Hitler's Prophecy - Endlösung vs. Holocaust
Af Dr. Christian Lindtner
June/July 2011
What has, after many years of research
and reflection, become obvious to my mind, may come as a shock to
many, namely, that orthodox professors of theology - not to speak
of average Christian believers - have something strikingly
fundamental in common with prominent professors and exponents of
so-called Holocaust denial.
The latter claim, in brief, that there
is no solid evidence to support the widely held view that Hitler
ordered the physical extermination of the Jews, their Vernichtung.
It simply did not happen! The former claim that there is,
unquestionably, sufficient evidence, internal as well as external,
to support the widely held belief that Jesus, called Christ, was
indeed, a historical person.
What both parties - otherwise,
perhaps, so unlike one another - share alike is a deep
reluctance to face simple historical facts, and, consequently, a
strong tendency to ignore or, if that cannot be done with impunity,
to distort the evidence provided by available primary sources.
We are, in either case, dealing with
myth as opposed to history: Just as it is a myth that the so-called
Holocaust is a myth, thus it is a myth that Jesus called Christ is
not a myth.
This is my claim, and it is, of
course, open to debate.
So-called Holocaust deniers - who
prefer to call themselves revisionists - claim that Hitler, in the
end, only wanted to deport the Jews to the East, and that it is a
huge lie, a hoax, a myth that there was a Hitler order, a plan, a
budget or any weapons (e.g. gas vans or gas chambers) designed for
the mass extermination of the Jews, 1941-1945.
These claims are, frankly
speaking, based either on ignorance of extant German
sources, or on obvious distortions of well-known and reliable
German documents that cannot, if one is honest, just be
ignored and discarded. From the well-known fact that there are,
certainly, many false witnesses and dubious documents, Holocaust
deniers triumphantly tend to jump to the general conclusion that
the Holocaust as a whole is a myth.
Already on the very first days of
Barbarossa, 22 June 1941, German police units from Tilsit and Memel
executed some 526 civilians, mainly Jews, in three Lithuanian
villages close to the German border: Garsden, Krottingen and
Polangen. The executions were ordered from Heydrich´s RSHA in
Berlin, and took place "auf Befehl des Führers" (Curilla, 2006, p.
140; see also: Der Ulmer Prozess
- SS-Einsatzgruppen vor Gericht 1-3 on youtube).
On 1 December 1941,
SS-Standartenführer Karl Jäger,
Einsatzkommando 3,
reported from Kaunas the execution of some 137.346 civilians,
nearly all of the victims being Jewish men, women and children:
"Ich kann heute
feststellen, dass das Ziel, das Judenproblem für Litauen zu lösen,
vom EK 3 erreicht worden ist. In Litauen gibt es keine Juden mehr,
ausser den Arbeitsjuden incl. ihrer Familien...".
The final solution of the Jewish
problem here means the extermination of Jewish men, women and
children. There is no other way to read Jäger´s words. When the
news reached him, Hitler was pleased to learn that Lithuania had
now become free from Jews, "judenfrei" (24 July 1942, see Picker
1989, p. 456).
Numerous mass executions of Jews are
documented almost daily in the reports of the four Einsatzgruppen.
One denier claims - without offering any valid reason - that these
documents were "manufacted by Moscow" (Butz 1989). In fact, there
can be no doubt that the reports were prepared in one of Heydrich´s
offices set up in Berlin for that very purpose. Another prominent
denier dr. Robert Faurisson claimed, in Tehran, in December 2006,
that it was not the task of the Einsatzgruppen to kill the Jews -
only to check their ID, make a few arrests, and the like. His claim
has no basis in the reality of time and space.
Deniers tend to ignore the fact that
the German Ordnungspolizei was also deeply involved in deporting
and murdering Jews in the territories occupied by the Germans. In
Poland, close to 30,000 members of the Ordnungspolizei participated
in the murder of 2.3 million Jews. In the Soviet Union, more than
20,000 members of Daluege´s Ordnungspolizei - and other units
under Himmler - were involved in the murder of more than 2 million
Jews. We have the ipsissima words of
Himmler, Heydrich, Daluege, Koch, Jeckeln, Eichmann, Hans
Friedrich and many others, that this Vernichtung took place on
the order of Hitler. How could it be otherwise?
There are several speeches
of Hitler to the effect that the Vernichtung would take place,
and several speeches of Himmler that it actually did take place. An
extract from Himmler´s
speech to the Generals in Sonthofen, 21 June 1944, has been
quoted below.
Naturally, already from 1942, the
Nazis took great pains to remove all traces of their crimes
("Aktion 1005" etc.), and, always good at euphemisms, they likewise
availed themselves of a Tarnsprache. This means that there is,
today, very little physical evidence available. That evidence of
crimes has been destroyed, does, of course, not permit us now to
jump to the conclusion that the murders never took place. It would
be highly hazardous to conclude from present absence to past
non-existence. In the end, it would lead to an absolute denial of
the past: What is no longer, never was!
