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VolumeFour,Number One

Spring 1983

The Journal of Historical Review

VOLUME FOUR. NUMBER ONE / SPRING 1983

Italian Fascism: An Interpretation by James B. Whisker The "Holocaust" as Sacred Cow by L.A. Rollins Who Are the Palestinians? by Sami Hadawi How Many Jews were Eliminated by the Nazis? by Frank Hankins BOOK REVIEWS: James J. Martin on Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace L.A. Rollins on The Terrible Secret, Auschwitz and the Allies and Eyewitness to the Holocaust Wayland D. Smith on Prisoner of Peace and Failure at Nurernberg Mark Weber on Reichskristallnacht The Journal of Historical Review is published quarterly by the INSTITUTE FOR HISTORICAL REVIEW Thomas J. Marcellus, Director Keith Stimely, Editor
EDITORIAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE DR. WALTER B. ALLENDE University of Buenos Aires DR. AUSTIN J. APP La Salle College, Phila. (Ret.) DR. GEORGE ASHLEY History Instructor Los Angeles Unified School District JOHN BENNETT Victorian Council for Civil Liberties Melbourne, Australia DR. ARTHUR R. BUTZ Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill. DR. ROBERT FAURISSON University of Lyon-2, France DITLIEB FELDERER Revisionist History Magazine Taby, Sweden PERCY L. GREAVES, Jr. Free Market Economist SAMUEL E. KONKIN I11 The New Libertarian, Long Beach, Cal. DR. MARTIN A. LARSON The Spotlight, Washington, D.C. DR. WILLIAM B. LINDSEY DR. JAMES J. MARTIN Institute for Historical Review DR. REVILO P. OLIVER University of Illinois, Urbana DR. WILHELM STAEGLICH Retired Judge, West Germany UDO WALENDY Verlag fur Volkstum and Zeitgeschichtsforschung Vlotho/Weser, West Germany DR. CHARLES E. WEBER Former Head, Department of Modern Languages University of Tulsa, Oklahoma DR. ANDREAS R. WESSERLE Marquette University Milwaukee, Wisconsin (Ret.)

The Journal of Historical Review is published quarterly by the Institute for Historical Review, P.O. Box 1306, Torrance, California 90505,United States of America. Subscription prices are as follows: One year, $30;two years, $50;three years, $70-or the equivalent in foreign currency. Foreign subscribers must add $5 if paying by remittance drawn on a foreign bank. For domestic first class delivery add $5 per year. For overseas air delivery add $12 per year. Quantity subscription and bulk issue rates available on request. Appropriate manuscripts are welcomed by the editor, but must be accompanied by return postage.

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ISSN: 0195-6752

Institute for Historical Review P.O. Box 1306,Torrance, California 90505,U.S.A.

Permission is hereby granted for reprints of any article contained herein, providing that no changes or alterations are made prior to printing, and also providing that the following attribution appears with the article: Reprinted by permission of The Journal of Historical Review, P.O. Box 1306,Torrance, California 90505,United States of America. Subscription rate: $30 per year. Two copies of each printing should be submitted to the Editor of The Journal of Historical Review.

Contents

Italian Fascism: An Interpretation James B. Whisker The 'Holocaust' as Sacred Cow L.A. Rollins Who Are the Palestinians? Sami Hadawi How Many Jews Were Eliminated by the Nazis? Frank H. Hankins Review Article A Memoir of Globaloney, Orwellianism, and Dead Sea Fruit James J. Martin Book Reviews About the Contributors

