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Wilhelm SchlesigerThe Rudolf Case
Campaign to destroy an innocent scientist,
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Contents
For some time there has been a flurry of press announcements and reports in the media on the Rudolf Expert Report, a technical physical study on the supposed killing gas chambers of Auschwitz. However, hardly anyone knows the history of this expert report or knows what the subject matter of the expert report is, what conclusions it comes to and how some well-known persons have assessed it.
The use of expert reports in criminal trials is normal. They have even been used in trials concerning the Holocaust. However, the reports have always been of a historical nature or were psychiatric studies of the supposed criminals and victims. Natural scientific expert reports on the reported crimes themselves, which are an everyday usage in any ordinary murder trial or motor car crash, were never undertaken. Here and there defense attorneys have made motions for this purpose, but the courts have uniformly rejected them because of the "common knowledge" fact of the "Holocaust".
In such trials the defense's only recourse is to commission an expert report on its own account and to present it on its own behalf. But to date such expert reports have been rejected by German courts because of the "common knowledge" of the supposed crime.
The Rudolf Expert Report was such a defense expert report, prepared by Diplom Chemist Germar Rudolf on commission of constitutional attorney Hajo Herrmann. Since this expert report was presented the media have attempted to label the expert witness himself as an accused criminal. Now not only the accused for whose defense the expert report was prepared sat in the dock of public opinion, but the expert witness himself. Although in a state under the rule of law the technical expert G. Rudolf should enjoy the protection afforded to witnesses, he became the object of a witchhunt that has few parallels. This persecution is intended to make it clear that anyone who attempts to help an accused in a Holocaust case will effectively be outlawed. Campaigns like this are meant to sweep away the last remnants of process of law in Holocaust trials so that the Inquisition can pronounce its terror verdicts.
Through its illuminating effect, the present publication should help prevent this plan from succeeding. It should signal to every technical expert who is ready to present the truth in Holocaust cases that he is not an outlaw and that he has our solidarity. If we can do that with this booklet, we will have achieved our purpose.
Before the progress of this Inquisition in the case of Germar Rudolf is explained, the subject of the Rudolf Expert Report should first be briefly presented. Here are Rudolf's conclusions as they are stated in his Gutachten �ber die Bildung und Nachweisbarkeit von Cyanidverbindungen in den 'Gaskammern' von Auschwitz (Expert Report on the Formation and Detectability of Cyanide Compounds in the 'Gas Chambers' of Auschwitz) on page 97ff. (version printed by Cromwell Press, London 1993):
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"Final Determinations A: The investigation of the formation and stability of traces of cyanide in masonry of the indicated structures as well as interpretation of the analytic results of samples of building material from these structures in Auschwitz shows:
Conclusion to A: On physical-chemical grounds, the mass gassings with Prussic acid in the supposed "gas chambers" of Auschwitz claimed by witnesses could not have taken place. B: The investigation of the events of the mass gassings in the indicated rooms claimed by witnesses, from a technical and practical standpoint, including physical-chemical analysis, showed:
Conclusion to B: The procedures of mass gassing narrated in witness testimony given before the courts, cited in judicial rulings and described in scientific and literary publications, in any building of Auschwitz whatever, are not consistent with natural scientific law. Diplom Chemist Germar Rudolf, Stuttgart, 14.3.1993 DECLARATION The author of this expert report can rely only on witness statements and documents now in existence, which alone are the basis for the current historical description of the questions here studied. If the belief prevails that the witnesses erred in their testimony, the expert witness declares that there is thereby no further reason for the commissioning of an expert report, and, in his opinion, also no further reason that can justify sentencing by the courts, the fixing of history by penal law and the criminal prosecution of certain speech. The invention of new scenarios and techniques of mass murder which contradict the witness testimony is characteristic of Hollywood's horror factory, but has nothing to do with the writing of history." |
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"State Attorney's Office Stuttgart, Az. 4 Js 34417/93 19.04.1994 Charges against Germar Rudolf [...] The accused denies [...] not only the commonly acknowledged fact of the systematic mass-murder of Jews [...] in a manner directed at the honor of the Jews [...] moreover, motivated to excuse National Socialism from the blot of the murder of the Jews by an at least partial identification with the National Socialist persecutions, he attempts to deny — not least through scorn of the statements of witnesses who were victims of the persecution — the particular destiny of Jews of persecution during the National Socialist era. [...] The accused's committed intention to diminish the suffering of Jews concretely affected is clear, for one thing, from the tendentious, hate-provoking choice of words. [...] From the contents of the "expert report" [...], it can be seen that the accused identifies with the race ideology of National Socialism and is thereby motivated to awaken and stir up hostile feelings against Jews. [...]" |
As proof of these accusations the State Attorney cited the above-given conclusions of the Rudolf Expert Report. We recommend that the State Attorney in question, State Attorney Arndt, submit herself for psychiatric examination.
Comments of some historians on the Rudolf Expert Report"I am very impressed. To my knowledge you are the first technical expert in Germany who has tackled this complex subject in a flawless and scientifically sound manner. I do not hesitate to say that your expert report may serve as an ice-breaker. The political-historical effects that will come from it are easy to see, although their full scope can not now be told." Prof. Dr. Hellmut Diwald, 22.1.1992 "I have read it with great interest, and I am only sorry that I am no longer as proficient in rebus chemicis as I was a half-century ago before taking my Abitur. However, my impression is that this expert report is an important contribution to a very important question, whose answer has become more pressing since the "Leuchter Report". ... It can only be hoped that the well-known tactic of killing by silence will not be applied here, and that responses and comments will be forthcoming." Prof. Dr. Ernst Nolte, 28.1.1992 "I count the receipt of your study to be one of the high points of knowledge that one can experience in our time. I share my joy and thankfulness for your research endeavors with not a few colleagues working in the area of contemporary history, especially in respect to the results of your strictly scientific investigations." Prof. Dr. Werner Georg Haverbeck, 31.1.1992 "I have read your study at leisure. It gives me hope to see that a member of the younger generation has bravely undertaken to get to the bottom of a question disputed world-wide in a disinterested manner and with scientific thoroughness, clearly superior technical ability and corresponding zeal for research! The result is unequivocal! The truth about things can not be suppressed forever! I hope that your work will be the breakthrough!" Prof. Dr. Emil Schlee, 1.4.1992 "... I thank you for your graciously sending me the new draft of your expert report. I heartily wish that all writing on this subject were based on such long and intensive work as yours so obviously is. Certainly most of it is unverifiable to the layman, but even the photographs are very informative. Please inform me from time to time when reactions and comments appear." Prof. Dr. Ernst Nolte, 6.1.1993 |
Schlesiger: Mr. Rudolf, several things have been written and reported about you recently as the Auschwitz expert witness. People have accused you of all kinds of extremism and imputed that you were the chief ideologist of the political Right. But they never provide evidence for the accusations. After all that has been reported, I am mostly interested in what kind of man you are. What have been the principal influences on you in your youth, up until your just-completed 29th birthday?
Rudolf: Certainly my parents' liberal-conservative Catholic home influenced me the most, with the religious and moral precepts that were taught there. In my youth and also during my chemistry studies I sought to be close to the Catholic Church, whether in Catholic youth work or in a Catholic student union, to which Cardinal Josef H�ffner also belonged.
Schlesiger: Did you participate in any political activity during this period?
Rudolf: Yes, and it was in a sense Christian politics. This did not mean that I was enthusiastic for any political party. I was in the Young Union (of the CSU/CDU) for only a short time, and my interest in a Republic-wide CSU (Christian Social Union) came to an end when I realized that the CDU (Christian Democratic Union) would never tolerate a Republic-wide party in competition. All attempts in that direction to date have been blocked in every possible way, some of them very dubious.
Schlesiger: How do you see yourself politically now?
Rudolf: In no-man's land. Today I am attempting to work on a scientific question in a purely professional manner and to leave all politics out of it. However, the world wants to politicize this question any way it can, which not only harms me and my work, but certainly also those who politicize it. Also, through my research I have come to the realization that there is nothing in the world more harmful than sanctified dogmas and ideologies that people try to enforce against reality at the expense of the rest of the world. In other words, I loathe the dirty business of politics.
Schlesiger: But the Catholic Church proclaims holy dogmas. Do you hold to those?
Rudolf: There is a logical conflict there that I am not finished with. In this, I have two hearts in my breast.
Schlesiger: How does the Catholic Church behave toward you?
Rudolf: There has never been a problem.
Schlesiger: What relations do you have with Jews?
Rudolf: I must tell you, I do not know any. I have no relations with them. But even if I did know one, that would be a relationship with a specific person. He could not be considered as a representative of the Jews in general. I think the question is not useful. You could just as well ask, What relations do you have with Moslems? I would have the same response. Totally none. That would be the right answer.
Schlesiger: But you must surely have an idea about the Jews.
Rudolf: That was mostly formed by the picture that was presented through religious instruction during my school years, and thus it has an Old Testament character. My conception of modern Jewry is due to the current media picture of Israel and naturally also the interventions of the Central Council of the Jews in Federal German politics play a part. That is the limit of the place this subject occupies in my intellectual engagement with the world.
Schlesiger: Do you think that it is normal that a young Diplom Chemist should undertake to find out whether something might be wrong with the stories on the gas chambers of Auschwitz?
Rudolf: No, not at all. I remember well how during school we disliked to have to hear stories about the Holocaust. It is much more normal for one to avoid these ugly themes, which are unpleasant especially for Germans. That is the normal reaction of people today when I would like to discuss the issue with them. The reaction is much the same in foreign countries. Who wants to root around in the real or even only supposed piles of corpses of bygone times?
Schlesiger: What caused you to do this research, then?
Rudolf: The main reason has to do with my upbringing. In my childhood and youth, the art of open discussion, the objective confrontation with the opinions of others, was one of the most difficult nuts for me to crack. It took me a long time to accept that one had to tolerate completely divergent opinions in order not to condemn the person who held them. Even in the case of such opinions, one must first listen closely so as to grasp the arguments and be able to refute them. That is one of the main purposes of education for democracy and was one of the ideals of the '68 movement: Above all, everything should be up for discussion without taboos.
Schlesiger: Did you dedicate yourself to research on Auschwitz because you noticed that there was no open discussion in that subject?
Rudolf: Not right away. At first I heard some people who held the opinion that there was something wrong with the established historical account on the Holocaust. Usually people leave such people out in the rain with their opinions or attempt to shut them up, through the courts, for example. That did not seem to me to be the right way for an enlightened young man who is competent in debate and willing to discuss.
Schlesiger: And then you had doubts yourself of your understanding of history?
Rudolf: Not from the first few conversations, since I thought the arguments were somewhat miserable. Then after a discussion with a former FDP (Free Democratic Party) member I discovered that there were people who could discuss even this subject objectively and controversially without the usual hysteria. That impressed me greatly. Then I began to look at the subject more critically myself.
Schlesiger: Did this FDP member convince you?
Rudolf: He would not have been able to do that, but it was not his intention. The method he practiced was the no-holds-barred, taboo-free, open discussion of anything that people usually consider untouchable. He had only prepared my mind to admit doubt, nothing more.