There are, or were, so many good
German witnesses to the existence and to the use of gas vans and
gas chambers that one sees no reason for maintaining that
they should all have lied or been mistaken about their past
experience. After all, from the German point of view, gassing was,
in many cases, considered more humane and efficient than starvation
or execution by shooting. So why not go on with a method of
extermination that had worked so well in connection with the
Euthanasia program sanctioned in 1939 by Hitler - whose
anti-Semitism is so well documented? This was the method
of Viktor Brack, and its awful reality has never been denied.
It is the natural precursor of all later forms of gassings
(beginning with the gas vans of Kulmhof in December 1941).
On 24 April 1943 Himmler said to
members of his SS:
"Mit dem
Antisemitismus ist es genauso wie mit der Entlausung. Es ist keine
Weltanschauungsfrage, dass man die Läuse entfernt. Das ist eine
Reinlichkeitsangelegenheit. Genauso ist der Antisemitismus für uns
keine Weltanschauungsfrage gewesen, sondern eine
Reinlichkeitsangelegenheit, die ja jetzt bald ausgestanden ist."
(Bradley F. Smith et al 1974, p. 200).
The Jews are like lice, and they have
to be treated like lice - gassed!
One can hardly accuse Hitler and
Himmler of not having been frank about their anti-Semitism! In
their eyes, the Jews were the most criminal people on this earth -
an echo of Seneca´s sceleratissima gens. Hitler had studied the
Jewish question in history carefully, and he was adamant.
Again, the deplorable fact that there
are so many false witnesses to the gas chambers, does not allow us
to infer that the gas vans and chambers are but a gigantic hoax
invented by the enemies of Germany.
True, some deniers must be given
credit for having spotted out some of the false witnesses who often
appear in the mass media. Sadly, some of them ended up being
even more unreliable themselves, e.g. an American professor , when
he claimed that the Jews were not at all murdered, but still there
at the end of the war. In 1979, he wrote:
"The simplest
valid reason for being skeptical about the extermination claim is
also the simplest conceivable reason: at the end of the war they
were still there" (Butz 1989, p. 318).
If this professor was right, this
would mean that more than 30,000 German policemen were wrong! Even
Himmler must have been wrong when he admitted in 1944:
"Es ist gut, dass
wir die Härte hatten, die Juden in unserem Bereich
auszurotten!"
According to the American professor,
they were still there! Was HE there?
Deniers tend to focus on the gas
chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau, and have done so for very long. The
motivation for this preposterous drive seems to be that if the
"battleship Auschwitz" can be torpedoed, then the entire Holocaust
fleet goes down along with it. The manifold issue of Vernichtung is
thus reduced to a question of gas chambers in one camp, even in one
building! They are seldom interested in reconstructing what
actually happened - the natural task of a historian.
The numbers of victims in the camps
were often exaggerated by Germany´s enemies, for sure, but there is
no reason to go on repeating that fact ad nauseam. As Aristotle
noted, repetition is the mark of sophistry, or apparent wisdom.
Since they seem to have decided to
start out by questioning the gas chambers in Auschwitz-Birkenau,
deniers have to face an old problem that they cannot afford merely
to ignore. It has to do with the fact that the Germans themselves
identified Leichenkeller 1 in Krema II with a Vergasungskeller, a
cellar for gassing, for Vergasung. The notorious document is known
as
NO-4473, Bischoff´s 29 January 1943 letter from Auschwitz to
his superior, Kammler, in Berlin. If Vergasung here means gassing
of human beings (i.e. Jews), this would have disastrous
consequences for deniers claiming that there is no documentation
for gas chambers in Auschwitz - the "symbol" or "capital" of the
Holocaust. And so, to rescue their claim, they have to
explain Vergasung away - so oder so.
One denier claims that Vergasung, in
German, cannot mean gassing of Jews. So he attacks the language.
However, there are many German documents where Vergasung is used in
that sense. This French denier, to explain himself, then maintains
that these Germans (e.g. Dr.
Erhard Wetzel in his famous 25 October 1941 letter) did not
really use the German language correctly! The same professor, who
forgets to explain why Dr. Wetzel and many other Germans would want
to use the German language "not without dishonesty", then claims
that the correct German word would have been Gaskeller, but that
the Germans never used that word.
But actually the Germans here involved
did use that word, Gaskeller, and they used it in the sense of a
Vergasungskeller. This can be seen from a note
available in the archives of Topf & Söhne in Erfurt, who
produced the ovens, the ventilation fans etc. for Krema II,
including Leichenkeller 1. Sitting in his office in Erfurt, Fritz
Sander on 17 February 1943 received a phone call from his
colleague, engineer Karl Schultze, who was then in Auschwitz.
