Denying the Revisionists: The Errors and Falsifications of Deborah Lipstadt

By Richard A. Widmann

   In a style reminiscent of the most vile Nazi rhetoric, Deborah Lipstadt writes in the preface to her Denying the Holocaust, 

"In the 1930s Nazi rats spread a virulent form of antisemitism that resulted in the destruction of millions. Today the bacillus carried by these rats threatens to 'kill' those who already died at the hands of the Nazis for a second time by destroying the world's memory of them."1 

• Lipstadt simplifies to the point of absurdity the argument of Leon Degrelle. She writes, "[Leon Degrelle] wrote an "Open Letter to the Pope about Auschwitz," informing the Polish-born cleric, who had witnessed the war at close range, that there were no gas chambers or mass annihilation in Hitler's Third Reich and that Jews who had been killed were actually murdered by American and British bombings." 7

• Lipstadt writes, "Devin-Adair ... would in turn become one of the leading publishers of Holocaust denial material."10 

• Lipstadt writes, "Years later, in an example of how deniers pervert historical arguments, a virtually identical argument was made by Austin App: 'The top U.S. media, possibly because they are dominated by Jews... have no tradition of fairness to anyone they hate... They have also in wartime subverted much of the public to a frenzy of prejudice." 11

   Lipstadt's ellipse excludes the important words, "But, sad to say" which alters the sentences meaning thusly: "But, sad to say, they have also in wartime subverted much of the public to frenzy of prejudice."12

• Lipstadt claims that Paul Rassinier argued, "People may have been killed, he declared, but those who conducted such 'exterminations' were acting on their own and not in the name of 'a state order in the name of a political doctrine.'" 13

   In fact as Rassinier explored the realities of the Holocaust story, he mused, "[...]there probably were exterminations by gas, but not as many as has been claimed. The number, of course, does not in the least diminish the nature of the horror, but the fact that the practice might have been a measure that was decreed by a State order in the name of a political doctrine would singularly add to the horrible nature of it. Was that the case?" 14

   It is very deceptive to suggest that Rassinier said "people may have been killed." This is no question whatsoever for Rassinier. The question for Rassinier is whether or not the Nazi state ordered the exterminations. This is a matter that he researches further throughout his book.

• Lipstadt writes, "In fact, Rassinier preferred dealing with the SS because they were 'in principle... better and ... more humane."15

   This is not what Rassinier argues. Rassinier is discussing the change in policy of the administration of the concentration camps from one in which the SS administered the camps directly, to one in which the prisoners acted as intermediaries. He writes of the system and not the SS, "All of the old hands who have experienced both systems are unanimous in recognizing that the former was in principle the better and the more humane." 16

• Lipstadt writes, "...In one of his most extreme arguments, Rassinier attempted to transform the Nazis from perpetrators into benefactors. He claimed that they had benign, if not positive, motives when they put people in concentration camps. Initially the National Socialists' incarceration of people in concentration camps was a 'gesture of compassion.' Their objective was to protect their adversaries by putting them 'where they could not hurt the new regime and where they could be protected from the public anger.'" 17

   The comment comes from Jirczah, a fellow prisoner. Jirczah was a Czech lawyer who had been assistant to the Mayor of Prague. Rassinier recounts meeting Jirczah while in Buchenwald. It is Jirczah who says, "When the National Socialists came to power, they decided, in a gesture of compassion, to put all of their adversaries in a place where they could not hurt the new regime and where they could be protected from public anger." 18

• Lipstadt asserts that Rassinier's explanation of the perpetration of "the Holocaust hoax" was very clumsy. She writes, "It can be briefly summarized: The Jews have been able to dupe the world by relying on their mythic powers and conspiratorial abilities. As they have so often done in the past, world Jewry has once again employed its inordinate powers to harness the world's financial resources, media and political interests for their own purposes." 19

   Here Lipstadt was especially deceptive.  Her summarization is followed in what is the typical quotation style (indent with smaller point size) that is used throughout the book. However what appears to be a very damning and anti-Semitic quote by Rassinier was actually not written by Rassinier at all, but rather by Lipstadt herself. Not only is the paragraph not a quote of Rassinier, Lipstadt does not even offer a citation where such ideas are to be found. 