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A Note From The Editor

Human history is more than the history of politics, but it can never be less. Politics pervades, and any sphere of human activity or thought (including the record of it), at any time, is invariably colored-sometimes controlled-by the impulses of politics in the realm of thought or action, or both. Men make politics-which is simply poweractivity, a constant in all life-and when they do they may or may not have a body of thought and belief, an ideological program, in mind. They may seek power merely for its own sake, perhaps holding and proclaiming an ideology only as a prop and justification for the grabbing and wielding of naked power, perhaps not even bothering with this. For years the fascism of Mussolini was subject in mainline Western scholarship to this interpretation: Mussolini had no ideology, he was merely a luster after power, there was never any such thing as a true "ideology of fascism," merely late and unconvincing attempts to formulate an ethos to give some sort of intellectual and philosophical credence to the crude holding of power by the regime. This interpretation held fairly fast until the early 1960s, when a University of Rome scholar named Renzo De Felice began to publish his work on Mussolini (still incomplete in 1983 after six volumes), which granted the Duce more powers and sensitivity of mind than he had theretofore been commonly accorded, and in particular explored his intellectual roots in marxism and the revolutionary syndicalist tradition. In thus "revising" Italian fascist ideology, granting it a certain historical and intellectual legitimacy and developmental continuity, De Felice touched off a raging debate in his country among scholars and the lay public alike; the shout "neo-fascist" rang through the air, as always happens when someone departs from the communist (and liberal and democratic) line on this subject. The debate has hardly subsided since it began and indeed has seen intensification in this, the 100th anniversary year of Mussolini's birth. In America, De Felice has had his counterparts in the scholars A. James Gregor and Anthony James Joes, both of whom have followed much of De Felice's line of exploration but have taken him one step further. Not only recognizing the actual success and supreme potential of fascism in uniting the two most dynamic impulses-nationalism and socialism-of our age of "mass society," they have postulated a "universal" fascism, seeing in the Third World marxist regimes of today much that is, in fact, "national-socialist" or fascist. (De Felice himself, it should be noted, holds like Ernst Nolte to a quite more precise definition of fascism, strictly limiting it in place and time to Western Europe between the wars.) The variations in the work of De Felice, Gregor, and Joes, but more especially the vast differences between their revisionist views as a whole and what remains the established "line" on the subject, have clearly opened up a whole new way of thinking about a political ideology that shook our century-and whose day may not be over. We are pleased to add to the contempory discussion by presenting as our lead article this issue James Whisker's "Italian Fascism: An Interpretation." Whisker traces the four successive "phases" of ideological fascism in Italy, from Alfred Rocco's first attempts at constructing a unified theory out of the jumble of ideas that had influenced Mussolini and his party, to Giovanni Gentile's final construct, during Italy's wartime collapse, of a deeply philosophical and romantic "pure" fascism. Whisker points out the influence throughout the whole process of the thought of Georges Sorel in the transmutation of marxian-socialist "rationalist" ideas into the anti-rational, mythical ethos of fascism with its elevation of "feeling" over thought. Whisker also deals in illuminating fashion with the issues of the fascist corporate state and its claim to bridging the gap between workers and management, labor and capital; fascist relations with the Vatican (noting the similarity of fascist social goals with those being expressed by the Church at the same time); foreign policy and its role as the unhinger of the internal fascist consensus; and the genuine differences between Italian fascism and German national socialism. In all, it is an excellent interdisciplinary introduction to a historical and political phenomenon that bears study and has seen a wave of revisionary interest in recent years. Combined with our other articles in this issue-on topics as diverse as European demographics, the origins of the Middle East imbroglio, Roosevelt and post-Roosevelt foreign policy, and a peculiar social-psychological phenomenon relating to the "Holocaust"-as well a s a fine selection of reviews relating t o World War 11, it lends credence, we hope, to our journal's aim of representing a truly interdisciplinary approach to re-thinking the history of our century.
-Keith Stimely

Italian Fascism: An Interpretation

JAMES B.WHISKER

When the Grand Council of Fascism on 25 July 1943 removed Benito Mussolini from his position as head of government, fascism ended in Italy. Its ending was as surprising a s its beginning, when, on 28 March 1922, some 300,000Blackshirts under muss^ lini's command seized the Italian state. The events between those dates can be chronicled. The explanation of what had transpired is much more elusive. Fascism was touted by Mussolini a s a unique combination of thought and action, yet fascism was still seeking an ideology after the Second World War was over. The roots of fascism are many and comp1ex.l The fascist leadership, notably Mussolini, admitted the multi-faceted influences of liberalism, marxism, syndicalism, risorgimento, socialism, catholicism and nationalism on their ideology. 2 Their speeches and writings were replete with quotations from Schopenhauer, Hegel, Sorel, Saint-Simon, Pareto, Mosca, Mazzini and a hundred other writers. They admitted fascism was a unique blending of all of these and much more, yet they were never able to wholly explain it to their own satisfactions. Italian fascism was the first application of what would become a generic ideology encompassing, or allegedly encompassing, movements of the political right in every nation of Western Europe, the United States, the British Commonwealth nations and even ~ a p a n It~ . was believed by Italian leaders to be highly exportable, yet it carried strong Italian nationalistic overtones. It was essentially non-racist, yet in Italy it preached the gospel of the coming Italian race of overmen.