Schultze complained that the ventilation (No. 450) for the
Gaskeller in Krema II had not yet arrived there. We can be sure,
from other documents, that this ventilation was for installment in
Leichenkeller 1. After the war, Karl Schultze was interrogated, on
11 March 1948, and admitted that he had been present to see that
everything worked well in Krema II during a first gassing of
Jews - i.e. a gassing of human beings in Leichenkeller 1, which
must therefore have served as a Vergasungskeller or
Gaskeller. (Schüle, infra.) The Vergasungskeller, the Gaskeller,
would not go away. This remained a very serious problem for deniers
- perhaps the most serious of them all (see the debate on the
net).
In 2000, David Irving made a fool of
himself by claiming, first, that the notorious Vergasungskeller
(Leichenkeller 1) mentioned in the Nuremberg document, NO-4473, was
not at all used for gassing Jews, but "for fumigating objects or
cadavers". Judge Gray was puzzled. Faced with the absurd
implications of gassing Jews that were already dead and soon to be
cremated, Irving then suddenly shifted to another
explanation, even more absurd in its consequences, namely that the
Vergasungskeller was intended to serve as "an air raid shelter". It
was not difficult for Robert Jan van Pelt to ridicule this
hypothesis. Had Irving, moreover, known how German air raid
shelters were constructed in those days, he would immediately have
seen that Leichenkeller 1 could not possibly have withstood a heavy
air raid, the walls and the roof being far too thin for that. In
other words: The Leichenkeller would have collapsed and thus become
a real Leichenkeller for those seeking shelter therein! Surely, the
Leichenkeller was not designed to serve as a trap for the Germans
themselves!
The simple conclusion is that
Leichenkeller 1 must, as said, have served as a Vergasungskeller or
Gaskeller for gassing Jews - Himmler´s "lice". There was not a
single member of the SS stationed in Auschwitz who denied
this.
What an irony, therefore, that
professor Faurisson, who prides himself of having been, in March
1976, the first to discover and later to publish the blueprints of
Krema II with Leichenkeller 1, is also famous for demanding: Show
me or draw me a Nazi gas chamber! Our French professor has the
drawing in his own hands, and he has had it all along!
He is asking from others what he
himself already has! Many years later, Professor Faurisson came
back to Leichenkeller 1. This was on his so-called
Official Blog, dated January 4, 2011, where he praised poor
Fred Leuchter and his 1988 Report - forgetting, however, to remind
us that it was now outdated (see Achim Trunk in Morsch 2011,
infra). The French professor concluded:
"The plans showed
that the place which, according to what we are told, housed a
homicidal gas chamber (,) contained instead a simple depository,
with the characteristic dimensions and layout for the keeping of
corpses awaiting cremation."
So now, after so many years, the
Leichenkeller was simply - a Leichenkeller, a morgue. But what
about the fact that Bischoff had called it a Vergasungskeller, and
that Sander and Schultze had called it a Gaskeller? What Bischoff,
Sander, Schultze, Ertl, Höss and many, many other primary witnesses
had told us, was simply IGNORED in 2011 by Faurisson who many years
ago distorted or ignored the meaning of the terms Vergasungskeller
or Gaskeller. So the method of professor Faurisson is, to be
precise, to ignore or to distort the evidence.
One is reminded of the Buddhist
philosopher, who wrote:
"You are like a
man on horseback, who forgets all about the horse!"
Likewise, when the French professor
demands a written order from Hitler. He must know, that there is no
written Hitler order - all scholars admit that, just as they have
admitted that there is little or no physical evidence for the gas
chambers. So why keep on asking for what all know is no longer
there? To repeat: The fact that there is now no written
order, does not imply that there never was an oral order.
Nevertheless, the tricky professor wants us to jump to that
erroneous conclusion. What about the snowman of winters past - no
longer here in summer? Was he never there?Faurisson´s insistent -
even aggressive - demand for tangible evidence here and now of a
written Hitler order is perfidious, for it flatly - and
deliberately - ignores the simple and well-known fact that
many orders from Hitler were given orally.
What about Faurisson´s other arguments
- are they any better? He keeps on asking, for instance, for ONE
proof that the Holocaust happened, just one proof, not two, or
many. When asked for a definition of the term "proof", he answers
that it is up to his opponent to define or decide what is meant by
a proof. Very well, then: Since he does not say that he is prepared
to accept ANY proof that his opponent may prefer, one may, to be on
the safe side, choose what he himself considers a proof. Thus, in
an interview that he gave in Teheran 13 December 2011, he argued
that there was no order to kill the Jews. The proof, he said, was
e.g. that there are cases, where SS-men were severely punished for
having killed Jews. In other words: Had there been an order to kill
the Jews, these SS-men would not have been severely punished for
doing so. The truth, however, is that SS-men were severely punished
NOT merely for killing Jews, BUT for doing so in a hateful and
gruesome manner below the dignity of a German SS-man, as in the
well-known case of Max Täubner (Klee 1988, pp. 187-188). A
distorted argument is, in other words, what he himself considers a
proof.
