Reply to Mark Weber
I shall briefly sum up for you what, precisely, our recent exchange of correspondence has been. For greater clarity, I find myself obliged to emphasise certain words of this exchange, although I do not care for the practice. You will see that, contrary to what you venture to say, the letter I sent you and made public on December 17 was neither “misleading” nor “unfair”. You will also see, at the end of this reply, that you have made a monumental muddle of a text of mine of which you quote a very brief fragment; in doing so, you have been “misleading” or “unfair”, or both. In conclusion, I will show that this controversy may in the end lead to a heartening prospect for the future of revisionism.
My question of December 17 was “Tell me whether or not you SAY, as I myself have so clearly STATED for so many years, that the alleged Nazi GAS CHAMBERS and the alleged Nazi GAS VANS never EXISTED”. The question was clear: it focused 1) on what you SAY or STATE, 2) on the EXISTENCE itself 3) of the alleged Nazi GAS CHAMBERS 4) and of the alleged Nazi GAS VANS.
Instead of answering this question directly, you wrote back “I don’t believe the claims about the alleged Nazi gas chambers”. That act of faith was not what I was looking for. Effectively, whereas I was waiting to see what you, as a historian, would SAY or STATE, you answered by what you DIDN’T BELIEVE. Then, you asserted that you did not BELIEVE CLAIMS, a particularly vague word; the remark may mean that you refuse to believe certain statements concerning the said gas chambers but not necessarily all such statements; the choice of the word “CLAIMS” may mean that you call into question certain aspects of the story of the Nazi gas chambers (their number, location, performance) but not necessarily the affirmation of their existence itself. Finally, with such a sentence you do not, as all may see, breathe a word of the “gas vans”.
Noting that with so vague a sentence you had not gone into the subject, I did not feel the need to deal with it in my letter itself but, in the accompanying message, addressed to Jean Plantin, Yvonne Schleiter and Arthur Butz at the same time as to you, I plainly told you: “I did not ask for your ‘beliefs’ (?) about ‘claims’ (?) and, moreover, you do not mention the Nazi gas vans”.
Nor did I deal with your prologue regarding at once Dachau, Mauthausen, Hartheim and your “limited” knowledge of technical and chemical matters. As is my habit, I went straight to the heart of the matter and so it was that, leaving to one side everything of the order of more or less trifling preliminary remarks, I extracted from your response the lone sentence that constituted an answer, FINALLY, to the question put. And that answer was as follows: “I do not like to say that the ‘Nazi gas chambers never existed’, in part because I do not regard myself as any kind of specialist of ‘gas chambers’ and in part because I avoid making such categorical statements.”
I think it useless here to run once more through the remarks that such a pitiful answer inspires me to make. It is typical of what I call “spineless Revisionism”. At the 2002 conference I protested against this form of revisionism and suggested that, in future, revisionists come out fighting. I find comical the insistence of some revisionist “researchers” on still looking into “the problem of the gas chambers”. We are not going to carry on this way till the end of time killing what has already, on the commonsense level, been “overkilled”. But with our “researchers” the corpse of the “Nazi gas chambers or vans” is buried, then exhumed to be put in a coffin into which one more nail is driven. The role of an Institute like the IHR ought to be to come out with a formal assertion, one requiring neither technical nor chemical expertise but being rather of the simplest kind: For more than half a century, Germany’s accusers have in the end revealed their inability to let us see a single specimen of the alleged weapons of mass destruction that the Nazis are said to have designed, built or used for “The Destruction of the European Jews” (Raul Hilberg).
