusively on matters related to the German-Soviet war.
Through the publication of academic books and periodical articles on this
topic I am well established as an expert in my field, both at home and
abroad. Accredited chemist Rudolf [...] and the co-authors of the anthology
at issue are not personally known to me.
The Formal Aspect
As pointed out in the anthology in question, the book does not offer a
comprehensive overview of the course of the National Socialist persecution
of the Jews during World War Two. Rather, the focus is on specific
individual topics regarding disputed and controversial aspects of killings
of the Jews. The various contributions to the book are expertly written in
a predominantly investigative style. Where detail and completeness are
concerned, the body of supporting and documenting references leaves little
to be desired and is extremely helpful to a reader seeking further
information, not least of all since sources from the opposing subject
literature are also cited without reservation. It appears, therefore, that
this anthology is part of the large-scale academic dispute over a serious
contemporary issue which reaches far beyond its actual academic scope and
into the political realm.
The individual contributions to this anthology are logically consistent and
objectively descriptive in structure, even though at times a polemic note
does become evident - as is perhaps inevitable in such emotionally charged
topics, and as is also quite common in political and historical
controversies. In any case, a striving for new understanding is tangibly
apparent throughout the book. From this perspective, therefore, the
anthology cannot be denied an academic character, particularly if one
compares it with many a publication from its opposing side, whose academic
nature is also never questioned. There is much in the various contributions
that strikes one as thoroughly convincing. Much else may be merely noted
with objective interest. Elsewhere, doubts and criticisms also come to
mind. The issue may perhaps be simplified by pointing out that what we are
dealing with in this great controversy is a rather more accusatory style of
literature on the one hand, and a rather more apologetic one on the other.
This is to suggest that in the heat of controversy, both sides may be
overly inclined to overshoot the mark and to leave the solid ground of
provable facts behind. One might perhaps summarize by saying that the time
for conclusive declarations regarding the great persecution of the Jews has
not yet come.
The Problem of Self-Evidentness
There can be no doubt about the fact that genocide was committed against the
Jewish people by the Einsatzgruppen of the Security Police and the SD and
by the SS personnel in charge in the concentration camps in the former
General Government of Poland. Hitler, Himmler and Dr. Goebbels clearly
admitted these misdeeds on several occasions. The anthology's editor, Ernst
Gauss, also considers this as given in his chapter. And in fact, the
genocide provides an unspoken backdrop for the anthology at issue. To rule
out any misunderstanding, it would perhaps have been better to spell these
things out unambiguously and to clarify that an academic controversy today
can no longer dispute the mass killings per se, but rather only the numbers
of victims and the methods of murder. In this respect, we admittedly may
expect to see far-reaching modifications as yet. In this context as well,
the rather overused concept of self-evidentness is in need of limitation,
or at least of a more precise definition.
Two Important Examples
We shall give two especially significant examples of this.
1) [Downward Revision of the Number of Auschwitz Victims]
From 1945 to 1990, the figure of 4 million victims in Auschwitz was
considered self-evident and was accorded judicial notice in the Federal
German courts. But where did this figure come from? It originated with
Soviet war propaganda. On March 1, 1945, an official Soviet announcement
stated for the first time that "at least five million people were
exterminated" in Auschwitz. This figure was then reduced to four million in
the official Soviet communiqué of May 7, 1945. This number of 4 million
victims - put about by Soviet war propaganda, in other words by the NKVD,
and in no way proven by any evidence whatsoever - was adopted by the public
in western countries, and persisted unchanged until 1990, when it was
officially reduced to 1.5 million virtually overnight. Currently the number
of Auschwitz victims is set at a remaining 631,000 to 711,000, and a
further reduction has not been ruled out.
2) [The Total Number of Jewish Victims]
To this day the total number of Jewish victims is generally given as 6
million. According to the current opinion of the German experts on
contemporary history, this figure was first provided to the Americans by SS
Sturmbannführer Dr. Hoettl in spring 1945, and repeated at the IMT in
Nuremberg on November 26, 1945. It must be noted, however, that this
selfsame figure was demonstrably first put forth in the foreign press as
early as January 4, 1945, several weeks prior to the January 27, 1945,
liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp (with its alleged 4 million
victims) - put about by none other than the infamous Soviet Minister of
Propaganda, Ilya Ehrenburg. Thus it was Ehrenburg who came up with the
figure of six million. [cf. Joachim Hoffmann, Stalin? s War of
Extermination 1941 ? 1945, Theses & Dissertations Press, Capshaw, AL, 2001,
pp. 189f.]
Regarding Ehrenburg himself, it must be mentioned that in 1941 Stalin had
given him the general order to incite a boundless national and racial
hatred against all Germans. Ehrenburg's years-long unbridled frenzies of
hatred culminated in his call to "put an end to Germany" and in an effort
which he described as "modest and honorable", namely "to reduce the
population of Germany", towards which end the only thing left to decide was
whether it would be better "to kill the Germans with axes or with clubs".
Both examples show that new evidence can immediately overthrow something
that is allegedly self-evident, and, accordingly, it is the duty of any
contemporary historian to call allegedly conclusive findings into question.