Or take the argument that if there are
no holes (in the roof of Leichenkeller 1), there is (or was) no
Holocaust. Here, the apparent lack of visible holes is offered as a
proof of the thesis of there being no Holocaust. The thesis and the
argument given as proof are not conclusive. First of all, we are
not told why the Holocaust is limited to events that may have taken
place in a cellar in Auschwitz-Birkenau. The fact that there may be
problems with the roof of Leichenkeller 1 does not imply that e.g.
the shootings and the gassings in Kulmhof of Jews did not take
place! Moreover, we are not told enough about the holes. It may be
that they are not to be seen there now, but does that mean that
they never were there? We are not told. It is also unclear whether
we are dealing with a statement, or with a question, or whose
statement it really is. And yet, the French professor often prides
himself of being "precise", of wanting to be "exact"! However, one
is often not at all sure what he actually means. So when we look at
what the author himself understands by a "proof" - we are left in
the dark.
Again, when he claims that it was not
the task of the Einsatzgruppen to kill the Jews, he gives no reason
for this statement, which, as said, is contradicted by evidence.
Like other deniers, he suggests that Babi Yar may be a myth. The
awful photographs taken by Johannes Hähle on the spot in September/
October at Babi Yar and Lubny have another story to tell,
however.
But let us not forget the holes-
allegedly the strongest argument of some deniers, and still a
stumbling block to some of their opponents?! How, then, are we to
deal with the missing holes, that must once have been there? It has
been suggested (e.g. by Robert Jan van Pelt) that they were filled
in by the Germans, so as to make them invisible. But clearly it is
impossible to do so without leaving any visible trace from the new
concrete. Filling in the holes would thus only make them even more
conspicuously visible! Alternatively, it has been claimed that the
location of the holes has now been identified by computer analysis.
That, again, makes no sense, for in that case one would have to
verify the location independently - which cannot be done. The
existence has to be established before the location can be
determined. Bad arguments sometimes lead to counterarguments that
are even worse!
So how are we to solve the problem of
the holes? Having discussed the matter with a few friends who have
experience with regard to the blowing up of concrete, there seems
to be a simple explanation. The blow from an explosion starting
from within the building would immediately seek the weak spots in
the concrete so as to "escape", and the weakest spots would be the
holes. The holes would simply be the first "victims" to be blown
away, leaving no trace behind. It would, therefore, not make sense
to look for the holes - i.e. the edges of the former holes - now in
the ruins. In other words: As usual, Faurisson starts out from the
wrong premises to reach the conclusion he has decided upon from the
start. He ought to have explained how the blow of the explosion
could have left the edges of the holes intact. He failed to do so.
Hence his argument is not valid.
Conclusion: The author has shown
himself to be a quibbler, with no interest at all in finding out
what actually happened. The premises of his arguments are, as a
rule, unclear, false or uncertain, and the conclusions, therefore,
uncertain or wrong.
The reader who is familiar with the
book of the famous Austrian prophet and "fanatical anti-Semite"
cannot help being reminded of what Hitler wrote about Jewish
dialectics in Mein Kampf. Hitler´s conclusion applies
nicely to the deniers:
"Man wusste nicht,
was man mehr bestaunen sollte, ihre Zungenfertigkeit, oder ihre
Kunst der Lüge" (Hitler 1943, p. 67).
But why waste all these words on mere ignorance and distortion
and chutzpah! In the end, one only needs to listen carefully to
Himmler´s own words. Reichsführer-SS,
to the Generals in Sonthofen, 21 June, 1944:
"Eine andere grosse Frage war noch
notwendig zu lösen. Es war die furchtbarste Aufgabe und der
furchbarste Auftrag, den eine Organisation bekommen konnte: der
Auftrag, die Judenfrage zu lösen. Ich darf dies auch in diesem
Kreis wieder in aller Offenheit mit ein paar Sätzen sagen. Es ist
gut, dass wir die Härte hatten, die Juden in unserem Bereich
auszurotten. Fragen Sie nicht, wie schwer das war, sonderen haben
Sie als Soldaten - ich möchte fast sagen - Verständnis dafür, wie
schwer ein solcher Befehl durchzuführen ist (...) Ebenso will ich
auch eine Frage, die sicherlich gedacht wird, gleich beantworten.
Die Frage heisst: Ja, wissen Sie, dass Sie die erwachsenen Juden
umbringen, das verstehe ich, aber die Frauen und Kinder...?"