Whatever you do, don’t moan that “Given that you have not pressed me for my view on Nazi gas chambers during the past ten years or so, I don’t understand why you have been pressing me on this in recent weeks”. In reality, you know perfectly well that there has been this point of discord between us for quite a long time. I have reminded you of the instance at which you and I confronted one another on it ten years ago in Washington. There was also, though you seem not to remember, another instance, over the telephone, on the subject of a statement of yours during a talk-show on a Black American radio station. And I am not the only one to deplore Mark Weber’s shilly-shallying with regard to the gas chambers. I can recall Fritz Berg rightly complaining of your dodging the question. Carlos Porter also seems to find you are dancing around it. I myself have had to approach you more than once in order to get you to respond. And now, finally, that your response is known, it is understandable why you have tried to dodge an irksome question. But, is it normal, Mark Weber, to conceal from the IHR’s readers, members, dues-paying supporters that the editor of their Journal perhaps refuses, to a certain degree, to BELIEVE a lie and a historic slander but DOES NOT LIKE to have to say so? How many people imagine that, for the Editor of the Journal of Historical Review, a proper reply to that slander is: “I do not like to say that ‘the Nazis gas chambers never existed’”?
During the above-mentioned talk-show you stated: “I do not deny the Holocaust happened but…”. I immediately told you how deadly wrong it was to make such a CONCESSION to The Big Lie and Defamation. You retort now that in 1991 I myself declared: “Revisionists do not deny the genocide and the gas chambers”. There you make a fine muddle. I said then, on the contrary, that with the acceptance of the word “deny” an untoward CONCESSION was made to the liars. I give you below the full text of my remark as it was published under the altogether unambiguous title “AFFIRMATION, NOT DENIAL”:
A reminder: Revisionists do not deny the genocide and the gas chambers. This is a MISCONCEPTION. Galileo didn’t deny that the earth was stationary; he AFFIRMED, at the conclusion of his research, that the earth was not stationary, but that it rotated on its axis and revolved around the sun. In the same way, the revisionists, after concluding their own research, AFFIRM that there was no genocide and no gas chambers, and that the “final solution of the Jewish question” consisted of the removal of the Jews from Europe – by emigration if possible, and by deportation if necessary. – The revisionists strive to establish what happened; they are positive while the exterminationists doggedly continue to tell us about things which didn’t happen: their work is negative. – The Revisionists stand for the reconciliation of the antagonists in the recognition of what really happened. (Robert Faurisson, Journal of Historical Review, January-February 1999, p. 21).
In other words, I make with that remark the opposite of a CONCESSION. In a general way, not only do I expose the enthusiasts of the Big Lie for what they are, but I also refuse to borrow even their least turn of phrase. The revisionists must show themselves to be candid, unbending and without CONCESSION. The time for CONCESSIONS is over.
I come now to the possibility, mentioned at the outset, of an interesting prospect for the future of revisionism.
On June 2, 2003 I published the following short article.
Hitler’s and Saddam’s Weapons of Mass Destruction
Is it not simply wondrous to be told the same lie twice by the same people and for the same purpose at nearly sixty years’ distance?
In January 1944 US President Franklin D. Roosevelt decided to create, on the advice of the Jew Henry Morgenthau and his cohorts, the so-called War Refugee Board (WRB). On November 26, 1944 that official body published, under the letterhead “Executive Office of the President / War Refugee Board / Washington, D. C.” a report entitled German Extermination Camps Auschwitz and Birkenau, falsely accusing Adolf Hitler of possessing weapons of mass destruction or WMD’s (called execution gas chambers).
In 2002 President George W. Bush decided to create, on the advice of the Jew Paul Wolfowitz and his cohorts, the so-called Office of Special Plans (OSP). Headed by Abram Shulsky, that official body promoted reports falsely accusing Saddam Hussein of having WMD’s.
The lie was the same: an accusation based on false evidence. The people were the same sort: powerful American Jews. The purpose was the same: war.
