| Topic: |
Sociology > Education |
| User: |
"" |
| Date: |
10 Mar 2005 11:22:24 AM |
| Object: |
A Brief Introduction to Holocaust Revisionism |
A Brief Introduction to Holocaust Revisionism
Arthur R. Butz
Dr. Arthur R. Butz is an associate professor of electrical engineering
at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. He is also the
author of a major revisionist study of the Holocaust story, The Hoax
of the Twentieth Century, as well as a member of the IHR Journal's
editorial advisory committee. Earlier this year, as the Holocaust
story was flaring on the Northwestern campus as an issue of often
intensely acrimonious debate, Butz once again found himself in the
center of the storm. (For more on this, including the key role played
by IHR media project director Bradley Smith, see the May and July 1991
issues of the IHR Newsletter.) At the height of the controversy,Butz
presented his view of the Holocaust story in a succinct essay that
appeared in the school paper, The Daily Northwestern, May 13, 1991,
under the title "A Short Introduction to theStudy of Holocaust
Revisionism," Here is the complete text of his piece, which includes a
correction of an error that appeared in the Daily Northwestern
version:
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I see three principal reasons for the widespread but erroneous belief
in the legend of millions of Jews killed by the Germans during World
War II: U.S. and British troops found horrible piles of corpses in the
West German camps they captured in 1945 (e.g. Dachau and Belsen);
there are no longer large communities of Jews in Poland; and
historians generally support the legend.
During both world wars, Germany was forced to fight typhus, carried by
lice in the constant traffic with the East. That is why all accounts
of entry into the German concentration camps speak of shaving of hair
and showering and other delousing procedures, such as treatment of
quarters with the pesticide Zyklon. That was also the main reason for
a high death rate in the camps, and for the crematoria that existed in
all.
When Germany collapsed in chaos, then of course all such defenses
ceased, and typhus and other diseases became rampant in the camps,
which quartered mainly political prisoners, ordinary criminals,
homosexuals, conscientious objectors and Jews conscripted for labor.
Hence the horrible scenes, which however had nothing to do with
"extermination" or any deliberate policy. Moreover, the West German
camps involved were not the alleged "extermination camps," which were
all in Poland (e.g. Auschwitz and Treblinka) and which were all
evacuated or shut down before capture by the Soviets, who found no
such scenes.
The "Final Solution" spoken of in the German documents was a program
of evacuation, resettlement and deportation of Jews with the ultimate
objective of expulsion from Europe. During the war Jews of various
nationalities were being moved east, as one stage in this Final
Solution. The legend claims that the motion was mainly for
extermination purposes.
The great majority of the milions allegedly exterminated were East
European -- not German or West European -- Jews. For that reason study
of the problem via population statistics has been difficult to
impossible, but it is a fact that there are no longer large
communities of Jews in Poland. However, the Germans were only one of
several parties involved in moving Jews around. The Soviets deported
virtually all of the Jews of eastern Poland to their interior in 1940.
After the war, with Polish and other Jews pouring out of the East into
occupied West Germany, the Zionists moved large numbers to Palestine,
and the United States and other countries absorbed many Jews, in most
cases under conditions making impossible a numerical accounting.
Moreover, the Polish borders were changed drastically at the end of
the war; the country was literally moved west.
Historians generally support the legend, but there are precedents for
nearly incomprehensible blindness on the part of scholars. For
example, throughout the Middle Ages even the Pope's political enemies
conceded his false claim that the 4th century Emperor Constantine had
ceded rule of the west to the Pope, although all knew very well that
Constantine had been succeeded by more emperors. Near unanimity among
the academics is especially suspect when there exist great political
pressures; in some countries, Holocaust Revisionists have been
prosecuted.
It is easy to show that the extermination legend merits skepticism.
Even the casual reader of the Holocaust literature knows that during
the war virtually nobody acted as though it were happening. Thus it is
common to berate the Vatican, the Red Cross and the Allies (especially
the intelligence agencies) of their ignorance and inaction, and to
explain that the Jews generally did not resist deportation because
they did not know what was in store for them. If you add all this up
you have the strange claim that for almost three years German trains,
operating on a continental scale in densely civilized regions of
Europe, were regularly and systematically moving millions of Jews to
their deaths, and nobody noticed except for a few of our Jewish
leaders who were making public "extermination" claims.
On closer examination even those few Jewish leaders were not acting as
though it were happening. Ordinary communications between the occupied
and neutral countries were open, and they were in contact with the
Jews whom the Germans were deporting, who thus could not have been in
ignorance of "extermination" if those claims had any validity.
This incredible ignorance must also be attributed to Hans Oster's
department in German military intelligence, correctly labeled "the
veritable general staff of the opposition to Hitler" in a recent
review.
What we are offered in evidence was gathered after the war, in trials.
The evidence is almost all oral testimony and "confessions." Without
the evidence of these trials there would be no significant evidence of
"extermination." One must pause and ponder this carefully. Were trials
needed to determine that the Battle of Waterloo happened? The bombings
of Hamburg, Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki? The slaughter in
Cambodia? Yet this three-year program, of continental scope, claiming
millions of victims, requires trials to argue its reality. I am not
arguing that the trials were illegal or unfair, I am arguing that such
historical logic as the legend rests on must not be countenanced. Such
events cannot happen without generating commensurate and
contemporaneous evidence for their reality, just as a great forest
fire cannot take place without producing smoke. One may as well
believe that New York City was burned down, if confessions to the deed
can be produced.
Detailed consideration of the specific evidence put forward in support
of the legend has been a focus of the Revisionist literature and
cannot be undertaken here, but I shall mention one point. The claim of
the legend is that there were no technical means provided for the
specific task of extermination, and that means originally provided for
other purposes did double duty in improvised arrangements. Thus the
Jews were allegedly gassed with the pesticide Zyklon, and their
corpses disappeared into the crematoria along with the deaths from
"ordinary" causes (the ashes or other remains of millions of victims
never having been found). Surely any thoughtful person must be
skeptical.
==========================
--
Freedom of speech involves the right to think the unthinkable,
mention the unmentionable, and challenge the unchallengeable.
Oliver Wendell Holmes
.
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: A Brief Introduction to Holocaust Revisionism |
10 Mar 2005 04:55:33 PM |
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wrote:
A Brief Introduction to Holocaust Revisionism
Arthur R. Butz
Dr. Arthur R. Butz is an associate professor of electrical
engineering
at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. He is also the
author of a major revisionist study of the Holocaust story, The Hoax
of the Twentieth Century, as well as a member of the IHR Journal's
editorial advisory committee.
In other words, Mr. Butz is a denier who has written a ridiculous book
which merely denies the evidence of the Holocaust.
He is not a revisionist, and doesn't know enough about the Holocaust to
revise it.
--
Philip Mathews
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