(Bradley F. Smith et al. 1974, pp. 203-204).
The speech is authentic, and the meaning unequivocally clear.
Himmler refers to the past, not to the future. It is a statement of
fact. The SS has, as an organisation, fulfilled the horrible task
of solving the Jewish problem by murdering Jewish men, women and
children. It was difficult thing, but also a good thing. Himmler´s
words - here as elsewhere - confirm that Hitler´s prophecies were
not merely empty words.
It is impossible to argue that Himmler here is a jester or a
liar. The truth of his words is supported by an enormous mass of
independent documentary evidence, provided, above all, by
statements of his own men, members of the SS, the Einsatzgruppen
and the Ordnungspolizei etc.
Himmler is not merely speaking of Jews as partisans - as
documented e.g. by the Kaunas report of Karl Jäger, 1 December 1941
(see Wette, infra). In this case, deniers - wisely - refrain from
attempting to distort Himmler´s own plain words. Having no other
option, they simply ignore them, and they are forced to do so in
order to uphold their basic (but baseless) thesis that there was no
order, no plan, no budget and no mass murder of the Jews etc. Thus,
they exclude themselves from the society of honest and open-minded
historians. At the same time, some of them complain that their
right to "freedom of speech" has been taken from them! The truth is
that they are depriving themselves of their own rights.
The works of prominent Holocaust deniers are, to sum up, not
only full of distortions and ignorance, but also of ad hominem
attacks, tedious repetitions and other kinds of quibble or pilpul.
It is no doubt true that the lingua mendax et dolosa of Holocaust
denial stands out as a practical problem. The irresponsibility of
prominent deniers has caused much public confusion and many a
personal tragedy. It is, in the final analysis, a modern form
of sophistry and superstition.
In my view, ignorance and superstition should not merely be
ignored or condemned. Nor should it be exploited, as is too often
the case. The reasons for ignorance and superstition may be very
difficult to spot, but they are there, somewhere, and they have to
be identified. Failure to do so is bound to have fatal
consequences, sooner or later. It is a sad fact, that incompetent
historians have often failed to spot out the errors of the deniers.
Deniers should be refuted - not condemned or
imprisoned. I see no other way out of dangerous myths
and superstitions than the old and narrow path of higher
education and enlightenment. In the long run the old Sanskrit adage
still applies: satyam eva jâyate - Truth will prevail - in
the end.
Perhaps, before I conclude, I may quote Wolfgang Curilla, who,
in 2011, summarized his own meticulous investigations
concerning the Ordnungspolizei in Poland only:
"Die deutsche Ordnungspolizei wirkte
bei der Durchführung des Judenmords in Polen in unvorstellbarem
Masse mit. Etwa 30.000 Polizisten waren für den Tod von weit mehr
als 2,3 Millionen Menschen jüdischer Herkunft
mitverantwortlich."
How can an America professor then claim that "at the end of the
war they were still there"? Are we perhaps faced with a modern
variant of the legend of the Lord´s Resurrection from the empty
tomb?
In my video presentation Hitler's
Prophecy, I suggest that a sharp distinction be drawn
between, on the one hand, Vernichtung or Endlösung, the German
terms, and, on the other hand, the modern term, introduced after
the war, Holocaust, an old Biblical term.
The latter includes many features not present in the former, on
which it is based. To some extent, Holocaust is an interpretation
and exploitation of the Endlösung. Unlike other cases of mass
killings, Holocaust has become a sort of modern secular world
religion. This development can be compared to, on the one hand,
ancient "holy scriptures", and, on the other, to the world
religions and institutions that have developed on that basis.
As in the case of Holocaust denial, deception and ignorance is
involved. Of course, one should study, understand and learn from
the Vernichtung of the Jews - and many other groups who suffered
during and after many wars. And there is certainly much to learn
from such studies.
To learn from the past, however, is not at all the same as
exploiting the past, for this or that purpose. Holocaust is, so to
speak, the commercial version of Endlösung.
References
Evidence for a Hitler order, for a Himmler order, for mass
extermination of Jews, for gas vans and gas chambers, for the
removal of the physical evidence of the crimes ("Aktion 1005"), for
a refutation of the superficial report of Leuchter, etc. is
provided e.g. by the most recent recent works published
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um den Nationalsozialismus. Frankfurt/Main 1993.
Richard Overy, Verhöre. Die NS-Elite in den Händen der
Alliierten 1945. München 2002.
Henry Picker, Hitlers Tischgespräche. Berlin 1989.
Richard Rhodes, Die deutschen Mörder. Die SS-Einsatzgruppen
und der Holocaust. Bergisch Gladbach 2004.
Adalbert Rückerl, NS-Vernichtungslager. Im Spiegel deutscher
Strafprozesse. München 1977.