But there were also differences. First, the lie against Hitler concerned WMD’s that were, for physical and chemical reasons, altogether impossible and inconceivable while the lie against Saddam Hussein was about WMD’s that were quite possible and conceivable, since his accusers themselves possessed such devices in great abundance. Secondly, the lie against Adolf Hitler was more than half a century old and going stronger than ever, while the lie against Saddam Hussein was only a few months old and not yet very strong. Thirdly, if someone disputed the accusation against Adolf Hitler he might, like Ernst Zündel, be sent to prison whereas if someone disputed the accusation against Saddam Hussein he would, at least currently, be running only slight risks.
Observe how the lie was built up against Saddam Hussein and you will see exactly how the lie against Adolf Hitler was forged by the same sort of people and for the same purpose: perpetual war.
When you, Mark Weber, recently held a conference with David Irving on current world events, I suppose the two of you shared a good laugh with the tale of Saddam Hussein’s WMD’s. If so, did you also have a laugh with Adolf Hitler’s WMD’s? And, if you did not, may one ask why?
It is time for the end of this COMEDY that consists in demanding that the Allies show us those weapons that Saddam is said to have possessed while, on the subject of the far more fantastical weapons that Hitler is said to have possessed and used on a large scale, Mark Weber is as reserved as a shy young maiden. With Saddam’s WMD’s, our patience did not last even a year, whereas with Hitler’s we shall soon have shown sixty years of patience.
In the late 1970s I myself opened the way to material revisionist studies, looking into the technical, physical, chemical, topographical and architectural aspects of the matter of Hitler’s alleged WMD’s. On this level, the revisionists have attained results of such abundance and precision that, little by little, the LIARS have found themselves at a loss for any answer. Their museums of the “Holocaust” have been unable to take up my final 1992 challenge: “Show me or draw me a Nazi gas chamber”. And what is true of the “Nazi gas chambers” is equally true of the “Nazi gas vans” or “Jewish soap” or lampshades made of human skin or still other nonsense.
I therefore suggest that the revisionists today close the book on this physical, chemical and otherwise material research, for it is in fact taking a progressively pedantic turn. It is becoming “art for art’s sake”. These redundant studies have, above all, the disastrous effect of making a problem appear complicated when it is actually altogether easy to solve.
It is pitiful when the head of an institute of revisionist studies is reduced to confessing: “I do not like to say that the Nazi gas chambers never existed”. It is regrettable that he should have concealed that attitude up to now and that only my insistence on getting an answer on the subject made him come out with it. It is a pity that, seeking to vindicate his position, he wrongly accused me of having been “misleading and unfair”. It is lamentable that in the dispute with me he should bring up a text of mine whose meaning he distorts to the point of turning it entirely around.
But it is heartening to see that I am now far from alone in denouncing a strain of revisionism that has had its day and in advocating a new revisionism, more clear-cut, straightforward, vigorous and able, for a start, to put it to the upholders of the Big Lie that “The best proof that your Nazi gas chambers and your Nazi gas vans did not exist any more than your Jewish soap, your lampshades of human skin and so much other nonsense of vile war propaganda is that, more than fifty years after that war, your ‘scientific experts’ are, more than ever, unable to show them to us”.
This new revisionism, which demands character, calls for young and spirited men.
Epilogue
“Hitler’s gas chambers are like Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction: THEY’VE NEVER BEEN SEEN!” Said in a woman’s voice, this recorded watchword has for the past few weeks been making the rounds of French revisionist news groups. I recommend that it be taken up with insistence in all revisionist publications and correspondence for as long as the Allies shall not have found Saddam’s secret weapons. As for the Liars who, to display Nazi gas chambers, put on view for us a section of wall or a door with a small window or a showerhead or a spy-hole or a pair of shoes with the inscription “We are the last witnesses” (as seen at the Washington Holocaust Memorial Museum), they make one think of General Colin Powell who, at the UN, showed photos of buildings or trucks supposed to represent Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction. And no one will have forgotten the “phial of poison” brandished there by the same general, himself raised, as his biographers tell us, in Yiddishtown (New York). The phial contained only a sort of sneezing powder. It was pure, unadulterated “Nuremberg trial”!
December 23, 2003