• Lipstadt asserts that Rassinier claims that "[the Zionists thwarted] a census of world Jewry from being taken so that they could subject the Holocaust death toll 'to all kinds of manipulation.'" 20

   In fact Rassinier was discussing the "migration of European Jews between 1933 and 1945." He writes, "Because this movement has not been studied in any detail by any of the authors who we have been discussing, it is full of question marks and is suspectible [sic] to all kinds of manipulation." 21

• Lipstadt writes, "[David] Hoggan suggested that the fine levied on German Jews in the wake of Kristallnacht was simply an equitable way to keep Jews from getting rich from the destruction by 'pocket[ing] vast amounts of money from the German insurance companies.'" 22

Here Lipstadt has deceptively put these words into Hoggan's mouth. Hoggan is actually reporting on the opinion of Joseph Goebbels. He writes, "Hitler was persuaded by Goebbels, after the demonstrations, to levy a 1-billion Mark (250 million dollar) fine on the wealthy and moderately wealthy Jews of Germany. Goebbels had argued that otherwise the Jews would be able to pocket vast amounts of money from the German insurance companies because the assets damaged or destroyed on November 10, 1938, had been heavily insured." 23 

• Lipstadt writes, "Attempting to deflect the charges of German atrocities, Barnes relied on immoral equivalencies arguing that there was a 'failure to point out that the atrocities of the Allies were more brutal, painful, mortal and numerous than the most extreme allegations made against the Germans.'"24 

In fact, Barnes is not discussing nor deflecting charges of German atrocities but is rather discussing William Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Barnes writes, "...even the colossal Shirer slander was bought in great quantities in Germany and only sporadically attacked and exposed for what it really is; the failure to point out that the atrocities of the Allies were more brutal, painful, mortal and numerous than most extreme allegations made against Germans..." 25

   It is important to note that Lipstadt has added an importantly placed "the" in her quotation. For Barnes, Shirer's work fails because it doesn't point out that atrocities of the Allies were more brutal than most extreme allegations made against Germans. For Lipstadt it becomes "the most extreme allegations." Lipstadt's alteration makes Barnes appear all the more extreme.

• Lipstadt writes, "Moving close to explicit denial, Barnes argued that the [Eichmann] trial revealed 'an almost adolescent gullibility and excitability on the part of Americans relative to German wartime crimes, real or alleged.'" 26

   Here too Lipstadt has taken Barnes out of context and makes the circular argument by italicizing the word "alleged" that even skepticism about any claims of German crimes is akin to 'explicit denial.' Barnes, ever the historiographer of revisionism was actually discussing the book The Other Side of the Coin by Alfred Lilienthal whom he calls a 'courageous Jewish publicist." Barnes tells his readers that Lilienthal has shown in his book that "this trial revealed and demonstrated an almost adolescent gullibility and excitability on the part of Americans relative to German wartime crimes, real or alleged, and the equally apparent passionate determination of every type of American communication agency to exploit the opportunity for financial profit by placing every shred of both fact and rubbish connected with them before American readers, hourly and daily, for months, if not years on end. 27

• Lipstadt totally distorts Barnes by writing "The charges against Eichmann and Nazi Germany were based on 'fundamental but unproved assumptions that what Hitler and the National Socialists did in the years after Britain and the United States entered the war revealed that they were... vile, debased, brutal and bloodthirsty gangsters.'" 28

   Here Lipstadt italicizes "unproved assumptions" in order to suggest that Barnes is saying that the crimes of Nazi Germany are "unproved." This is not at all what Barnes has actually written. Barnes actually wrote, "This revamped historical blackout, now become the historical 'smotherout' is based chiefly on the fundamental but unproved assumption that what Hitler and the National Socialists did in the years after Britain and the United States entered the war revealed that they were such vile, debased, brutal, and bloodthirsty gangsters that Great Britain had been under an overwhelmingly moral obligation to plan a war to exterminate them." 29

   For Barnes the "unproved assumption" is not the crimes of Nazi Germany but that Britain entered the war with a moral obligation to exterminate the German people because of such crimes. There is no doubt about Barnes meaning. He follows up the above quote by explaining that "it was asserted that the United States was compelled to enter this conflict to aid and abet the British crusade as a moral imperative..." 30 A review of the contemporary opinion pieces in various newspapers and magazines shows quickly that such opinions were quite widespread.