THE JOIJRNAI, 0 : f-IISTORICAL. REVIEW 1

Italian fascism had at least four principal phases. Until 1925,it was political action seeking an ideology. Mussolini had himself been variously a socialist, a pacifist, an internationalist, a war hawk, an anarchist, a statist, and, most of all, a pragmatist.5 When he sought an ideology he found none to satisfy him. When he came to power after the 1922 March on Rome he found himself in charge of the state but without a guiding and inspirational system of thought. The first phase lasted until the first fascist state was founded in 1925. From 1925 until 1938 the first fascist state operated. Its pri.~ mary theoretician was Alfredo ~ o c c o As he conceived it, the state was to be a strong, modern nation-state, accepting both the ideas of capitalism in the socio-economic sphere and a syndicalist state which brought about a forced union of labor and capital. Rocco encouraged the tendency of the fascist-sponsored capitalism to form monopolies and cartels because he believed that this increased productivity and thus encouraged the growth of state powers. The new elites of modern society-labor unions, industrialists, party bureaucracy and civil servants-were to be placed under the authoritarian control of the state. Indeed, the state became the single value to which all other values, including the fascist party itself, were to be subordinated. Rocco conceived of creating direct channels of communication between the masses and the party hierarchy. He demanded that a hierarchical arrangement o capitalism be created, one in f which the masses would be supportive of the regime because the regime would guarantee them full employment and higher wages. The party would provide the mechanism for mass communication with the leaders of the state. The combination of workers, industrialists and the omnipresent party representatives would ensure full and peaceful cooperation which would benefit all while strengthening the power of the Italian state. In this second period of fascism, the Italian electorate still played a major role. The 400 candidates for the legislature had to be approved by the voters. The workers played a larger role in the selection of their representatives and the people at large had some role in the nomination of the 400 candidates for the legislature. 7 In the third phase o fascism, Mussolini had come under the f spell of Adolf Hitler and his national socialist state. He was increasingly influenced by the anti-Semitic wing of the fascist party led by Farinacci and Preziosi. From 1938 until he was relieved of command by the Grand Fascist Council in 1943 Mussolini became the victim of his own propaganda efforts. He dreamed of wars of conquest, wars that were far and away beyond the industrial capacity of the state to sustain. He involved

Italian Fascism

the state in wars of colonial conquest, perhaps the last of the great imperialistic wars of ~ u r o p e . ~ In 1938 a change was made in the Italian government which separated the people from the decision-making process entirely. The list of parliamentary candidates was no longer offered to the masses for their approval. Mussolini merely emulated Hitler by creating the totalitarian state while removing basic democracy? During the final years of the second phase of fascism lo Alfredo Rocco had fallen into disfavor a s had the quadrumvir Balbo,ll the party leader Starace, the syndicalist thinker Rossoni and former party secretary Giuriati. Mario Palmieri l 2 had a brief career as party theoretician and Mussolini l3 had attempted himself to create a theory of fascism. Generally, the third period of fascism had produced neither the presciptions for an ideology Rocco had offered earlier nor the descriptions of fascist procedures that marked the attempts to explain fascist doctrine in the later stages of the second fascist period. After Mussolini's fall from power and his heroic rescue by German paratroopers, a proto-fascist state with Mussolini nominally at its head was created under the watchful protection of nazi troops. Precious little time remained to develop a theory. Mussolini was wholly preoccupied with staying alive and with dealing with his protectors. Valuable time was spent in dealing with the traitors within the party who had fired the Duce in 1943. A show trial and subsequent executions of these traitors took place. Mussolini's son-in-law Count Ciano was among those executed. Giovanni Gentile had been among those competing with Rocco for Mussolini's favor in earlier periods of fascism. He had held positions of minor consequence in the fascist state, culminating in his ministership of education. Now, with the Italian fascist state crumbling around him, and without a direct charge from Mussolini, Gentile created the last Italian fascist theory.14 Properly enough, it was more philosophical than the earlier attempts at creating an ideology were. Gentile's theory had its descriptive moments, but, in the large, he offered a wholly philosophical oversight into pure fascism. It had little in the way of a call to arms. It was not the usual post facto justification for what had transpired. It was a highly exportable theory of the state set against a fascist state background. Each man is unique because o his own individual experiences. f He forms other associations which become unique because of the collective group experiences; these group experiences, in turn, bear on the individual. The highest association an individual can form is with all his fellows in the state mechanism. The state is the ultimate association and it has its own collective experiences