Schlesiger: This laid the mental foundation on which your later work as an expert witness could build. In Fall 1993 you gave an interview to Fritz Berg, a member of the Institute for Historical Review in California, on the origin of your expert report on the gas chambers of Auschwitz, which we reproduce here in full:
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Berg: Mr. Rudolf, recently your "Expert Report on the Formation and Detectability of Cyanide Compounds in the 'Gas Chambers' of Auschwitz" has caused a furore behind the curtains. How did it happen that you as a member of the younger generation produced this report? Rudolf: About 1984, at the beginning of my chemistry studies, I was given a book by Armin Mohler on the suppression of history in Germany, based on a semi-official study. This book intrigued me so much that in 1989, shortly before I completed my Diplom studies, I got the expanded second edition. In this book it was stated that an American technical expert had prepared an expert report on the gas chambers of Auschwitz in which he concluded that these rooms had never been used for mass murder. He supported this conclusion by pointing out, for one thing, that there were hardly any traces of cyanide in the gas chambers, whereas there were high concentrations of it in the clothing delousing chambers. After I had read this book, I felt as though I had been hit over the head. One thing was certain: either this American was a charlatan or my whole worldview was untrue. The first thing I had to do to decide this question was to get a copy of this expert paper and read it. That was the beginning of my work. Berg: Did the Leuchter Report convince you? Rudolf: No, not at all. He raised more questions than he was able to answer. For example, in Spring 1990 in the journal Jungen Freiheit, Prof. Nolte had pointed out that it was possible that cyanide would be destroyed by the weather. The Leuchter Report did not discuss clearly what the condition of the supposed gas chambers was, how stable the traces of cyanide — that is, cyanide compounds — were, or whether they would even have formed during the claimed gassings of humans. At the time I had posed these questions in a letter to the Jungen Freiheit and decided that I would set myself the task of answering these doubts, on which hung the life and death of a whole worldview. Berg: Was not your decision influenced by the request of a constitutional attorney who wanted to have an expert report to use in court? Rudolf: No. The first outside reaction I got was a response to the above-mentioned letter to the journal. In February 1991, I received from an unknown person a list of addresses of persons and institutions who might be interested in my research and in whatever results might come from it. At that time, shortly after beginning my doctoral work, I used my spare time to assemble data from technical publications which I hoped to be able to use to answer the questions I mentioned before. Berg: When did the constitutional attorney approach you? Rudolf: That was in Summer 1991. By that time I had worked through the chemical fundamentals of the problem and had sent the information to parties I thought might be interested .... Berg: Does that include the Institute for Contemporary History? Rudolf: Yes, them also, but they never responded. Constitutional attorney Hajo Herrmann, who defended General-major Remer against the Holocaust-denial charge, contacted me in July 1991 to ask if I would be willing to write an expert report. I decided to make an exploratory trip to Auschwitz, to take samples, to evaluate them and to prepare an expert report from that. Berg: Now you have aroused considerable irritation in professional circles because of your expert report. When did your employer, the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart, first learn about your spare-time efforts? Rudolf: That must have been a month or so after the trip to Poland. If the police had not seized my papers, I could give you the exact date. It was probably September 1991. I had written the Chief Editor of the leading German chemical journal, the Angewandte, to ask if I could publish my research results, which I described briefly, in his journal. When he called back about it, I was absent by chance and the call was taken by Prof. Simon, a colleague of my doctoral supervisor Prof. von Schnering. Prof. Simon was disturbed by the subject matter. But the situation quieted down when he learned from my doctoral supervisor, who was the Executive Director of the Institute at the time, that this research was not related to my doctoral research. Berg: They had no objection to your spare-time endeavors? Rudolf: At that time my research was not completed to the point where I was willing to make any hard and fast conclusions. So I did not pronounce any conclusions and thus avoided any direct confrontation. I think my doctoral supervisor did not fully understand the danger, because I had been very cautious in my statements, whether written or spoken. Berg: And what happened once you became certain of your results? Rudolf: An associate told me I should lay my cards on the table before my doctoral supervisor, otherwise, the longer I waited to do so, the worse the situation would be when the work became publicly known. I took advantage of a conversation on the Holocaust that a fellow student had had with my doctoral supervisor. In April 1992 I sat down and wrote a private letter to Prof. von Schnering explaining my view of things. Berg: How did he react to it? Rudolf: He was very angry. The morning after he received my letter he stormed into my office, threw the book NS-Massent�tungen durch Giftgas (Nazi Mass Murder by Poison Gas) by E. Kogon and others, onto my desk, demanded that I read it so that I would stop my crazy talk, and warned me that my letter would have consequences. Berg: Did it have consequences? Rudolf: Well, as he stood in the door ready to leave, I handed the book back to him and told him that I knew the book, that I had it and had already read it. Right away I wrote him another letter in which I explained my opinion of the book he had offered me. The two main points were: First, the authors of the book maligned anyone who might have a different viewpoint in vicious terms, but without naming names. Therefore, one could not decide if the abuse was justified. Second, they accused anyone with a different viewpoint of evil intentions and unscientific method, but here again gave no sources which one could use to evaluate the claims. It must be a sorry fellow who would give such a book to me as a researcher and expect me to be convinced by it, a book which attacked and put beyond consideration any contrary viewpoint and intentionally did not give the reader the means to evaluate the charges. Naturally, in my letter I put this more diplomatically, but I made my case quite clearly. For some time after that I did not hear anything from my doctoral supervisor on the subject. Berg: But the subject came up for discussion again. Rudolf: I would have let things ride. But an acquaintance who was a doctoral level professional chemist and about the same age as Prof. von Schnering, told me he would try to alleviate the situation between us by a personal conversation. The conversation took place — it was in June 1992, I believe. At that time my acquaintance gave my doctoral supervisor my expert report, with the request that he examine it, and he later also sent the latter a book which he recommended in order to get him to consider the arguments of the other side, following the scientific maxim audiatur et altera pars (let the other side be heard). Berg: What was the reaction of your doctoral supervisor to that? Rudolf: He sent the book back a little while later, unopened, or so my acquaintance told me. Berg: In other words, he had no interest in hearing the arguments of the other side. Was not that behaviour a massive offense against the fundamental principle of science you have just mentioned? Rudolf: I do not believe that that Prof. von Schnering considers this subject area a question for science. He did not consider himself technically qualified to address the issue and refused to listen to any argument which he could not evaluate, which in any case were claimed to be false by historians he knew and trusted. Berg: How did he react to your expert report? Rudolf: This question is much more interesting. In addition to a few side issues which did not concern my expert report, in August 1992 he attacked me for two points which I will explain here.
Since these considerations had not appeared in my expert report, my doctoral supervisor concluded that I was apparently blind to or ignored any contrary arguments. It should be understandable when people seek to make the horrible events of the past disappear. It should also be understandable when the present generation can not believe the incomprehensible events of the past and therefore may want to deny them. However, for me as a scientist to begin to pronounce wish-conclusions would be grossly unscientific and would show that I was unfit for an academic degree. For that reason, he advised me to break off any effort in this direction. He closed with the remark that he would burn my expert report if that would make it disappear from the world. Berg: In the fine tradition of book-burning. Rudolf: That's what it looks like. Berg: Do you have the desire to make these real or supposed past events not to have happened? Rudolf: I think only abnormal Jew-haters wish that a mass murder of Jews had taken place, and I do not hate Jews. But one can not unmake the past, so the question is useless. A better question would be, does the present generation consider the Holocaust to be so incomprehensible that it wants to deny it. On the contrary, the fact is that every German is fed Holocaust history with his mother's milk and the public has no doubt of the truth of the story. The Holocaust is one of the absolutes in the consciousness of every German and so it was with me before 1989. There is one incomprehensible thing to the average German, and that is that the Holocaust is a lie. The answer to the question is, The situation is exactly the reverse: It is not the Holocaust that is incomprehensible. We have long since come to live in peaceful coexistence with it. What would be incomprehensible would be for the polar star of our worldview, the Holocaust, to suddenly turn out to be a shooting star. This goes especially for intellectuals such as Prof. von Schnering, who think they are quite clever and who would suffer a horrendous crack-up if they were to have to acknowledge they believed a lie. The danger is that from mental unflexibility these intellectuals will want to defend their accustomed, comfortable worldview against all attacks. More than anything else, they do not want to allow a revolution in their worldview. They achieve their desired result by blindness to any arguments contrary to the Holocaust. Berg: Back to the main question. To what extent were Prof. von Schnering's objections valid? Rudolf: They were cogent objections. I promised Prof. von Schnering to consider the matter further. After this conversation I spent a sleepless night. I put myself back at square one and tried to resolve the questions. I determined as follows:
Berg: In other words, your doctoral supervisor's counter-arguments collapsed on closer examination? Rudolf: That is so. And there is more: With respect to the motors in Soviet armor, apparently my doctoral supervisor had not taken the trouble to find out what the facts were. He had proposed a thesis which had no foundation because it allowed him to keep his worldview from being called into question. In other words, he had ignored possible counter-arguments in order to protect his desired version of things. The Prussic acid question is different. Here he had not, like G. Wellers, raised the possibility that the victims had inhaled all the Prussic acid, rather he had only asserted that one needed to positively exclude this in order to draw sound conclusions. Berg: How did he react to your better arguments? Rudolf: At first I did not tell him, because I knew that any further pursuit of the issue would only end in disaster. Throughout the whole discussion, Prof. von Schnering had shown that he was not willing to consider arguments that contradicted his worldview. I decided it was better to let grass grow on the matter for a while. Towards the end of 1992 I was in the midst of completing my doctoral dissertation. I needed to focus my energy on other things. However, I put in my desk evidence that supported my theses from authors such as Fritz Berg and John Ball and from the Polish Historical Society, in case the subject should arise again. Berg: Was it the unauthorized distribution of the expert report by General-major Remer in April 1993 that brought it to light again? Rudolf: Yes, and in a way that was disastrous for me. Berg: Did you discuss the contents of your expert report during this affair? Rudolf: My doctoral supervisor threw at me the same arguments he had used in August 1992, including the diesel motor business. I told him right off that he was wrong and that I would give him proof, which I kept in my desk. He cut me off with the remark that that did not interest him. At that point I sent him a letter with the proofs by registered mail, which caused him to go into a rage when he received it. In the presence of Prof. Simon, the recently chosen Executive Director of the Max Planck Institute, he said that it was impudent to send him documents that he did not want by registered mail since he could not refuse delivery. He threw the opened package at me and said he would keep the enclosed letter as evidence, but that wild horses could not make him acknowledge the existence of the documentation. Then I asked him whether he was a dogmatist or a natural scientist. He did not want to discuss that. Berg: Your doctoral supervisor's behaviour, his hysterical refusal to consider potentially contrary arguments, even to the point of refusing to acknowledge their existence, his uncontrolled and partially unfounded production of wish-conclusions are all characteristics which would mark him as unworthy to hold an academic degree, according to his own principles. Should not he now be required to surrender his teaching position and doctor's degree? Rudolf: If he expects the qualifications that he applies to others to apply to himself, then yes. If they were applied as a general rule, I am afraid there would not be any academics left in Germany. That would be a poor fix for our present glut of academics. Berg: Did they ask you to distance yourself from your expert report? Rudolf: Astonishingly, no. They only asked me to distance myself from Remer's operation as well as from Remer's version, on account of the accompanying commentary. When I asked if this meant that I should distance myself from the content of the expert report, Prof. Simon expressly said not. Berg: Would you have done it if asked? Rudolf: Never for a moment. When somebody brings me convincing arguments that cause me to reconsider, then I may be ready to change my opinion. People who use force against me will never change my mind. Berg: Is this all that any professor could come up with? Rudolf: No. Shortly afterward, in