Dieter Schenk, Der Lemberger Professorenmord und der
Holocaust in Ostgalizien. Bonn 2007.
Annegret Schüle, Industrie und Holocaust, Topf und Söhne.
Die Ofenbauer von Auschwitz. Göttingen 2010.
Bradley F. Smith et al, Himmler Geheimreden 1933 bis 1945
und andere Ansprachen. Berlin 1974.
Robert Jan van Pelt & Debórah Dwork, Auschwitz. Von 1270
bis heute. Zürich, München 1998.
Robert Jan van Pelt, The Case for Auschwitz. Evidence from
the Irving Trail. Bloomington & Indianapolis 2002.
Wolfram Wette, Karl Jäger. Mörder der litauischen
Juden. Frankfurt am Main 2011.
Michael Wildt, Generation des Unbedingten. Das Führungskorps
des Reichsicherheitshauptamtes. Hamburg 2002.
Website
Massimo Arico, www.ordnungspolizei.org
Postscript: Denial is Chutzpah
In response to two letters of mine, addressed to Dr Fredrick
Toben in Australia, Mr. Jürgen Graf (JG) published, on 22 July
2011, a "letter of contempt" entitled
"The moral and intellectual bankruptcy of a scholar: Dr. Christian
Lindtner and Holocaust Revisionism". JG takes up ten points
that I have for the most part already dealt with above.
Reading his open letter, I understand that my "moral and
intellectual bankruptcy" has to do with the fact that most of
my research depends on the scientific work produced by German
scholars such as Wolfgang Curilla, Krausnick & Wilhelm (1981),
and many others (see my Bibliography above for details).
It is quite true that I "stand on the shoulders of German
scholarship" - in this field as in other fields of research. All
Danish scholars of "the old school" would agree that when it comes
to the study of ancient religions, languages, philology, theology,
history etc., Danish scholars do, indeed, stand on the shoulders of
their German colleagues. This does not mean that Danish scholars
consider themselves unable to come up with their own independent
contributions to scientific progress; many Danish scholars (Rask,
N.L. Westergaard, Madvig, J.L.Heiberg, Vilh. Thomsen, Frederik
Poulsen et al.) have done so, and thus won the respect of their
German colleagues. For that reason, they may also feel obliged to
defend German colleagues when these are unfairly attacked and,
perhaps, not in a position freely to defend themselves - for
various historical reasons.
JG admits that he has not read some of these books.
Nevertheless, JG does not hesitate to condemn them as the "works of
dogmatic and bigoted court historians", who violate "every
principle of scientific historiography", etc.
This is totally unfair. Curilla and others base their research
on contemporary German police reports, contemporary diaries etc.,
and on an enormous amount of German witnesses, who were present and
who took part in the crimes etc. They deal with these documents in
a critical fashion, as one should. In the opinion of JG, however,
all this "evidence for the Holocaust was fabricated by West German
justice."
All the reports are "suspect from the beginning" etc., according
to JG. JG bases his denial on the fact that there are - true - a
few cases of false documents and witnesses. He then jumps to the
general conclusion that all, or nearly all documents and witnesses
are false. Jumping like a ball to general conclusions is not what
we expect from a serious scholar.
Faced with German documents that seem to be authentic, JG
typically avoids the issue. For instance, when Himmler said to the
generals in Sonthofen in June 1944: "Es ist gut, dass wir die
Härte hatten, die Juden in unserem Bereich auszurotten", one
expects a fair comment from JG.
Instead, JG reminds us of the fact that not all Jews had been
exterminated. Many survived, even the war. This is quite true. But
Himmler was speaking of those that had already been exterminated!
Did Himmler not know what he was talking about? And what about many
other statements from Himmler to the very same effect: The Jews had
to be exterminated, and they were exterminated.
Coming to the problem of the Vergasungskeller, or Gaskeller, JG
suggest, with Mattogno, that this cellar was to be used for
delousing, but the Germans later dropped that project. Here, a
normal historian would ask, WHY and WHEN the Germans dropped that
project? But most of all, one wants to know what kind of delousing
the Germans had in mind before they dropped this project. Did they
intend to delouse clothing? Or did they intend to delouse cadavers
(dead Jews, as suggested by David Irving)? In any case, the answer
is absurd.
By bringing up Babi Yar and Katyn, JG reveals his lack of
historical sense. Paul Blobel was the first (in Nuremberg) to
question the figure of 33.711 victims, finding it too high; but
Blobel never denied the event as such. Present were also, as has
recently become known, members of the Polizeibataillon 303, from
Bremen. And the mass murder at Babi Yar near Kiev in September 1941
must be seen in the historical context of numerous similar events
in the second half of 1941: the murder of the Jews of Lubny in
October, the children of Bjelaja-Zerkow in August, the naked women
of Libau in December etc. etc. The work of an Italian scholar
enables us to follow in the bloody tracks of the German police, day
by day, from one place to another, with the purpose of making the
land "free from Jews". The proof is largely provided by their own
reports (www.ordnungspolizei.org),
occasionally confirmed by the independent evidence of local
witnesses, in rare cases even photographs.