• Lipstadt claims that "Barnes again stopped short of explicitly denying the existence of gas chambers." She extracts the following quote, "The number of civilians exterminated by the Allies, before, during and after the second World War, equaled, if it did not far exceed those liquidated by the Germans and the Allied liquidation program was often carried out by methods which were far more brutal and painful than whatever extermination actually took place in German gas ovens." 31 

   Lipstadt goes on to complain in a footnote that "the editor of the Journal of Historical Review was clearly distressed by the ambiguity of this statement, which could be interpreted to suggest that Barnes believed that there might have actually been "gas ovens" in Auschwitz." The JHR added a footnote to the above quotation which reads in part, "Of course Barnes is confused here by the difference between a 'gas chamber' and a 'gas oven.'" First one must be struck by the oddity that Lipstadt is using the Barnes passage to show that he was very close to "denying the existence of gas chambers" but also takes a jab at the JHR for being distressed that this passage suggest that Barnes believes in the "gas chambers" of Auschwitz. Either he does or he doesn't. Lipstadt also betrays her lack of understanding of the subject by criticizing the JHR footnote. Clearly Barnes was confused over the difference between 'gas chamber' and 'gas oven.' We see the term 'gas oven' used frequently in the contemporary reports. Even George Orwell makes reference to the 'gas ovens' of Auschwitz. One of the contemporary horror stories of Auschwitz was that people were burned alive in huge gas ovens. Of course there were no 'gas ovens' in Auschwitz. The debate is over 'gas chambers.' There were of course coke-fired Crematorium at Auschwitz. The design and function of a Crematorium is not the same as an 'oven.'

• Lipstadt writes, "[Harry Elmer] Barnes castigated both the government and the academic community of the Federal Republic of Germany for failing to challenge this 'unfair' verdict and the 'false dogma[s]' propagated by the Allies and accepted by the Bonn government. The government's approach to history prevented 'the restoration of Germany to its proper position of unity, power and respect among the nations of the world.'" 32

   This is a distortion of Barnes' point. Lipstadt's "unfair verdict" has to do with "responsibility for the war and atrocities." The original quote is written in light of and with consideration to A.J.P. Taylor's work The Origins of the Second World War, a work which Lipstadt omits mention of in her volume. Barnes writes, "So long as the German government and people admit, certainly by direct implication, that they deserved everything which happened to them as a result of military defeat, there is little solid foundation for any effort to emancipate themselves from these burdens, unite Germany, and restore the country to its proper position of unity, power and respect among the nations of the world." 33

• Lipstadt writes, "According to Barnes the postwar German leadership did more than acquiesce in the charges brought against it. It furthered the 'smotherout' by 'oppos[ing] the discovery and publication of the truth." 34

   Lipstadt cites "Revisionism and Brainwashing" pages 2 and 25. Barnes does not make such a statement on these pages. She has retrofitted the term "smotherout" from a 1967 article back to this 1963 article and has created these words. The closest sentence on these pages is as follows, "The Bonn Government, on the other hand, appears, even to many friendly outsiders, almost to vie with its former enemies in opposing the search for truth about the responsibility for the second World War and in refusing to accept the facts already established by scholars who have no national, personal, or party axes to grind."35

• Lipstadt writes, "App argued, without offering a shred of proof, that [Ilya] Ehrenburg personally urged Soviet soldiers to commit rape, against the German people. (Ehrenburg did call for vengeance but not for rape.) This vindictive Jewish Communist supposedly gave the most "beastly directive in history: Rape the German women as booty!" 36

   Unfortunately, Lipstadt does not give any citation for the above. She is working and quoting widely from App's "A Straight Look at the Third Reich." We find in that essay the following: "The Jewish Propaganda Minister Ilya Ehrenburg kept broadcasting to the troops as they approached Germany: 'Kill. In Germany, nothing is guiltless. Neither the living nor the yet unborn. .. Crush forever in its den the fascist beast. Violently break the racial pride of the German woman. Ravish them as booty. Kill, you gallant Red soldiers!'
It took a vindictive Jewish Communist to give the most beastly directive in history: 'Rape the German women as booty!'"37

   Although App also does not offer a specific reference, he does include the citation from Ehrenburg as his "shred of evidence." Alfred M. de Zayas comments on the leaflet which has been widely attributed to Ehrenburg.38 De Zayas quotes the pertinent parts of the leaflet as, "Break the racial pride of the German woman. Take her as your legitimate booty. Kill, you brave Soldiers of the victorious Soviet Army." This also appears in the memoirs of Admiral Doenitz on p. 424. Ehrenburg himself disclaimed authorship in volume 5 of his memoirs. 