a private conversation Prof. Simon apologized for the impossible behaviour of my doctoral supervisor. He showed some understanding for the fact that a member of the younger generation should attempt to study the Holocaust problem without preconceptions. He also said that there was in principle nothing to object to in my expert report, with two exceptions. First, I should not put quote marks around the words "gas chamber", as I had done throughout the expert report. This signified that I had written the expert report with preconceived ideas, because the quote marks themselves indicated a doubt. Second, I should not come to such far-reaching conclusions only on the basis of witness testimony, because I should know from my own experience how unreliable witness statements were. Berg: What was your answer to him about that? Rudolf: Well, whoever has read my expert report would know that before the development of the Holocaust the term Gaskammer (gas chamber) was a technical term for a delousing chamber for clothing and personal effects. Since I also discussed these things in my expert report, it is easy to see that people might get confused. For that reason, I put a list of definitions of terms in a chapter at the beginning of the expert report, in which Menschengaskammer, (killing gas chamber), the term in common usage, was put in quote marks to distinguish it from the technical term Gaskammer (gas chamber). Finally, one should recognize, although I did not make this point to Prof. Simon, that acceptance of the existence of the killing gas chambers is no less a preconception than the opposite belief. That it is nowadays taken for granted does not alter the fact that it is a preconceived notion. Moreover, just as it is a tradition of the rule of law that in a criminal trial one should assume that the accused is innocent until it is proven otherwise, so also should the object being studied first be labelled the murder weapon "gas chamber" without quote marks when the fact has been proven. If I had assumed the fact of the crime and the weapon used in the crime as given beforehand, this would mean that the proof of the crime had already been shown and that no investigation was necessary. There would be no need for an expert report. Here also the reality has been reversed: Whoever writes the term Gaskammer (gas chamber), meaning Menschengaskammer (killing gas chamber), without quotes from the beginning of a scientific study, undermines not only the correct meaning of technical words but also our principles of the rule of law. Berg: What can be said against the argument that witness testimony is weak evidence to use in the preparation of an expert report? Rudolf: As to Prof. Simon's assertion on the unreliability of witness testimony, I answered with one word: Truly. It is amazing for a Professor to refuse to accept witness testimony as to nonculpability when at the same time he will accept the same unreliable witness testimony silently and without protest that has had the effect that hundreds of people have been sentenced to death and thousands to long terms of imprisonment, that an entire people have been stripped of rights and a whole nation held in persecution and suppression. Prof. Simon does not fully understand how unreliable witness testimony is. He thinks there will be incorrect details here and there, such as with those few I used in my expert report. But they can be wrong, or fraudulent, to a degree that one can only recognize when he takes his blinders off and reads the original documents with a critical eye. But how can I convey this to Professor Simon, who refuses, for example, to accept the Ernst Gauss book Vorlesungen �ber Zeitgeschichte from me as a gift? Prof. Simon is another one who bars the door against unwanted arguments. Berg: Are the words authentic that you attribute to Prof. Simon and that you print on the second cover page of your expert report, to the effect that German researchers should not touch the taboo on the gassing of the Jews and that Germans have lesser rights than other peoples and should learn to accept that? Rudolf: These statements, which represent an intellectual bankruptcy without parallel, occurred in the same conversation mentioned above. They are not literal quotes, but are taken from a protocol of the conversation I wrote from memory the same evening. These quotes are true to the meaning that he expressed. Berg: Do you know if there has been any discussion on the matter in the meantime among chemists in Germany? Rudolf: Not to my knowledge. I received a reaction from a person I knew at Hoechst AG which was characteristic. He protested against any further sending of unwanted material because this kind of discussion had been forbidden by the Federal High Court. There was apparently no scientific counter-argument to be made, or at least none was attempted. Everyone hides behind the penal code, which protects us — thank God! — from having to think! Berg: I thank you for this conversation. |
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Opposition arguments:
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"One may not ask how such a mass-murder [of Jews] was possible. It was technically possible, because it happened. This is the obligatory starting-point of every historical investigation of this theme. We wish only to keep the memory of the truth alive. There is no debate over the existence of the gas chambers, and there can be none." P. Vidal-Naquet, L. Poliakov and 32 other researchers, Le Monde, 21.2.1979 "Every era has its taboos ... Even we researchers must honor the taboos of our era ... We Germans must not touch this subject [of the mass-murder of Jews], others must do that ... We must accept that we Germans have less rights than others ..." Prof. Dr. A. Simon, Executive Director of the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research, Stuttgart, to G. Rudolf, 3.5.1993 |
"In view of the ghastly genocide undertaken by the rulers of the Third Reich we hold that modern research on the exact procedures of the murders is as reprehensible as is speculation on the number of victims." Prof. Dr. A. Simon and the full staff of the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research, Stuttgart, Declaration of 7.6.1993 REMARKS:
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Schlesiger: In this interview you have stated that the Institute for Contemporary History did not respond to your requests. In the meantime a position paper appeared from the Institute for Contemporary History. [1]
Rudolf: Correct. The Institute thought that it did not need to examine my report for two reasons. First, that the mass-murder of Jews in the gas chambers of Auschwitz was common knowledge, and therefore not refutable, and second, that the French pharmacist Pressac had recently reestablished the existence of gas chambers.
In my view, the first reason is peculiar: Even the official contemporary history institute of the Federal Republic of Germany avoids the argument and refers to common knowledge. Formerly the men and women of this institute had responded to uncomfortable inquiries at least with a few presumptuous arguments taken from various places in the literature. They did not rely on common knowledge. That is equivalent to a capitulation.
Schlesiger: But the Institute also referred to the French pharmacist Pressac ...
Rudolf: ... who did not address my work with a single word. His approach to the research had essentially nothing in common with my expert report. While I was concerned with technical and physical scientific questions, he had merely pulled together some documents and used this documentary apparatus to tell a story. I have recently prepared a short expert report on the question, whether Pressac's new book can be considered a scientific work (see transcript). I direct you to that paper for any further comment and for further critical literature on Pressac's work. The reference to Pressac from the Institute for Contemporary History is completely irrelevant as a refutation of my expert report. There is hardly any point of contact between the two works.
Expert report on the question of the scientific validity of the books Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers [2] and Les Cr�matoires d'Auschwitz, la Machinerie du meurtre de masse [3] by Jean-Claude Pressac1. Criteria for scientific validityThe theses which are the subject of a scientific work should be supported by critical presentation of evidence in the work or by reference to technical sources and they should be subjected to criticism of works with opposing theses. Whether the books by Pressac given in the title meet these requirements is discussed in what follows. 2. Method of proof and references to literatureWith respect to the technical and natural scientific issues he addresses in his work (for example, cremation, gassing with Prussic acid, ventilation technology, formation of chemical residues), Pressac makes no reference to any source in the technical literature and also does not make his own calculations or experiments. [4] What he does is to cite current historical works. See the annex for examples of this. 3. Criticism of witnesses, documents and other matterAuschwitz: Technique ... contains frequent and extensive criticism of witness statements, but these are nevertheless used without substantiation. [5] Les Cr�matoires ... silently corrects the (still unsubstantiated) witness statements, without applying any criticism to them. Neither work contains any criticism of documentation. Since most of the documentation comes from formerly Soviet archives (those of the KGB, and others), criticism is surely necessary here. [6] Nor is there any technical criticism of the locations and structures under investigation (crematories or their remains). See the annex for examples of this. 4. Treatment of counter-argumentsIn Auschwitz: Technique ... Pressac briefly discusses the Leuchter Report (without source references) and a work by P. Rassinier. He does not mention more recent and more substantial works by other authors with opposing arguments (Faurisson, Butz, Mattogno and others). The second book contains only a suggestion that there are those who dispute his theses (p. 2), but no names, works or arguments are given. He also omits to introduce documents that might conflict with his theses (for example, air-reconnaisance photos). See the annex for examples of this. 5. ConclusionsBecause of absence of criticism of documents and deliberate alterations of witness statements, Pressac's books can have only limited value for historical science. However, they have some informative value. Because of lack of calculations, experiments and other substantiation, Pressac's books do not conform to the standards that apply to scientific works in this technical area. Finally, Pressac does not apply the criticism of others to his conclusions, especially in Les Cr�matoires ... He does not even mention them. 6. SummaryThe books Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers and Les Cr�matoires d'Auschwitz, la Machinerie du meurtre de masse by Jean-Claude Pressac demonstrate that the author has worked in an unscientific way. Nevertheless, because of his industrious documentary research these books contain many useful facts. Dipl.-Chem. Germar Rudolf, Jettingen, 18th January 1994 AnnexExamples from Les Cr�matoires ... for:
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| Letter from the Central Council of Jews in Germany to the President of the Max Planck Corporation, Prof. Dr. Hans F. Zacher, 22.6.1993. (Click to enlarge. For enlarged German original, click here). | Answer of the President of the Max Planck Corporation, Prof. Dr. Hans F. Zacher, to the Central Council of Jews in Germany, 14.7.1993. (Click to enlarge). For enlarged German original, click here). |
Schlesiger: In the interview given above you spoke of measures taken against you. The first thing here is the house search that you had to submit to. Can you tell us how it could come to that?
Rudolf: Already by Fall 1992 I had received notice from the State Attorney that they were going to investigate me. I was accused of having written an expert report on the gas chambers of Auschwitz which General-major Remer was going to use as propaganda in his newsletter Remer Depesche. I heard nothing else at the time since no further steps were taken.
Then in April 1993 the situation became acute when, illegally and against my express conditions, General-major Remer took a pirated copy of my expert report, laced it with a juicy political commentary and sent it to all the politicians, jurists, media people and scientists he could think of. Thereupon in July 1993, the State Attorney's Office initiated an investigation process for incitement to defamation of Jews and for race persecution of Jews, since they falsely assumed that I was behind Remer's operation. Suddenly, at 7:00 hours in the morning on the 30th September, 2 unifomed policemen, 7 police investigators, 2 State Attorneys and an official from the village where I lived appeared at my dwelling and seized everything that was not nailed down: files, letters, bank statements, books, research material, computer equipment, photographs, and so on.
Schlesiger: That was an unusually well-staffed operation. Normally during a house search there are only a few officials present and hardly ever attorneys.
Rudolf: I assume that the State Attorneys did not trust their own officials, especially because they knew that this was an arbitrary political measure for which they were being misused against their wishes.
Schlesiger: Would not the State Attorneys also have resisted it?
Rudolf: One of the two State Attorneys was a Mr. Schrimm, who for decades has pursued all real or presumed Nazi criminals and Holocaust Revisionists mercilessly. He was considered very keen and politically absolutely reliable. From him certainly there would have been no complaint about an illegal operation.
Schlesiger: Did you ever get your documents back? That was 6 months ago.
Rudolf: Not a piece. They investigated until they dropped and apparently found nothing they could use against me. Probably a few hundred years from now someone will conduct another investigation and I will be rehabilitated like Galileo Galilei was, 400 years after his death.
Schlesiger: Your dismissal from the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research is another matter. Now there is a document which shows that the Central Council of Jews in Germany put heavy pressure on the Max Planck Corporation in order to curtail your work as an expert witness. Did this letter lead to your dismissal?
Rudolf: The letter dates from after my dismissal, and therefore can not have influenced my dismissal. The telephone conversation with Bubis mentioned in the letter, which happened in April, possibly did have an effect.
This letter of the Central Council was presented by the Max Planck Corporation in the trial before the Labor Court as additional evidence that I was unsuitable for employment. Based on that, Bubis intercession must have left a powerful impression. However, various groups of a political, commercial or scientific nature interceded with the MPG (Max Planck Corporation), so it is hard to put the blame on only one party.
Schlesiger: How did the trial before the Labor Court end?