Even in matters involving grave charges, the principle of self-evidentness
has been known to become invalidated. As an example one need only consider
the claim (widely accepted in Germany in particular, but now denied by Yad
Vashem itself) that the Germans had manufactured soap from the bodies of
murdered Jews - a fabrication that also goes back to Soviet war propaganda.
Therefore, the anthology at issue here does not commit anything unlawful,
but rather engages in a justified and necessary pursuit in its attempt to
critically examine allegedly self-evident issues on the basis of new
evidence or findings, as it is in fact the natural task of historiography
to do.
The Problem of Eyewitness Testimony
Several contributions to this anthology point out, and rightly so, that the
testimony of eyewitnesses is unreliable; these contributions back their
claims with numerous examples, some of which are indeed truly grotesque.
Such experiences certainly agree with those of other historians of the
Second World War. This is not to say that eyewitness statements are
entirely superfluous, but practical experience definitely has shown that
they must always be examined and corroborated with authentic documents. My
personal experience has been that as early as 1970 eyewitness testimony
about details of the events of the war was so unreliable that it would have
been a breach of professional duties to base a historical treatise on them
alone.
Joachim Hoffmann, Dr. phil., born 1930 in Königsberg, East Prussia; studied
modern history, eastern European history and comparative ethnology at the
University of Hamburg and Berlin?s Free University. He received his PhD in
history in 1959. Between 1960 and 1995, he was historian at the
Militärgeschichtliche Forschungsamt der Bundeswehr (Research Department for
Military History of the German Army). His field of expertise was ?Armed
Forces of the Soviet Union?; Dr. Hoffmann has authored numerous articles
and books about political, diplomatic and military history of the 19th
century and about the history of the German-Soviet war. In 1991, he was
granted the ?Dr. Walter-Eckhardt? Award, and in 1992 the ?General Andrej
Andrejewitsch Wlassow? Cultural Prize. He died in February 2002.
Benz's Anthology
On the whole, the contributions to the anthology here at issue frequently
manifest a profound understanding of the subject and its associated
literature, even though some suggestions made do appear questionable at
times. However, the establishment literature about the Holocaust also often
contains factual errors. One example in this context is Benz's 1991
anthology Dimension des Völkermords, which displays a downright disarming
ignorance of the state of affairs on the Soviet side. The authors of the
Gauss anthology object, and correctly so, that Benz bases his studies
uncritically on the announcements made by Soviet war propaganda and on the
publications about Soviet show trials. The anthology edited by Benz
attempts, by means of elaborate statistical minutiae, to prove the
correctness of the six-million figure. Anyone who has worked with
demographic statistics knows what serious errors can enter into such
complex analyses even under a strictly objective agenda. Benz is entirely
unaware that Ehrenburg had already introduced the six-million figure into
the annals of war propaganda on January 4, 1945. Thus, he will have to
accept the charge that, though unwittingly, he has really only worked to
confirm a propaganda figure of Ehrenburg's. From this perspective, his and
his co-authors' research findings offer a foothold for fundamental
criticism.
Babi Yar
The mass execution of Jewish inhabitants of Kyiv, known as the massacre of
Babi Yar, is also subjected to justified and necessary criticism in the
anthology here at issue. Over time, the actions of Einsatzkommando 4a of
the Security Police and the SD under Blobel have experienced propagandistic
inflation to the point where restoring the actual facts to their real
dimensions is an obligation for anyone striving for historical veracity. Of
course this does not impinge on the fact that thousands of Jews were killed
in Kyiv.
Overall Impression
The overall impression evoked by this anthology edited by Gauss is that its
contents must be acknowledged - with critical common sense, of course - no
less than is always undisputedly and unrestrictedly done with the
'official' literature about the Holocaust. The principle of audiatur et
altera pars [let the other side be heard] must apply in this case as well!
A suppression of this carefully documented work would represent a forcible
obstruction of the legitimate striving for scientific and academic
understanding. The state of knowledge is never static. Experience has shown
that exaggerations and errors always grind themselves down in the course of
a normal academic controversy. One must not deny a mature and free
researcher and reader his ability to exercise his critical faculties. It
would then be only a small step from suppressing unpopular books, to
burning them; and then, though with different motivations, we would be
right back where the entire misfortune began.
Conclusion
As historian officially commissioned by the Militärgeschichtliche
Forschungsamt I have spent two-and-a-half decades studying the Soviet
military literature about the history of the Red Army and the Second World
War in its original documentary texts - an endless chain of
misrepresentations, fabrications, distortions and slander. But even this
historical literature turned up the occasional truths. I could not have
carried out my academic duties if I had rejected the Soviet publications
out-of-hand as being unacademic. The same goes infinitely more for the
anthology here at issue, which is on a respectable academic level and which
doubtless contributes much to our understanding of aspects of the war,
despite any reservations one may have.
[sgd.] Dr. J. Hoffmann, Acad. Director (retired)
[written on September 28, 1995]
On June 15, 1996, judge Burkhardt Stein from Tübingen County Court ordered
the confiscation and incineration of all books Grundlagen zur
Zeitgeschichte and the destruction of all means for manufacturing them
(Ref. 4 Gs 173/95). The expert reports presented by the defense were
ignored.
</quote>