• Lipstadt writes, "Immediately after discussing Allied atrocities, without any indication that the subject of his diatribe had changed, App wrote: 'Not finding the Nazis guilty of real war crimes at all commensurate with the monstrous ones of the victors, they resorted to the only alternative open to hypocrites and liars namely to fabricate a mass atrocity. This they did with the legend of the six million Jews "gassed." ... This is a fabrication and swindle.'" 39

   Lipstadt cites Austin App, "A Straight Look" p.48. She makes interesting cuts in the text. App actually writes, "This they did with the legend of the six million Jews "gassed," four million in Auschwitz and two million elsewhere. This is a 95% fabrication and swindle.' App therefore allows for 300,000 gassed or otherwise murdered. Today the four million number at Auschwitz has been reduced by approximately 75% by official counts.40

• Lipstadt writes "Butz allows his rhetoric to fall into a very different category: American diplomats engaged in 'hysterical yapping about the six million,' and stories of 'gas chambers' were 'wartime propaganda fantasies,' 'garbage,' and 'tall tales.'" 41

   Lipstadt again has taken a bit of license to cast doubt on Arthur Butz's scholarship. In fact the "American diplomats" that Lipstadt mentions turn out to be U.S. representative Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Butz wrote, "When in November 1975, an overwhelming majority at the United Nations... endorsed a resolution declaring Zionism to be a form of racism... the U.S. representative, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, an otherwise impressive intellect, was reduced in astonishingly short order to hysterical yapping about the six million." 42

   Butz does call the "gas chambers" wartime propaganda fantasies, he writes, "The 'gas chambers' were wartime propaganda fantasies completely comparable to the garbage that was shoveled out by Lord Bryce and associates in World War I. 43 Although Lipstadt takes offense at the word "garbage" in relation to the atrocity tales of the First World War, interestingly she comments on such stories, "The American public, unaware that a hoax was being perpetrated, proved particularly susceptible to these stories." 44 It is odd that she should be so comfortable with the word "hoax" to use it herself.

   On the question of "tall tales," Lipstadt has distorted Butz who was commenting not on the gas chambers but on Pirro Scavizzi of the Catholic Church. Butz wrote, "Scavizzi was obviously a weaver of self-inflating tall tales designed to make him appear rather more important than his humble station in riding in hospital trains would have suggested." 45

• Lipstadt charges that Butz has written, "the mass media in Western democracies constituted ' a lie machine of vaster extent than even many of the more independent minded have perceived.' These charges hark back to the work of Rassinier, App, and Barnes and evoke what has become a standard litany of antisemitic charges regarding Jews' control of the banks and media. 46

   Although Butz has written what Lipstadt has quoted he makes no reference to anything other than the media in the Western democracies. Butz does not specifically mention "mass media" and does not make any such "antisemitic" charges. 47 

• Lipstadt writes, "Butz credited the German press for ignoring the propaganda about death camps and focusing its attention on "legitimate" questions such as the 'extent and means of Jewish influence in the Allied press.' Butz's citation of the Nazi press as an example of high-level journalism, when all forms of public information in the Third Reich were under absolute government control, is itself significant. So, too, is his description of the question of Jewish control of the media as a "legitimate" one. These are reliable indicators of his worldview. 48

   In fact Butz was making passing comment on the German media's treatment of the Allied propaganda claims. Butz writes, "Thus the German press treatment of the 'Greuelpropaganda' was on a higher level and, rather than concern itself with specific contents of the stories, it concerned itself with such questions as the nature of the political interests that were served by the propaganda and the extent and means of Jewish influence in the Allied press. (e.g. Das Reich for 20 December 1942.) 49 No where on the page cited by Lipstadt does Butz use the word "legitimate." Lipstadt specifically announces that due to the usage of the word "legitimate" that we have an indicator of Butz's "worldview." In fact Butz does nothing more than report what was being said at the time in the German press.