Rudolf: With a retraction of the termination without notice by the Max Planck Corporation. It was replaced by a mutual agreement to terminate employment.
Schlesiger: Therefore a partial victory for you?
Rudolf: No, it was really an act of mercy on the part of the MPG, because the judge on the Labor Court had made it clear during the trial that anyone who maintained that certain events of the Holocaust could not have taken place was beyond the protection of the law. Any such employee could therefore be terminated at any time. She effectively declared me to be a outlaw.
Schlesiger: Shortly before your dismissal in May 1993, and immediately after the trial before the Labor Court, the Max Planck Corporation issued two press statements which were basically the same. On the 29th March 1994, you wrote an open letter to the Max Planck Corporation responding to their press statement of 28th March 1994, which I reproduce here in full:
Open letter to the Max Planck CorporationEsteemed ladies and gentlemen, I must assume that none of your doctoral candidates has ever caused so much stimulating thought in your exalted scientific circle as has been the case with me. In order to provide you with some more mental puzzles and to exercise your brain cells so they will stay young and fresh, I present you with the following considerations. First, on reading your declaration of 28th March 1994, the question occurred to me, whether you had read my expert report at all. Certainly you assert that I claim to have proven from chemical analysis of samples taken from masonry at Auschwitz, that in these gas chambers in Auschwitz "no mass killing of human beings with Prussic acid" was carried out. Let us examine your statement more closely. For example, the conclusion in the carefully chosen words of my expert report states that the mass gassing scenarios testified to by witnesses were not possible because they were not consistent with the technical capabilities of the time and because the natural scientific evidence is against it. Naturally, in the expert report I avoided discussion of anything not testified to which might theoretically have been possible. But let us not quibble. Then it appears that you simply slide by some of the main points of my expert report. For example, the first part of my expert report consists of considerations of building technology, completed with the help of credentialed and very experienced construction professionals. In that part I come to the conclusion that the Zyklon B insertion hatches in the claimed main gas chamber of Auschwitz-Birkenau could not have existed, and therefore the murders could have not been carried out in the way testified to, because the witnesses state unequivocally that the Zyklon B poison agent was tossed in through such hatches. Do you have nothing to say to this, or is it that you do not want to say anything? In the next part I attend to the question, under what conditions traces of cyanide of the type I was studying (iron blue) form and what their stability is over time. Thanks to research previously undertaken by other well-known research institutes the conclusion here is unambiguous: iron blue is stable for decades, even centuries. On this also, I hear no word from you.
In the newspapers on 29.3.1994 there was a notice from the Next, the third part of my expert report is concerned with the question, whether the mass killing scenarios as testified to are technologically and natural scientifically possible. I conclude that they were not. Again, on this point I hear from you only a painful silence. In the fourth part I examine the collection of samples at Auschwitz, experimentation with gassing, the analysis of the samples and the correct interpretation of the analytic results. Apparently, this part is the only one that has caught your attention, and therein only the tables of analytical results. Questions of interpretation, the evaluation of opinions and counter-opinions given in open discussion, the careful investigation of arguments and influences do not seem to interest you.
And you call yourselves scientists? In your wonderful Corporation there are scientists who think that no cyanide compounds appear perhaps because the victims trapped inside inhaled all the Prussic acid. My doctoral supervisor Prof. von Schnering is one such. I have discussed this argument thoroughly in the current version of my expert report. A year ago, my doctoral supervisor preferred not to acknowledge the arguments I presented and instead threw a hysterical fit. His colleague Prof. Simon felt called upon to apologize to me on behalf of my doctoral supervisor for his frightful behaviour. You are some scientists! It is true, von Schnering's thesis is possible. Then the question to him and his fellows is this: Why does one find large quantities of cyanide residues in the gas chambers of Majdanek, which supposedly operated in the same way as those of Auschwitz? They could not come from gassings of humans, because then we would find them also in Auschwitz. In Majdanek, therefore, these must have been clothes delousing facilities, and the witness statements to the contrary must be false. But — horrors! — how can we now trust statements to the same effect concerning Auschwitz? Or does the cyanide in Majdanek come from gassing of humans? In that case the same thing could not have happened in Auschwitz, because there the cyanide is missing. Thus the witness statements must be false here. But — horrors! — how can we now trust statements to the same effect concerning Majdanek? I fear that you find yourselves in a logical impasse from which you can not escape. Yet, of course, the possibility is open to you to free yourselves through intellectual jugglery. You, my esteemed Max Planckers, claim that my doctoral supervisor found my research results from 1991 not suitable for publication. Now it is clear to me why Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Hans Georg von Schnering spent two hours of his very precious time discussing with me in which journal my research would best be published: he held it not worthy of publication! Did Prof. von Schnering tell you that or is that a subsequent statement to protect yourselves? And again the drama with the letterhead: "If we now have to see who used Institute letterhead without permission and when we will have to go through the Institute from bottom to top, because everybody has done it." These are the words of Prof. von Schnering in April 1993. This little misdeed of "improper use of Institue letterhead" was declared a negligible offense by agreement of the Administrative Office and the Governing Board of the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart (MPI FKF), because if this were grounds for dismissal, there would be no more employees at MPI FKF.
But a commission to the Institute Fresenius using the letterhead, that is particularly bad! But my good ladies and gentlemen! Why these continued false pronouncements? We have agreed that the Institute Fresenius was never retained in the name of the MPI FKF and also that its analyses were not performed under the impression that they were dealing with a commission of the Max Planck Institute! The letter with MPI letterhead which surfaced here, which contained only sample descriptions, was only given to the Institute Fresenius when it was already doing the analyses. Or does anyone believe that the famous Institute Fresenius would not have defended itself in court if I had deceived it by pretending to untrue facts. It could have sued me for harm to reputation and asked for damages of several hundred thousand deutschemarks. But that has not happened, probably because the commission was privately given. Why, dear Max Planckers, do you pretend that the commission for analytic procedures without giving the source of the samples and the purpose of the analysis is something so unusual, so reprehensible? Does Fresenius always need to know from which sewage canal a particular muck sample came? Perhaps it should trim its analytic results according to the desires of the company that owns the sewage canal, because maybe they are an important client of Fresenius? At the MPG is this the way to pursue research: First know for whom it is being done and what the consequences might be? Is that scientific independence? No: concealing the source of samples is usual procedure in analysis and is necessary to guarantee the independence of the analyses. Your next to last paragraph is most interesting. There you state that in Spring 1993, the Institute "distanced itself from this expert report". In the previous press statement you had said that the Institute would distance itself from the published expert report. Since the expert report in the then published form contained a prickly commentary by General-major O. E. Remer, retired, I can understand your statement. I myself distanced myself from this commentary at the time and also from the expert report in the form Remer published it. Now you refer to this former expert report. Therefore it is clear that you do not understand that the current version of the expert report differs substantially from the former pirated version distributed by Remer. This confirms my suspicion: You do not have sufficient knowledge of the matter at hand, such as one would expect from scientists of your (still present) reputation. Yet, does anyone know that the then Executive Director of the MPI FKF, Prof. Dr. A. Simon, told me in the presence of my doctoral supervisor that no one expected of me that I distance myself from the contents and assertions of my expert report. Does anyone know that Prof. Simon thoroughly understood that I had tackled this project as a member of the younger generation. Does anyone know that he had no objection to anything in the expert report itself, but only objected to the conclusions I came to? Note well: One may pursue independent research, but he must not come to any independent conclusions! However, the real "clincher" comes at the end of your declaration of 28.3.1994, which I quote here at length: "The Federal Constitutional Court and the Federal High Court have determined that the mass murder of Jews in gas chambers in the concentration camps of the Third Reich is a commonly known historical fact no longer in need of proof. The Max Planck Corporation concurs with this determination." Do you usually defer to the rulings of the BVG (Federal Constitutional Court) or BGH (Federal High Court) when undertaking a complex research problem? Have you even looked at the reasons given by the respective courts in the decisions you refer to? Apparently not, because if you had, you would have noticed that the courts based their decisions only on the decisions of other courts. At the end of this chain of citations one usually lands at the Nuremberg Trials following the war, a proceeding which violated the standards of the rule of law. But, even if we had landed at a Federal German trial, one can quickly see that the basis of their decisions has been almost entirely witness testimony. What would Prof. von Schnering say to a researcher doing post-doctoral research under him who gave as evidence for an assertion a statement of a fellow researcher in another division? Here I quote Prof. von Schnering word for word: [9] "You are not allowed to believe that! Everyone here has his own personal scuttlebut!" Therefore, esteemed Max Planckers, what has happened to the duty of the scientist to not simply accept witness testimony as given, but to subject it to a critical analysis and test it against experiment, logic and the laws of nature, and to subordinate it to these? Does this suddenly no longer apply with reference to the present subject? The old, honorable MPG distances itself from taking on any natural scientific or technical research on certain historical themes. That, esteemed Max Planckers, is an unconditional capitulation to ignorance on the part of the once most well-respected research institute in the world. That was the bankrupt's declaration of the MPG as to its own complete scientific incompetence. Or should the last sentence of your declaration be taken to mean that it has nothing to add to my research? That there is nothing that can be said against it? I was quite amazed recently that, in its letter of 22.6.1993 to the President of the MPG, Prof. H.F. Zacher, the Central Council of Jews in Germany did not request from you a counter expert report to expose my expert report as false. Certainly, the MPG would be the first place to go to for that! No, they "expected" from you, that my work as an expert witness should be hindered. Does the Central Council, representing only 35,000 people, have some claim on the MPG that gives them power to issue diktats to you? Naturally, in its letter of 14.7.1993 answering the Central Council, the MPG hoped that they would understand that the MPG had no control over my further activities. In his farewell greeting, Prof. Zacher then wrote, "Mit sch�nen Gr��en Ihr" ("With beautiful greetings"). Has anyone seen such a greeting in a German letter? No "lieber" (dear), no "freundlicher" (kind), no "herzlicher" (hearty). "Let me kiss your ass" would have hardly been more clear ...
Prof. Trouhet of Hoechst AG was more definite than you last year when he wrote that he did not want to be bothered by my expert report any more, since the Federal High Court had forbidden such writing. Indeed: the German researcher no longer asks what is scientifically correct, but what is commanded him. So it has been in Germany, so shall it remain! Or is it not fear of the judge, but fear of your foreign-born colleagues, such as MPI FKF researcher Prof. M. Cardona, who wrote on 24.5.1993, claiming he was deeply concerned by this (my) case and who thought he should be able to make demands that I and other unsuitable contemporaries should be driven from the house in a "retreat to the front" (attack in defense)? DEGUSSA AG has shown what is the real state of affairs in the matter. Since this firm had provided me with useful data on the stability of iron blue, I thanked them in the appendix to the expert report, as a scientist should. Guess what happened next. A year later four attorneys for DEGUSSA presented themselves to the publisher who was publishing my expert report with the help of two editors, and demanded that the acknowledgement should be removed from the expert report as otherwise DEGUSSA would lose all its business from the USA due to pressure from Israel. Does DEGUSSA mean to say that Israel has such power in the USA that it can determine who may give business to whom? Is this not a case for the State Attorney (race persecution) or for the psychiatrist (undue fear of persecution)? Or have we now arrived at the core of the matter?
Let me summarize as follows the possible grounds for your comic unscientific behaviour:
In closing, let me ask a confidential question: Is there a single man or woman in your organization who knows how to spell "civil courage"? In view of the statement Prof. Simon made to me, that German scientists needed to respect social taboos and that they had fewer rights than foreign scientists, I am confident that German science can only advance upward. with friendly greetings, your /s/ Germar Rudolf | ||||||||
Schlesiger: It is not exactly the best way to make friends, to accuse the most well-respected research institute of the world of scientific incompetence.