Katyn is important, not only because it shows, as is well-known
by now, that the Soviets were ready to prepare false "scientific
reports" of the actual events, but also - and that is to be kept in
mind - because the efforts of the Germans demonstrate how sensitive
they were to the incriminating evidence provided by mass graves.
For that very reason, they gave highest priority to the removal of
the traces of their own mass graves. Again, the responsibility for
their removal was assigned to Paul Blobel: "Sein Auftrag erhielt
absoluten Vorrang vor anderen Aufgaben" (Curilla, 2006, p.
746).
JG also contends that "Kommando 1005" could not have
removed the physical remains of all those bodies, and that "court
historians" have failed to account for this. But Curilla (2006, pp.
745-769) has provided careful documentation of the activities, the
problems etc. that "Sonderkommando 1005" faced. JG starts counting
Jewish teeth, but would it not have been better taste to quote
Curilla:
"Die nicht völlig verbrannten
Knochenreste wurden mit Stampfern zerkleinert und zusammen mit der
Asche im Gelände verstreut." (op. cit., p. 753).
For the same reason it is difficult to satisfy the absurd
demands of those who insist on seeing all the dead Jews on the
table before they will believe that Hitler and Himmler et al. were
speaking the truth.
With some of their own crimes in mind, Generalkommissar Kube, in
an 18 June 1943 letter from Riga to Berlin is quoted for asking:
"Was ist dagegen Katyn?" Since this letter has been easily
available to scholars at least since 1955 (Léon Poliakov &
Joseph Wulf, Das Dritte Reich und die Juden. Berlin 1955,
p. 192), one wonders why JG ignores it now that he himself has
chosen to take up this issue. And Wilhelm Kube, a brutal old
National socialist, is also an excellent contemporary witness to
numerous other cases of mass murder in Belorussia. These documents
cannot possibly have been fabricated by German justice after the
war, as JG may wish to insinuate.
JG mentions Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski, but his case is by no
means as simple as here presented by JG; see the references in
Krausnick & Wilhelm, 1981, p. 671; and ibid., p. 639: "1962 in
einem von mehreren gegen ihn angestrengten Verfahren zu
lebenslänglichem Zuchthaus verurteilt."- In Nuremberg, on 7 January
1946, v.d. Bach-Zelewski was asked about the murder of 90000 men,
as Ohlendorf, commander of Einsatzgruppe D, had freely
admitted a few days earlier. He replied:
"Wenn man jahrelang predigt,
jahrzehntelang predigt, dass die slawische Rasse eine Unterrasse
ist, dass die Juden überhaupt keine Menschen sind, dann muss es zu
einer solchen Explosion kommen."
This argument makes good sense, and it reflects the views of
Hitler and Himmler. It reflects what actually happened. For Hitler,
even the most severe punishment of the Jews was too mild. Goebbels
in his diary, 27 April 1942:
"Die Juden haben unserem Erdteil
soviel Leid zugefügt, dass die härteste Strafe, die man über sie
verhängen kann, immer noch zu milde ist..."
On 27 March 1942, Goebbels had noted what happened to the Jews
in the East:
"Es wird hier hier ein ziemlich
barbarisches und nicht näher zu beschreibendes Verfahren angewandt,
und von den Juden selbst bleibt nicht mehr viel übrig. Im grossen
kann man wohl feststellen, dass 60% davon liquidiert werden müssen,
während nur noch 40% in die Arbeit eingesetzt werden können."...
"Gott sei Dank haben wir jetzt während des Krieges eine ganze Reihe
von Möglichkeiten, die uns im Frieden verwehrt wären. Die müssen
wir ausnützen."
Shooting was merely one of the several possible ways of getting
rid of the Jews. Goebbels, 16 March 1942:
"Es erweist sich deshalb als
notwendig in vermehrten Umfange wieder Juden zu erschiessen."
Hans Frank and many, many others also refer to the shooting of
Jews in this period (see e.g. Dieter Schenk, Der Lemberger
Professorenmord und der Holocaust in Ostgalizien, passim).
In spite of all this, JG claims claims that there is no German
documentation for the murder of Jewish women and children. But, in
truth, there are hundreds of documents. Within easy reach is the
report of Karl Jäger, 1 December 1941. See the recent book by
Wolfram Wette: Karl Jäger. Mörder der litauischen Juden,
Frankfurt a. M. 2011. The systematic murder of Jewish men, women
and children in Lithuania started already in July 1941. By 1
December the toll of victims had reached 137.346. Jäger, commander
of Einsatzkommando 3 (EG A) wrote:
"Ich kann heute feststellen, dass
das Ziel, das Judenproblem für Litauen zu lösen, von EK. 3 erreicht
worden ist. In Litauen gibt es keine Juden mehr, ausser den
Arbeitsjuden incl. ihrer Familien,...". (Wette, op. cit. p.