• Lipstadt writes, "In February 1993 the TSPB (Texas Student Publication Board) compelled the paper to accept an ad promoting a video expose of the gas chambers by a CODOH member claiming to be a Jew." 50 

   Lipstadt's own prejudices about revisionists do not allow her to believe that film maker, David Cole was, and is in fact, Jewish.

Conclusions

   Denying the Holocaust was received to glowing reviews from the nation's press immediately upon its release. Once again Deborah Lipstadt has become the darling of the media resulting from her win in the Irving v. Lipstadt case earlier this year. Lipstadt criticizes "deniers" for "enlist[ing] a basic strategy of distortion. Truth is mixed with absolute lies, confusing readers who are unfamiliar with the tactics of the deniers. Half-truths and story segments, which conveniently avoid critical information, leave the listener with a distorted impression of what really happened." 51 If we consider for a moment that Lipstadt is actually a "denier" of Holocaust revisionism then we can apply her warning to her own work. Attentive readers of Denying the Holocaust will immediately recognize Lipstadt's ideological strategy of deception. 

Notes

1. Deborah Lipstadt, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory (New York, 1994) (hereafter referred to as Denying), p. xvii.
2. Ibid., p. 3.
3. Ibid., p. 2.
4. Ibid., p. 4.
5. One such example is Theodore J. O'Keefe, "New Books Seek to Discredit 'Growing Threat' of 'Holocaust Denial," Journal of Historical Review, vol. 13, no. 6 (November/ December 1993), pp. 28-35.
6. Harry Elmer Barnes, Barnes Against the Blackout: Essays Against Interventionism (Costa Mesa, California, 1991) p. 273.
7. Denying, p. 11.
8. Leon Degrelle, Letter to the Pope on His Visit to Auschwitz, (United Kingdom, 1979) p.5.
9. Ibid., p. 5.
10. Denying, p. 39.
11. Ibid., p. 46.
12. Austin App, No Time for Silence (Costa Mesa, 1987) p.35.
13. Denying, p. 52.
14. Paul Rassinier, The Holocaust Story and the Lies of Ulysses (Costa Mesa, California, 1978) (hereafter referred to as Holocaust Story) p. 164.
15. Denying, p. 55.
16. Holocaust Story, p. 53.
17. Denying, p. 54. 
18. Holocaust Story, p. 36.
19. Denying, p. 63.
20. Denying, p. 63. 
21. Holocaust Story, p. 306.
22. Denying, p. 71. 
23. David L. Hoggan, The Forced War (Costa Mesa, California, 1989) p. 156.
24. Denying, p. 74.
25. Harry Elmer Barnes, "Revisionism and Brainwashing" The Barnes Trilogy: Three Revisionist Booklets (Torrance, CA 1979) p. 42.
26. Denying, p. 76.
27. Harry Elmer Barnes, "The Public Stake in Revisionism" Journal of Historical Review vol. 1, No. 3 (Fall 1980) pp. 217-18. 
28. Denying, p. 76. 
29. Public Stake p. 218.
30. Ibid.
31. Denying, pp. 76-77.
32. Denying, p. 79.
33. Brainwashing p. 34.
34. Denying, p. 79.
35. Brainwashing, p. 25.
36. Denying, p. 97.
37. Austin J. App, No Time for Silence (Costa Mesa, CA 1987) p.50.
38. Alfred M. de Zayas, Nemesis at Potsdam (Lincoln 1989) p. 201.
39. Denying, p. 98.
40. No Time for Silence, p. 68.
41. Denying, p. 125.
42. Arthur R. Butz, The Hoax of the Twentieth Century (Torrance, CA 1985) (hereafter referred to as Hoax), p. 249.
43. Ibid., p.240.
44. Denying, p. 34.
45. Hoax, p. 287.
46. Denying, p. 132.
47. Hoax, p. 249.
48. Denying, p. 132.
49. Hoax, p. 89.
50. Denying, p. 203.
51. Denying, p. 2.