Rudolf: To my mind it is pathetic when such a well-respected group as the Max Planck Corporation refuses to involve itself in the now pressing question of the technical feasibility of the supposed unique mass murder of Jews in the Third Reich by simple deference to "common knowledge". It is true that my writing style is provocative, but obviously the scientists of our country do not understand even this blatantly clear German anymore. But sooner or later they are going to have to deal with my arguments, because I will not be silent. I welcome counter-arguments, and to get them I am apparently going to have to stomp on the toes of these gentlemen who have gone to sleep in their official positions.
Schlesiger: The improper use of Institute letterhead for your private letters was supposedly one of the main reasons they came against you.
Rudolf: Correct, supposedly only the official representatives of the Institute should use Institute letterhead. What almost nobody realizes is that until the turn of the year 1991/1992, the Max Planck Institute had a mainframe computer on which almost everyone at the Institute wrote his correspondence, usually including private correspondence. This mainframe computer was set up to place the official letterhead automatically on any letter that it printed out. This means that up to that point practically everyone at the Institute had used the official letterhead. When you know that, you realize why this little abuse of employment had become practically normal misbehaviour, and at the time I only wrote a small amount of my correspondence that way.
Schlesiger: DEGUSSA AG was very disturbed over the use of MPI letterhead. An employee of theirs declared in an sworn statement that he would have never given you any information had he known the purpose of your research. He and also his company said that your acknowledgement of them was equivalent to slander. What do you say to that accusation?
Rudolf: You can be sure that I could have gotten the information I needed from DEGUSSA or from any other firm if I had signed under my own letterhead as a Diplom Chemist instead of under MPI letterhead. It is an important marketing tool for a company to provide information on its product line to outside technical persons. Without product information business would die. DEGUSSA's shreiks about the letterhead are childish.
Also I find DEGUSSA's statement significant that they would only provide information when they approve of the purpose for which it will be used. Apparently, the company does not hold the scientific independence of the researchers in their employ in high regard. A documented, technically sound response to the main points in my expert report would have been more appropriate. The only response that they could come up with, though, was to execrate me.
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Heinrich Winkeler
Auf der R�de 3
Sworn Affidavit [...] I have been an employee of the firm Degussa since 1974 [...] In June 1991 I received a request from Mr. Germar Rudolf of the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research/Stuttgart about the lime resistance of VOSSEN-Blau. As was my job, [...] I sent him data and sent him my written technical appraisal on 18.06.1991 by fax [...]. At that time I acted on the assumption that this was in the interest of the cooperative relationship of Degussa and the Max Planck Institute and concerned only technical matters. On 09.03.1994 I came into possession of the so-called "Rudolf Expert Report", which referred to my technical appraisal on page 51 and cited my letter to the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research/Stuttgart, together with my name, in the table of sources at [139]. I am angered that my name and that of my company should be named in this connection. Had I known that my information would be used for neo-Nazi propaganda purposes, I would not have provided any of it and would have refused any further contact. I have informed my management of this affair in detail. I am incensed at sneaky dealing of this sort and consider myself personally injured by the deceitfulness with which I was misused in connection with this hack-work. /s/ Heinrich Winkeler |
It is a real puzzle to me, what the stability of VOSSEN blau (iron blue) on lime plaster has to do with neo-Nazi propaganda. There is none of that in my expert report. It discusses only chemical and engineering questions.
It is something new to me that the acknowledgements that can be found at the end of every scientific report can suddenly become slander. I merely acknowledged everyone who helped in any way. This does not indicate that the direct or indirect helpers knew what the results of my research would be beforehand. I did not know them myself. You can imagine what these good people would be saying today, if I had come to an opposite conclusion to the one I did come to. I am sure I would be heaped with honor and favor. The acknowledgements I gave at the end of the expert report are usual in the scientific world. What is not usual is the result of my research. That is the source of the problem.
Moreover, the commission to prepare an expert report was only given to me in July 1991. Before that, the research, including the inquiries to Degussa, had only been a spare-time activity with no particular purpose. The management of the Institute had assured me at the time that this pursuit of extra-curricular research with ordinary facilities of the Institue such as libraries and databases was not only not forbidden, but that it was looked on favorably as promoting motivation for research.
Schlesiger: In your open letter to the Max Planck Corporation, you mention that the attorneys for Degussa had claimed that their client would lose all business from the USA under pressure from Israel. However, in the corresponding letter from the attorneys it states only that Degussa might suffer a loss of business with the USA and Israel.
Rudolf: Correct. When I wrote the open letter I had only received information by telephone on the attorneys' letter, which I either misunderstood or which was misreported to me. I received a photocopy of the letter just a week later. I need to revise this passage of my letter. However, it seems very interesting to me what criteria Degussa thinks Israeli and US companies will apply when placing orders. Especially because Israel and the USA are those countries of the world in which Jewish power is the greatest, one can guess from what quarter the direct or indirect influence came that caused Degussa to fear for its business. Also, it is irrelevant whether the pressure was applied direcly from Israel or came from some local group with similar motivation.
Schlesiger: Now you were not only without a job, but also the University refused to allow you to take your doctoral examination. What was their reason for that?
Rudolf: Since I had completed all formal and scientific requirements, according to standing legal doctrine I had a right to admission to the doctoral examination. However, the University took the position that I was not worthy to seek the doctoral degree.
Schlesiger: Worthiness as a qualification for candidates for holders of academic degrees was first set forth in a law of Adolf Hitler in 1939. [10]
Rudolf: That is true, but it contained no specifically Nazi ideological baggage and therefore it is still in force today. The Administrative Court of Mannheim has ruled that an applicant's worthiness to seek an academic degree must be assumed even when he has been sentenced for a serious crime which was entered in his police record, when the sentence was not pronounced through proper process of law. [11]
Schlesiger: That does not apply in your case.
Rudolf: I had not even been charged with anything. [12] However, the University had blocked my degree application because they were waiting for an indictment to come down against me or against General-major Remer, and would then decide whether I should be allowed to take the examination or not. This is scandalous in itself, since no one even knew whether there would be a charge made against me. That my degree application should be dependent on a possible criminal trial against an outside party is hard to comprehend. It is likewise hard to comprehend that they should withheld from me my right to a final examination, although this can only be done after one has first been sentenced for a serious crime. In a state under the rule of law, one is supposed to be considered innocent unless the contrary can be proven by proper process of law. Therefore, it should not have been possible to deprive me of my rights on the basis of an investigation whose outcome no one could know in advance.
Schlesiger: Did you inform the University of these facts?
Rudolf: Certainly. The University justified its behaviour with the above-mentioned Administrative Court decision, although in my view it supported my right to my final examination. Not only that, that ruling pertained to a man applying for a doctoral degree whose police record contained misdemeanors for opium use and violations of property rights, but who had shown that he was rehabilitated. When I pointed out that in a state under the rule of law, everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty, the University official handling my case told me that this was not always so. But he would not give details about the exceptions.
Schlesiger: What do you plan to do to contest this high-handedness?
Rudolf: I have filed a formal complaint against the University. This will show whether Revisionists are people without rights.
Schlesiger:
In a recent press release you have described the
Press release:
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S�ddeutsche Zeitung, 29.3.1994, p. 5, with the falsified |
On inquiry to the
He has never called back with the information on who was responsible and what the source was. This fact and the fact of his entanglement in completely contradictory claims convict Mr. Meinecke of having fabricated this passage from whole cloth and having put it into the mouths of non-existent technical experts.
The connection between the MPG and the unnamed expert opinion
created by the phraseology of the
In fact, remnants of Prussic acid of the kind studied in the Rudolf Expert Report, that is, iron cyanide compounds such as iron blue, exhibit high resistance to disintegration over time. Here are three of the best examples taken from among many others that can be found in technical reference works:
Therefore, not only was the
Moreover, even the Polish Auschwitz Museum, while it was still under communist administration, was not in doubt of the truth of the fact determined by Rudolf that there were no significant traces of cyanide in the supposed gas chambers of Auschwitz. [16]
Schlesiger: Has the
Rudolf: I heard nothing further from Mr. Meinecke after he trapped himself helplessly in his contradictory statements.
After I had pressed them further,
the chief of the
Schlesiger: Do you think his explanation makes sense?
Rudolf: This explanation from the
This automatically-generated letter without a personal signature
arrived two weeks after the fraudulent
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dpa Chief Inland dpa Deutsche Presseagentur GmbH, Post box 13 02 82, 20102 Hamburg Hamburg, the 13th April 1994 Dear Mr. [...], [...] in the notice that you refer to the dpa never asserted that the expert opinion on the disintegration of iron blue came from information supplied by the Max Planck Corporation. We have relied upon a technical expert whose professional qualifications have been and are unquestionable. This scientist has asked us not to give his name out, for reasons which we must respect. Mr. Rudolf's message of 8th April, in which he accused the dpa of falsification, contains a number of untrue assertions — not only with respect to information that was supposedly given to callers to the Stuttgart office but also others. I deny these assertions as well as your accusation to Mr. Meinecke, that he "lied through his teeth". The dpa has certainly fabricated nothing and falsified nothing. As far as the scientific issue is concerned, the fact that Prussic acid itself disintegrates rapidly is not disputed. We have confirmation from competent quarters as to the fact that stable cyanide may appear as a by-product, but does not necessarily appear. With friendly greetings, /s/ Dieter Ebeling, substitute Chief Editor |
Let me make a few things clear at this point.
In the above letter, the substitute Chief Editor indirectly confirms that
Mr. Meinecke was the person responsible for the
Moreover, it is undisputed that throughout two weeks during which several persons
were waiting on the
Schlesiger: Then you believe that if there had been an anonymous technical expert, that Mr. Meinecke would have known of his existence from the beginning and would have defended himself immediately.
Rudolf: Of course. If there had been an anonymous technical expert, there is no reason why Meinecke would not have relied on him right away. Instead, he lied until the cows came home and then cowered in silence for 10 days and finally hid under papas coat by calling on Hamburg to sort things out. What this means is, he needed his boss to cover his hindquarters. Possibly it was the Chief Editor who pulled the emergency brake and took the business out of Meinecke's hands when things threatened to go out of control.
Schlesiger: Can you think of any reason why a supposed anonymous technical expert would not want to be named?
Rudolf: Only one: he was ashamed of the intellectual stinky-poo he had dropped on us.
Schlesiger: Ebeling says in his letter that the technical assertions
were confirmed from competent quarters.
Apparently, they are still holding to the line that the original
Rudolf: In my opinion, the anonymity of the technical expert in itself proves the technical falsity of the notice. If it were technically sound, there would be no reason for the supposed expert to remain anonymous. No, there would have been any number of technical experts would have broken an arm in order to appear as heroes in the fight against the — oh, so horrible! — Revisionism, who would have wanted to be named.
I think the following explanation is far more plausible:
The substitute Chief Editor of the
Schlesiger: However, Ebeling made some arguments that seem to support
the
Rudolf: Mr. Ebeling's arguments are a masterpiece of disinformation and diversion.
The stability of Prussic acid itself is not discussed either in my expert report
nor in the
Schlesiger: Now, the
Rudolf: Yes, but unfortunately without success. At the moment I have filed complaints against several newspapers in court in order to get them to print a correction.
Schlesiger: Do you think you will prevail?