TI 1E JOIJRNAI, OF f-1ISTORICAL REVIEW

which mark it different from all other states which have existed, do exist or can exist. The state, like all other human associations, profits from both its own collective experiences as a state and the individual experiences of its component parts, that is, both the individuals and the subservient associations which are merged into the organic state. The state, the individual and all human associations thus have life, conscience, and will to achieve. The uniqueness of the state experiences then bend back upon each and every citizen who fully cooperates within the state to enrich these lives and add to their individual memories and experiences. The state is thus given a real, organic life. It is necessarily supreme. All that is, within the state, is brought to fulfillment in the state. Nothing that is, within the state, can be permitted to exist beyond the reaches of the state. Nothing that is, within the state, can be permitted to go against the state. The state is the culmination of all human endeavors. It is the final resting place of all that man has created. The state knows, sees, participates in, profits by all that man does. Man is because the state is. Man lives because he has the state wherein to live. Without the state man is nothing, can become nothing. It is thus the natural destiny o man to be linked with the state. f The corporate state gives man the schema wherewith to associate himself with other men. The corporate state provides the forum for discussion of problems. It is the conduit with which man communicates with the natural leaders of the state. It is also the pipeline which the state uses in communicating with individual men or corporations or groups of men who are employed in industries. Without the corporate framework man could not associate with the state. He would be separated from the state and from his fellow men. He would be isolated and devoured by the nameless and uncontrolled masses who would be without form, substance or discipline. By the time Gentile had completed his Genesis and Structure of Society fascism was dead as an ideology. The proto-fascist states such as Spain, Argentina and Portugal were, at best, minimally interested in having a philosophy o fascism articulated for the f use of the leaders. The final stage of fascism is, thus, largely an artificial construct of political scientists and historians. Mussolini apparently was even unaware of Gentile's work and Gentile could hardly have been expected to have been especially interested in the German occupation government nominally headed by Mussolini. Fascism operated as a reasonably efficient statist system with admitted strong totalitarian overtones until it became interested in wars of colonial conquest. It had come to power because of the decaying social, economic and political conditions of post-World War I Italy. It had brought order out of chaos. Indeed, order was