243).
Jäger committed suicide in his cell in 1959. He did not deny the
crimes in Lithuania, only his own personal responsibility. He put
the blame on one of his subordinates, Joachim Hamann, whose name
has now become insolubly associated with the notoriously efficient
"Rollkommando Hamann". Hamann, an ardent antisemite, took his own
life in July 1945. In 1990, to be sure, Professor Robert Faurisson,
made a feeble attempt to question Jäger´s report (Ecrits
revisionnistes, III, p. 1028): According to Faurisson, it
reported the execution of "plusieurs centaines de milliers de juifs
" - which is not the case - and "les sources dont il
s´inspire sont inconnues" - which is also not the case (see Wette,
op. cit., passim).
Faurisson moreover refers to the standard work on the
Einsatzgruppen of Krausnick and Wilhelm from 1981. He tells us that
it contains 688 pages, which is true (and irrelevant here), but
that "les auteurs ne produisent un ordre ou un plan d´extermination
des juifs soviétiques" - which is a gross distortion (op. cit., p.
1028). Typically, on the basis of a few insignificant errors, the
value of the work of these two eminent German scholars as a whole
is flatly rejected (op. cit.,p. 1029).
The easiest way to "understand" Faurisson´s "method", however,
is to revise the list of names given in the fourth
volume of his Ecrits revisionnistes, pp. 1955- 1991. If
one takes the trouble to compare this index with the
long lists of names given in the works of Krausnick &
Wilhelm, Curilla and many other German scholars, one will see that
Faurisson simply ignores scores of important German witnesses to
the Endlösung. Instead, he wastes a lot of paper on entirely
insignificant or false witnesses,often repeating himself by
giving names that no normal historian or court would take very
serious.
And what about Himmler´s order from July 1941:
"Sämtliche Juden müssen erschossen
werden. Judenweiber in die Sümpfe treiben." (Christopher Browning,
Die Entfesslung der "Endlösung". Berlin 2006, p. 410).
JG just ignores these contemporary sources. Or Hitler´s own
words, 30 January 1942, about the Vernichtung des Judentums:
"Zum erstenmal wird diesmal das echt
altjüdische Gesetz anwendet: "Aug´ um Aug´, Zahn um Zahn!""
Again, JG ignores contemporary evidence.
And as for the gas vans, that the Danish Sanskritist
had the "audacity" to mention: Good German evidence of
gassing Jews and others in vans and in chambers, in camps and
elsewhere, right from 1939, is found in the recent book
edited by Günter Morsch & Bertrand Perz, Neue Studien
zu Nationalsozialistischen Massentötungen durch Giftgas.
Berlin 2011. Here, the various false claims to be found in the
reports of Leuchter and Rudolf are also debunked. Any serious
debate about gassings should, of course, not start with Auschwitz,
but with the beginning: the euthanasia program, then
Chelmno/Kulmhof etc. - Why in the world would there be gassings of
Jews and others in so many other places - but not in
Auschwitz-Birkenau?
To sum up: Jürgen Graf´s "letter of contempt" confirms what I
have already concluded above about the method of deniers: The trick
is simply to ignore or distort the evidence available. You
slander scholars who stick to the available evidence and to the
historical context. Compared to a giant like Hilberg, who, like all
scholars, made errors, JG turns out to be a dwarf.
So it seems fair to conclude, as I did, that "Denial is
Chutzpah".
What about Mr Graf himself? Graf has a rare command of many
languages, to my ear he even speaks Danish admirably well. He is a
prolific writer and translator. He fights for his beliefs. As
such, he probably deserves credit for having removed many popular
misconceptions about the Holocaust. It is a sad truth that
competent scholars, fearing public exposure, perhaps, often fail to
take steps to correct popular misconceptions that flourish in
the media. . With all his abilities, it is a great pity that
Graf has little or no training as a scholar. For serious
scholarship he only has contempt, as a dilettant often has.
Most of all, however, JG reminds us of a Christian
fundamentalist. No rational argument will persuade such Biblical
fundamentalists to admit that the earth is not in the center of the
universe, or that Jesus is not sitting up there on a cloud just
waiting for the right moment to fly down followed by his apostles
to take revenge. It is, perhaps, for that reason, that JG concludes
his letter of contempt by confessing to the world that he does not
endorse my humble views about the Buddhist and Hellenistic origins
of early Christianity.
Gott sei Dank!
Dr. Christian Lindtner, 24 July 2011