Rudolf: That depends on the judges. If the judges follow the same line as the judge on the Labor Court, then no, because by this line of thinking I have no rights because I am a Revisionist.
Schlesiger: Another significant event in the witchhunt against you was the left-wing program Report broadcast by the S�dwestfunk of the ARD (Association of Public Broadcasting Stations of Germany) on 11th April 1994. When and how did you find out that television was starting to worry about you?
Rudolf: Stefan Rocker, the reporter responsible for this piece, had called me on the telephone two weeks prior to ask for an interview ....
Schlesiger: ... that you evidently did not grant him.
Rudolf: I would gladly have given him an interview. But only if it were a live broadcast or if it would deal principally with my technical arguments. But Rocker told me that he was not interested in any discussion on technical points and that he only wanted to explore the political side of the business. He said quite openly that he wanted to uncover the politically right-wing or right-wing extremist intentions and connections that he suspected were harbored by those holding Revisionist viewpoints. He had made the same sort of proposal to Prof. Haverbeck, who thereupon declined to subject himself to Rocker's inquisition.
Schlesiger: Then it was clear to you from the beginning that the piece would not contain any technical discussion and that it was merely for the purpose of defaming you as a neo-Nazi.
Rudolf: That's what I expected. Two days before, in front of a group of perhaps 45 people, I spoke somewhat as follows: Since they have practically no pictures of German Revisionists, what they will show will be scenes from the film Schindler's List, as well as the usual pictures of corpses, supposedly of dead Jews, the burnt-out synagogue of L�beck, some scenes from gatherings of right-wing or right-wing extremist groups, and maybe some youths throwing Hitler salutes.
Schlesiger: Your predictions were right on the money. Let me now run down the list of what this piece described as dangerous right-wing extremism, besides you yourself. There was the American gas chamber expert F.A. Leuchter with the NPD (National Party of Germany) Federal President G. Deckert, the British historian D. Irving, history professors E. Schlee and W.G. Haverbeck, the right-wing publisher Grabert Verlag, the conservative journal Criticon, the conservative weekly newspaper Junge Freiheit, books from Germany's largest publisher Ullstein-Langen M�ller, the liberal-conservative daily newspaper Die Welt and the liberal Bavarian Thomas Dehler Foundation. Everything right of the left wing of the CDU was implicated as right-wing extremist, if one were to believe Report.
Rudolf: What Report did was to put out a giant pot, label it "politically suspect", throw into it everything right of the middle left wing and pour a thick brown sauce over the whole thing. This undifferentiated one-pot politics shows that the reason for the piece was smear journalism of the vilest kind.
Schlesiger: Let us take a few scenes that concern you directly. They claimed that you gave the name Das Blaubuch (The Blue Book) to your expert report, as a cynical allusion to the poison gas agent Zyklon B.
Rudolf: That's an interesting point. I have never given anyone access to an expert report that bore this name. My expert report has been published with the title Das Rudolf Gutachten (The Rudolf Expert Report), and even the pirated version that Remer sent out was called merely, Gutachten �ber die Bildung und Nachweisbarkeit von Cyanidverbindungen in den 'Gaskammern' von Auschwitz (Expert Report on the Formation and Detectability of Cyanide Compounds in the 'Gas Chambers' of Auschwitz). Around the turn of the year 1991/1992, I chose the title Blaubuch (Bluebook) for a manuscript that was never published nor reproduced. Also, the title Blaubuch had nothing to do with Zyklon B directly, but was due to the dye iron blue, which has become so well-known, that had formed in the delousing chambers in Auschwitz from Prussic acid in the agent Zyklon B. I discarded it just because I feared at that time that people might reproach me for cynicism in my choice of title. That manuscript was seized by the police in September 1993 when they searched my house. Apparently, the police passed the document on to S�dwestfunk. It is possible that a complaint for misuse of office is in order here. In any case, the title page shown by Report had nothing to do with the authorized published form of the expert report.
Schlesiger: Did you advertise using the name of your former employer?
Rudolf: The publishing house that published the expert report did the advertising for it. Since I have sold the copyright for my expert report, I have no further say in the matter. The advertising put out by the publisher merely contained substantial excerpts from a press declaration of the Max Planck Corporation, which described under what circumstances the expert report was written, what it dealt with and who in leading circles knew about it and when. Since a press declaration is intended for public consumption, it certainly can not be held against the publisher that they make use of it.
Schlesiger: In the advertising it was mentioned that your expert report had not been technically disputed.
Rudolf: That is true also. That does not mean that there is not something in the report that could be faulted. However, the MPG and all other researchers would rather avoid any comment on the technical content of the report and hide behind the excuse of "common knowledge".
Schlesiger: But in your interview with Mr. Berg from the IHR you have described how your doctoral supervisor had made technical objections to your expert report.
Rudolf: In Summer 1992 he made objections to the report as it stood at that time, which do not apply to the version that is in print today. I believe I have satisfactorily disabled these objections, which in any case were made behind closed doors. I will accept them as honest objections when he sees fit to make them in public. What I want is public discussion on arguments and counter-arguments.
Schlesiger: Report accuses you of attempting to give your expert report an air of competence by your citation of well-known institutes and companies.
Rudolf: In the body of the expert report there is no reference to a company for the purpose of conjuring up a air of competence. Only in the acknowledgements in the appendix are people and institutions named to whom I considered that I owed thanks. The question of the competence of my expert report does not depend at all on whom I have thanked in the acknowledgements and whom not, but simply and solely on whether the expert report can carry its argument or not. The acknowledgements do not belong to the report proper and in the report proper there was no attempt made to heighten the impression of competence by use of the services of various companies or institutes. In the thanks given in the acknowledgements there are named off to one side those to whom I had something to thank for. There is nothing more to it.
Schlesiger: Then the implication that you might be liable for a criminal complaint on grounds of fraud is baseless?
Rudolf: I know of no criminal complaint against me on grounds of fraud. But, perhaps Report knows something I do not. I suspect that what is behind this is the phony flap over the acknowledgements started by DEGUSSA. Also, in Spring 1993 the Institute Fresenius started a buzz about damage to reputation and wanted to sue me for an enormous amount. This effort died quickly because it was juristically hopeless.
Schlesiger: Another thing to deal with is Mr. Rocker's claim that you are the same person as the author of the book Vorlesungen �ber Zeitgeschichte (Readings in Contemporary History), Dr.rer.nat. Ernst Gauss.
Rudolf: What amazes me most about the discussion on Dr. Gauss is this: The use of pseudonyms in literature is a common practice and the law of the press protects use of pseudonyms explicitly. It is easy to see why, since pseudonyms are an important protection of freedom of opinion, since they enable authors who publish on socially divisive subjects to live their private lives in peace. That Report would try to characterize the use of a pseudonym in this case as a wicked deception merely proves that what they are after is the social proscription of the author in the manner of a witchhunt and not a substantive discussion on the issues.
Schlesiger: Report later presents a few passages from a letter that you supposedly wrote to Prof. Haverbeck. They imply that you were going to use this "begging letter" (verbal description by Report) to ask for support for your anti-Holocaust research. To show this, Report faded in the following text that was supposedly part of the letter, in which you ask Prof. Haverbeck to procure "in your circle of acquaintance, in the most discrete way ... the necessary means ... sums over 10,000". The letter also supposedly contains: "The most complete discretion is advised ... Let Germany count on you!" What is this letter about?
Rudolf: An important technique of manipulative journalism is to tear words, parts of sentences and sentences out of context and to put them into a new and essentially different context. Report portrayed these sentence fragments as if I had attempted to get Prof. Haverbeck to pump as many people as possible for sums of money more than deutschemarks 10,000 for my own private purposes, and had appealed to nationalistic affection in doing so. In the letter Report referred to, which could only have come from my papers in the possession of the police, the purpose was entirely different: A journalist of my acquaintance had been wanting for some time to make a trip to Moscow to do research in the archives there, which was not related to my expert report. For a stay of possibly several weeks he would need a sum of some 10,000 deutschemarks. At that time I had explained his project to several men of my acquaintance, mentioned his need for financing and told them how to get in contact with the journalist. Thus I was only a middleman. I have never begged for money for my own research from anyone, and certainly never for sums of more than 10,000 deutschemarks. It is possible that some of the passages cited by Report were fabricated. In particular, I had only asked for one sum of 10,000 deutschemarks, never for any number of sums!
Schlesiger: What does the sentence referring to the thanks of the fatherland mean?
Rudolf: The above-mentioned research project concerned an important historical question whose clarification could be beneficial to the historical portrayal of Germany. By the way, an appeal to patriotism is considered honorable in 179 of the 180 countries of the world. That it should be suspect in the 180th country, namely in Germany, may be the desire of the journalists of Report and others like them, but that will not prevent me from making such appeals, particularly as I was not asking for money for my own use.
Schlesiger: Can you think of other places in which Report used the manipulative technique of tearing fragments out of context?
Rudolf: Yes, there is a whole laundry list of them. The business of the thanks in the acknowledgements was one. Report faded in the names Degussa and Institute Fresenius and implied that the purpose was to pretend to competence. Without knowing that he was being manipulated, the listener would not have understood that the names were part of a list of names in the acknowledgements with no special significance.
A particularly crass example was used against Ernst Gauss. Report asserted that Gauss made the claim that the selections in Auschwitz were not a prelude to death, "but only served to, quote: 'give better medical care to sick Jews'". Report faded in three words from a passage in the Gauss book, on page 217: "special medical care". In order to show how Report manipulated this part, let me quote a longer passage from the Gauss book and underline the fragments picked out by Report (G=Gauss, Q=inquirer): [19]
| G: |
One of the principal points of the witness testimony on concentration camp Auschwitz [...] concern the so-called selections at the death ramp. [...] According to witness testimony, those prisoners that did not appear to the selecting medical doctors as fit for work, such as the sick, infirm, old people and children, were sent to the gas chambers. In that case these prisoners' names could not have been logged in the camp register. Thus the supposed gas chamber victims would never have been registered. [...] At the beginning of 1990, it was reported in the German press that the Soviets were going to give the death register of concentration camp Auschwitz to the Tracing Center of the International Red Cross at Arolsen. This register contains details of the deaths of 74,000 persons. [...] Thanks to certain connections, it has been possible [...] to get a look at these books. [...] The register contains names only of such victims as had been logged in the camp main register. No gas chamber victims names would appear. [...] If one assumes that this register was properly maintained, [...] then, according to the witness testimony, it should contain as follows: Cases of deaths of people 60 or 70 years or older and of people under 10 years should hardly ever appear, since these people were "unfit for work" and were supposedly gassed right off. This should apply particularly to persons of the Mosaic faith (Jews). At first only a few cases from the death register could be properly evaluated. [...] Of course, the statistics given here can not be taken as representative. Nevertheless, the evidence they give indicates that further research is called for. [...] One noticeable fact is that the number of deaths of old people among the regularly registered prisoners was quite large, which is not consistent with the witness testimony. [...] This fact is more illuminating when the cases of death are divided by cause of death, in Table 4.3. Infirmity from old age is the cause of death in over one third of all cases, followed by typhus infection [...]. The next most frequent causes of death are heart- and circulation- failure, of which mostly older people died, but also a surprisingly large proportion of younger people, which could be evidence of poor living conditions. The further causes, such as enteritis, gastritis and Angina Pectoris, should not normally lead to death given correct medical treatment. This is evidence of a lack of medical care. Another surprising fact is that, of those who died from infirmity of old age, over half were of the Jewish faith. Therefore, it can be seen that the statements on the selections at the ramp can not be right. The determination of unfitness for work, which could have taken place through a selection, apparently did not entail immediate death in a gas chamber. [...] [...] I am of the conviction that the prisoners were indeed subjected to selection on arrival at the camp. Even sick or weak prisoners in the camp could have been subjected to selection, meaning separation. To go by the data given here, however, the purpose of this selection was probably not automatically to send people to "gas chambers" or "forced labor", but was probably a question of which quarter a prisoner would be sent to, or which outlying camp a prisoner would be sent to. In the vicinity of Auschwitz there were over 30 outlying camps in which prisoners were employed for various purposes. Also, the transferral of sick or weak prisoners from the outlying camps to Birkenau did not necessarily mean that they were marked for death, but may merely have meant that they were being sent to the large camp-complex of Birkenau, where special medical care would be provided. |
|
Q: |
Are you saying that everything possible was done to care for the prisoners in Auschwitz? |
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G: |
What causes you to think always in extremes? Can you not see any possibilities beyond those of ghastly annihilation and a holiday rest home? Who is saying that concentration camp Auschwitz was a rest home for prisoners? That is nonsense which you are spouting. I have already spoken of the deadly epidemics which raged in Birkenau and have mentioned that the data from the death register of Auschwitz speaks to a lack of medical care. Also, the figure of nearly 100,000 deaths in the camp at Auschwitz is hardly an indication of the well-being of the inmates. These deaths were nearly 10% of the prisoners who were delivered or who passed through, to go by the transport lists. What is the point of your useless polemic? |
Rudolf: One can easily see that Report grossly distorted the very articulated and by no means conclusory discussion in the Gauss book. The fragments quoted by Report do not exist, and the three words faded in without any context have nothing to do with the selection on the ramp but probably relate to sorting people to the outlying camps of the sanitary area of Birkenau. There is obviously nothing left of the implication of Report that Gauss has conjured up special medical attention given to Auschwitz prisoners. I call this type of reporting incitement to persecution.
Schlesiger: Now we come to the method of suggestive association through use of pictures. Report showed a videofilm of youths in somebody's living room watching a recording of Hitler speaking before the Reichstag.
Rudolf: I have seen this scene often in similar agitation broadcasts. It is part of the standard repertoire of such "documentaries". The viewer is supposed to think that Revisionists are secret Hitler worshippers. This is never stated, but that is how many people will understand it. It has nothing to do with the truth.
Schlesiger: Report then showed the burnt-out synagoge in L�beck, and at the same time suggested that now that Auschwitz-deniers are back in business more synagogues will burn. They faded in to scenes of your Labor Court trial against the MPG and mentioned that this took place three days before the arson. Report thus made use of the arson at the synagogue to implicate you and others like you in a sort of paper complicity for the deed. Report even used the words "Bieder- und Hinterm�nnern" (Everyman and accomplices), an allusion to Biedermann und die Brandstifter (Everyman and the Arsonists). [19a] What is your response to these imputations?
Rudolf: On 9.4.1994, Die Welt reported that classified documents in the State Attorney's Office indicated that the perpetrators were from the Near East. If the arsonists are radical Arab powers, there can be only one reason to keep this a secret, namely, in order to blame the L�beck arson on the political right-wing and justify any kind of repression against right-wing elements and also against historical Revisionists.
However, if radical Jewish elements are behind the attack on the synagogue, who might be from the Near East, then again the State Attorney would probably attempt to keep this information secret. The incident in L�beck serves no one better than left-wing and (pro-) Jewish elements, since it gives them free rein against their ideological enemies. On the other hand, no one is hurt more by such attacks than the right-wing and the Revisionists, and that is why they both fear such incidents like nothing else. I think one should take those things into consideration. My opinion is that politicians and the media are using the arson attack at L�beck without concern as to who the actual perpetrators are, so that they can undertake a real witchhunt against the right-wing and the Revisionists. Entire categories of the population are to be condemned before the fact and the condemnation will be used to justify stripping them of their rights. Among left-wingers this procedure is called fascistic.
Schlesiger: Is your attorney a right-wing extremist, as Report claims?
Rudolf: You must put yourself in my place, and consider how difficult it would be to find an attorney who would defend you in trials such as mine without condition or evasion. You would quickly discover that hardly any attorney will take such a case, because they are afraid for their reputation, in that they would soon be identified with the actual or imputed crimes of their client. In a state under the rule of law, however, every defendant in a trial is allowed to have defense counsel. Therefore, when I can find an attorney who has experience in such trials and who will disregard the hostility from society to defend me or others like me, no one should blame him for this. Anyone who does so puts himself outside the order of the rule of law. The only thing that people might resent about my attorney is that, since in addition to many other cases, he takes cases from right-wingers and Revisionists, he does not fear the opinion terror ruling society. Any such attorney should be praised for preserving the rule of law in that he defends cases in which the State Attorney's Office and the media work together for political purposes. I hold the defense attorneys of the RAF-Terrorists and von M�lln and Solingen in the same high regard. In these trials the defense attorneys were subjected to heavy calumniation in a manner reminiscent of show trials. Any attorney who does not cave in in such cases is a hero in my eyes.
Schlesiger: Is your defense attorney a right-wing extremist?
Rudolf: No, I have never thought so. I have never discussed worldviews with him. You should ask him that question. I think what Report was trying to achieve with these insults and calumniation was to undermine the ability of myself and all other Revisionists to defend ourselves in court, even more than has already been done. When an attorney must reckon with the likelihood that he will be labelled a right-wing extremist in the media when he accepts the defense of a Revisionist, soon there will be no more attorneys willing to defend one of the latter.
Schlesiger: Let us take another sequence from the Report documentary. It is introduced with an air-reconnaissance photograph of the Birkenau camp. Next, there is a picture of a large number of people in an open area, then, a long queue of naked men standing in front of a building. This is followed by a sign with the words, "Bad und Desinfektion II" (bath and disinfestation 2nd), and finally there is an open area strewn with emaciated corpses. The whole sequence is accompanied with the commentary that the purpose of Revisionism is to free the Third Reich from the blame of responsibility for the annihilation of the Jews. For this reason Revisionism denies the murder of 6 million Jews in the annihilation camps, mostly by gassing.
Rudolf: What is being suggested to the viewer here is that the people gathered in the open area or standing in line are waiting to be liquidated in the gas chamber disguised with the sign "bath and disinfection". The corpses are shown as the apparent result, and the viewer would get the impression that they had been the victims of mass murder. But, in fact, there are no photos of people waiting for their death by gassing, and the picture with the numerous corpses does not show victims of mass murder. What the pictures show is this: During the war extensive delousing and disinfestation measures were taken to combat epidemics, not only in work and concentration camps, but also in many civilian and military installations. The pictures from this sequence show such operations. They have nothing to do with mass murder, and Report did not say that they did, since the commentary accompanying the sequence was not relevant to the pictures. But the simultaneous commentary and photographic sequence would give that impression to the viewer. That way Mr. Rocker was able to cause many viewers to believe that the pictures show something which is the exact opposite of what they really show: that they were proofs of the reality of the Holocaust, whereas they are evidence of the efforts of camp commanders to care for the health of the inmates, which suggests that there was no plan for the annihilation of these persons. Or does one take the trouble to bathe and disinfest people who will later be destroyed? This is how exculpatory evidence is turned into incriminating evidence by this devilish method of manipulation.
The picture with the corpses does not show mass murder victims, which again, Report did not actually say. What it shows is starved victims of typhus as they appeared at the end of the war. Such people could be found all over central Europe at the time. These pictures were mostly taken by the Allies in the freed concentration camps of west and middle Germany. The corpses were not the corpses of victims of planned mass murder.
Schlesiger: Is it your purpose to free the Third Reich from the blame of responsibility for the destruction of the Jews?
Rudolf: I have to tell you, the dignity of this or that sometime dictatorship does not matter to me. In the same broadcast, Prof. Wolfgang Gessenharter of the Bundeswehr-Uni in Hamburg made the same charge. He claims that Revisionism wants to erect an authoritarian state and must therefore clean up the image of the former authoritarian state, the Third Reich. These charges are completely without foundation, even when they are delivered by Prof. Gessenharter with a serious demeanor. I am personally not ideologically close to National Socialism or to any other authoritarian system of government. Let me confess also, that the experiences I have had with the authoritarian behaviour of our government toward me have completely satisfied my need for authoritarian rule.
What I am interested in is the truth as it can be found through scientific investigation and argumentation, not in politics. When certain people avoid argumentation on the merits, presumably because of lack of counter-arguments, and take refuge in political aspersions, it only shows that they are the ones with the political motive. Their approach does not amount to a scientific engagement with my theses. Therefore, the charge of political instrumentalization of the subject falls on Report and Prof. Gessenharter themselves.
Schlesiger: Report also charges that you and others like you assisted at a seminar given by the Thomas Dehler Foundation, which is close to the FDP. Supposedly there was discussion about Auschwitz as a sanitorium.
Rudolf: Anyone who has a different viewpoint on the Holocaust will be stamped as a right-wing extremist for that reason alone. There is no need for any further evidence. This relieves the self-styled non-extremists from the need to engage in civilized discussion on the different viewpoint, and it enables the suppression of the unheard viewpoint. That is why it means nothing to me to be called a right-wing radical or a right-wing extremist.
The subject of the seminar of the Thomas Dehler Foundation was Revisionism. The well-respected Swiss Revisionist Arthur Vogt was specially invited to describe the Revisionist position. When the former seminar leader Batz later said on television that he did not know that the Switzer would give his own Revisionist viewpoint, that is a lie to protect himself. If he were to admit that he invited the Switzer to present the Revisionist position, he could be considered an accessory to the defamation of the Jews and liable for incitement to race persecution. The Switzer was sentenced, because in our country everyone with the wrong opinion on the Holocaust will be sentenced. Batz had to lie in order not to be convicted, because he had helped to propagate different, forbidden opinions. The scandal is not with the seminar, the scandal is with the thought control dictatorship in this country.
Also, during this seminar no one spoke of "Auschwitz as a sanatorium". That is a blank lie by Report.
Schlesiger: What effect did the Report broadcast have on your private life?
Rudolf: First, I was surprised at how susceptible even supposedly intelligent people are to manipulation by such broadcasts. Some people I knew were convinced I had published works that were printed in the character style Fraktur, which was somehow reprehensible. That had not been mentioned anywhere in the broadcast. Also, what is reprehensible about Fraktur characters? Others blamed me for having participated in right-wing extremist meetings. They had in mind the seminar given by the Thomas Dehler Foundation, which was certainly not a right-wing extremist meeting put on by the FDP. Now there is a rumor going around that I am the leader of an unknown group called "the Leopards", who supposedly pursue anti-Semitic goals. I was amazed at how quickly apparently enlightened people see ghosts and how quickly unfounded rumors build from chatter. From a distance it all looks a little bit comic. Many times I could not help laughing at the wide-spread mass hysteria.
Schlesiger: How do you think the public will react to that?
Rudolf: The concoction that was poured over me, consisting of brown-colored political smears, quotation of fragments ripped out of context and manipulative mass suggestion, unquestionably had an effect on uncritical viewers, who are probably at least 80% of the audience. Possibly the remaining 20% were able to think about it a little. That, at least, would be a victory.
Schlesiger: What was the effect on the Revisionist cause?
Rudolf: There could hardly have been better advertising. The demand for anything having to do with my expert report or for Revisionism in general has never been better.
Schlesiger: Report may have shot themselves in the foot then.
Rudolf: It looks like it.
Schlesiger: Do you think that the media will restrain themselves in the future?
Rudolf: At the moment it looks more like a taboo has been broken, opening a new market for sensationalism with which the media can make money. In any case, I get more and more requests for interviews.
Schlesiger: There was an attempt at reputable journalism in the international natural scientific magazine Nature in April. The report concedes throughout that you are a good scientist and does not impute any political motives to you. Are you happy with it?
Rudolf: By and large I have no objections to the article, even though this time Mr. Kammerer was smeared with right-wing extremism. Unfortunately, Mrs. Abbot avoided any discussion of my theses.
Schlesiger: What has happened to the objections of the MPG, that it was not clear that the buildings you studied were the original ones and that the chemical remnants in the delousing chambers could perhaps be explained as due to use of higher concentrations of Prussic acid there as opposed to the supposed gassings for killing.
Rudolf: These objections have been made against the Leuchter Report for 6 years as though there were a prayer-wheel. It was just these points that caused me to decide to undertake to write an expert report. I have handled these very questions thoroughly and I believe I have answered them conclusively. When the MPG trots them out again they only prove that they have either not read my expert report or did not comprehend it. Die Zeit even stooped to amplify the MPG nonsense and, under the title, "Kr�mel aus Auschwitz" (Crumbs from Auschwitz), they wrote that I thought that the analytic results from the laboratory showed that the Nazis had not used poison. This article about the Nature article only shows how journalists copy nonsense from one another and that the stupidity gets worse each time. [20]
Schlesiger: To close: What are your expectations for the near and the distant future?
Rudolf: Let me answer that in two parts. First the optimistic perpective. For 2 years I have been making appeals to prominent persons in the establishment to address the fact that the situation is stuck. I think it is high time that the theses of Holocaust Revisionism are tackled in a competent manner, so that the social tensions that might be brought about by a thoroughgoing revision of history can be alleviated and reduced before they become harmful. I hope that there are enough rational persons in the establishment who will finally take up this task. For the distant future I hope that I can have a normal civil life with the knowledge that the revision of history has been accepted as a normal part of the task of this scientific discipline.
The first perspective is not realistic. Probably the confrontation will intensify in the near future. But the truth has more breath. She might go under, but she will not drown.
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International natural scientific journal NATURE, v. 368 (7th April 1994), p. 483: Holocaust denial research disclaimedMunich. The Max Planck Society has reached an out of court settlement with a former graduate student whom it sacked last summer for producing research which "proved" that gassing of prisoners at Auschwitz concentration camp never happened. The student, Germar Rudolf, was fired without notice from the Max Planck Institute of Solid State Physics in Stuttgart last June, after senior staff members found out that he had used his position at the institute to carry out the research, the results of which have been widely circulated by groups who deny that the holocaust took place. The affair has left the Max Planck Society, which runs dozens of prestigious research institutes across Germany, angry that its name has been tarred by association with the holocaust denial movement, and Rudolf bitter that he gets no compensation and has little chance of finding another job. The March 22 settlement pays Rudolf no compensation, but rewords his dismissal as an "ending of the contract through mutual agreement". The story began several years ago when ex-Nazi general Otto Ernst Remer — who led the suppression of the putsch against Hitler in July 1944 — was charged with inciting race hatred. He had long campaigned for an end to what he calls the "Auschwitz lies", claiming that the holocaust had not happened. During his trial, his lawyer Hajo Herrmann commissioned Rudolf to conduct experiments which could be used to support Remer's claim. Contact between the two had been established after Rudolf had a letter published in a newspaper about the Leuchter report, which had made claims that mass extermination could not have happened at Auschwitz. At the time Rudolf had just started his PhD at the Institute for Solid State Physics, where he was initially considered to be a good scientist, earnestly concerned about Germany's past, but not necessarily a fascist. He travelled to Auschwitz in summer 1991, and took samples from the walls of one of the gas chambers and one of the delousing chambers. Using Max Planck stationary, he sent the samples to an analytical laboratory in Taunusstein, the Fresenius Institute. Analysis showed no detectable cyanide in the samples taken from the gas chamber, but detectable cyanide in samples taken from the delousing chamber. These results formed the basis of a 120-page report in which he elaborated his theory — also based on an analysis of the structure of the gas chambers — that the gassings could not have taken place. Whether Rudolf was paid by Remer's lawyer for his work is not clear, although he was certainly given expenses. Rudolf had presented his report to the lawyer on the understanding that it would be used only in the court case and would not be distributed more widely. As it turned out, the report was not used as evidence in Remer's trial. But within weeks Remer had distributed the report, along with his own annotations, to a wide circle of addresses in Germany. He claimed that it had the support of the Max Planck Society. Rudolf halted the distribution by reminding Remer and Herrmann that the report was only for use at the trial. But keen to publish his report without Remer's political comments — which he claims to find offensive — he began in spring 1992 to seek a publisher himself. Having been turned down by most of Germany's publishing houses, he finally sold the rights to R�diger Kammerer, a right-wing extremist, last May. At that time its publication in Germany was illegal so Kammerer published the report, with a 16-page summary, in Brighton, England. Kammerer claims to have distributed over 10,000 copies. The Max Planck Society is said to be extremely upset by the affair, and has been working to distance itself from the work since it heard about it last May. It is particularly annoyed, a spokesman says, about claims from right-wing groups that the Society supported the report's findings and that Rudolf's dismissal was orchestrated by the Central Council for Jews in Germany — charges which the society vigorously denies. Last week it issued a statement saying that it supports the German Supreme Court's ruling that the mass murders of Jews in concentration camps is a historical fact that needs no further proof. A spokesman for the society says that even if the samples sent to the Fresenius Institute were genuine, Rudolf's interpretation of the data is invalid because there are so many unknown factors involved, such as whether or not the chosen chamber was one of the many known to have been rebuilt before the allied troops entered the camp, or whether residues in the delousing chamber could have remained because much higher concentrations of cyanide were used to kill lice. The Institute for Solid State Physics dismissed Rudolf without notice on 7 June, saying that he was wrong to use the institute's facilities for work which would bring it into disrepute. It said that Rudolf had misled the Fresenius Institute by implying that the samples were related to work at the Max Planck institute, because he had used institute notepaper. But Rudolf argues that several people at the institute had known of his work for more than a year before the dismissal, including his supervisor Hans Georg von Schnering, who, he claims, was sometimes supportive. He says the work was done in his free time and the Fresenius institute knew from telephone conversations that his work was independent. He is bitter about the dismissal, and the publicity around it which has made it impossible for him to find a job. He is also angry that the University of Stuttgart is refusing to consider his submitted thesis, and that no-one will discuss with him the scientific content of his report. "My only chance now is to prove that I am right", he says, and he is now working with around 20 people from different countries on doing just that. He refuses to talk about the political implications of his work, claiming that he is only interested in "the truth". Von Schnering admits that he knew of Rudolf's work, but says that the clause in Germany's constitution, guaranteeing freedom of research, prevented him from reporting to senior staff at the institute what Rudolf was doing in his spare time. "Rudolf was a good student scientifically, but the conclusions of the report were all wrong," he now says. Neither side intend[s] to take the dismissal further. But Rudolf's new allies from the extreme right plan to publish the report in several other languages including English, Japanese and Russian. "Our motivation is to spread the truth," says Kammerer. Last month a German court, in a case brought by the leader of the right-wing National Democratic party, overturned a ruling that the report could not be published in Germany. Alison Abbott |
1. H. Auerbach, Institute for Contemporary History, letter to G. Herzogenrath-Amelung, Az. Au/Be., 21.12.1993.
2. Beate Klarsfeld Foundation, New York 1989.
3. CNRS �ditions, Paris 1993.
4. In the book Les Cr�matoires ... he gives a source for the boiling point of Prussic acid (p. 16), but he confuses it with an "evaporation point", which does not exist. He thereby proves his physical-chemical incompetence. He cites another source on circular layout delousing facilities which he found in a Moscow archive, but does not discuss the contents (p. 41).
5. Cf. R. Kammerer, A. Solms, Das Rudolf Gutachten, Cromwell, London 1993, especially pp. 64ff.
6. Since it has become known that the Demjanjuk identity papers were completely forged, it is obvious that a documentary criticism based on these archives is necessary. D. Lehner, Du sollst nicht falsch Zeugnis geben, Vowinckel, Berg, undated.
7.
For detailed criticism of Pressac cf.:
R. Faurisson, Revue d'Histoire R�visionniste, v. 3 (1990), pp. 65ff.;
R. Faurisson, Journal of Historical Review, v. 11, no. 1 (1991), pp. 25ff.;
R. Faurisson, Journal of Historical Review, v. 11, no. 2 (1991), pp. 133ff.;
W. H�berle, Deutschland in Geschichte und Gegenwart, v. 39, no. 2 (1991), pp. 9ff.;
W. Schuster, Deutschland in Geschichte und Gegenwart, v. 39, no. 2 (1991), pp. 13ff.;
M. Weber, Journal of Historical Review, v. 12, no. 4 (1992), pp. 421ff.;
P. Grubach, Journal of Historical Review, v. 12, no. 4 (1992), pp. 445ff.;
E. Gauss, Deutschland in Geschichte und Gegenwart, v. 41, no. 2 (1993), pp. 16ff.;
E. Gauss, Vorlesungen �ber Zeitgeschichte, Grabert, T�bingen 1993;
R. Kammerer and others, note 5.
Cf. also the referenced criticism of his newest book:
A.N.E.C., R. Faurisson, S. Thion, P. Costa, Nouvelle Vision, v. 31 (1993), pp. 11ff.;
R. Faurisson, R�ponse � Jean-Claude Pressac, R.H.R., Bo�te postale 122, 92704 Colombes Cedex, France 1994;
R. Faurisson, C. Mattogno, S. Thion, Erwiderung an Jean-Claude Pressac, in preparation.
8. Cf. R. Kammerer and others, note 5, especially pp. 22ff.
9. In a seminar with co-workers from Prof. von Schnering's unit, to H. Hillebrecht on 20.1.1993, 9:48 hours, room 4D2 MPI FKF, Stuttgart.
10. Cf. sec. 4 of the Law on holding degrees.
11. Administrative Court Mannheim, Az. IX 1496/79, JZ v. 19 (1981), pp. 661-664.
12. The interview was conducted before the filing of the charge sheet mentioned in the beginning.
13. Cf. R. Kammerer, A. Solms, Das Rudolf Gutachten, Cromwell Press, 27 Old Gloucester Street, London WC1N 3XX, 1993, pp. 87-91.
14. J.M. Kape, E.C. Mills, Transactions of the Institute of Metal Finishing, v. 35 (1958), pp. 353-384; ibid., v. 59 (1981), pp. 35-39.
15. D. Maier, K. Czurda, G. Gudehus, Das Gas- und Wasserfach, Gas · Erdgas, v. 130 (1989), pp. 474-484.
16. F. Piper in an interview with D. Cole, B. Smith, Visalia, Calif. 1992; cf. Journal of Historical Review, v. 13, no. 2 (1993), pp. 11-13.
17. Fax report from the MPG on 12.4.1994.
18. See, for example, the S�dwest Presse, fax on 22.4.1994.
19. E. Gauss, Vorlesungen �ber Zeitgeschichte, Grabert, T�bingen 1993, pp. 214ff.
19a. A 1956 play by Max Frisch in which a solid citizen gives hospitality to strangers who eventually destroy his family and burn down his house, an allegorical description of the totalitarian takeover of a society.
20. Die Zeit, 15.4.1994, p. 44.