Italian Fascism

its strong selling point when, after a series of crippling strikes sponsored by the socialists, it had managed when the liberal democratic state could not manage. Fascism bragged of its accomplishments in areas such as making trains run on time and draining swamps. With agencies not unlike those found in the American New Deal of Franklin Roosevelt, it tried to use state power to combat the economic catastrophies of the great depression. l The great irony of fascism is that it taught that the highest form o the state is found in the nation at war. No matter how great the f state may be in normal times it takes on even greater dimensions, greater self-fulfillment,greater attributes as a result of a national war. Of these national wars, the most significant in the life of the nation was the war of imperialistic conquest. A state for fascism grows or it dies. A vibrant and dynamic state is constantly seeking new areas of conquest. It seeks to grow at the expense of those states which are dying, hence contracting, and it grows at the expense of those states which have never matured and become great nations. Wars a r e the duty of the truly modern, organic state. l6 Where fascism had grown, even flourished, in peacetime, it faltered in war. While it is true that the Italian state had grave problems in trying to support the war machinery when engaged against the Western Allies, it is equally true that Italy had grave problems even against backward, non-industrial powers before the beginnings of the Second World War. Only with the greatest difficulties had Italy defeated Ethopia and Albania. Its ill-fated expeditions against Greece were saved from defeat only by the ultimate, but reluctant, involvement of the German war machine. O course, later, Hitler was pulled into North Africa in an attempt f to aid the failing Italian armies of his ally, Mussolini. The interest of Mussolini in re-establishing the Roman Empire, or at least a portion of it, illustrates the point made above that, after a decade and a half of propaganda directed at the masses, Mussolini and much of his sub-leaders had become themselves victims of fascist propaganda. Had he not sought colonial expansion, Mussolini might have ruled indefinitely. European leaders made little attempt to discredit Italian fascism. As late as the mid-1930s, most European leaders seemed to have supported the fascist state as merely an expression of rightist political reaction to socialism and bolshevism. The Communist International did not really begin to see fascism as a competing ideology until its Sixth Congress in 1928. l7 Still, it was to the Comintern mostly a reactionary state which defended big business while offering nationalistic slogans to the workers. When it failed to control the workers by propaganda it was, as a typical reactionary capitalist

10

Tt1E JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW

political form, willing to use force, murder, terrorism and coercion to work its will. Fascism shared with bolshevism a common Marxian heritage.18 Both were formally rooted in socialist tradition, both scientific and utopian.19 Several modern analysts have suggested that Mussolini was at heart a Marxist. It was largely an academic dispute on how Marx was to be read and interpreted that kept Marxists and fascists apart ideologically. It was a question of whose Marxism one accepted as true belief that separated fascism from bolshevism. Fascism accepted, in the large, the unorthodox renderings of Marxism as transmuted by Georges Sorel whereas Lenin accepted his own and other Russian interpretations of Marxism. Sorel 20 added to Marxism a belief in myth. Social phenomena were to be studied through an image of irrational force, and not pragmatically as Marx had stated. Sorel had found Marx to be impractical in terms of solving the problems of the workers. Rather than concluding that a broad and sweeping revolution to destroy the old capitalist state and create a new communist state was necessary. Sorel concluded that rational and planned activity was useless in the face of irrational nature. He had fathomed natural and irrational forces that could be understood and assailed only by mythical means. The dissatisfaction of the proletariat was essentially irrational and emotional. The solution to the problems had then to be irrational and mythical, harnessing irrational and mythical nature. Once fathomed by the working class, or at least by their leaders, this irrational nature could unleash such mythical forces as the world had never seen before. The emotional needs and drive of the workers could only be directed by myth. For Sorel the force which accompanies a drive by a people is always and necessarily accompanied by violence. Irrational power, the consequence of working with irrational nature, is especially violent. One then must accept violence as a fact of life, a necessary condition of mankind moving and changing and achieving. It is in effect the price one must pay for progress. But unless the violence is understood it can be as destructive to the mover as to the intended object of the violence. Marx had offered rational explanations for reality a s Sorel saw it. But rational explanations imply the existence of rational problems. Indeed, the problems of the proletariat were natural, hence, for Sorel, irrational, hence, mythical. Thus Marxism had failed and would continue to fail as an explanation of reality because it sought only rational reasons, rational means and rational explanations. Sorel's philosophy was essentially a philosophy of myth, irrational and natural. It would succeed because it was irrational and offered man a belief and not a logic.

Italian Fascism

Political solutions, in the normal sense of politics, were worse than useless: they were misleading. Offer instead, Sore1 taught, new beliefs, new myths to men. Ask them to believe, not to reason and the solution to the proletarian dilemmas were at hand. 21 The proletarian problem was, first, a professional, not a political, problem. The frustrations of the proletariat were professional in nature. Professional problems implied professional remedies, including strikes and trade unionism. Action must be v i ~ lent professional activity to be most effective. One must have or develop faith in the natural, irrational but professional capabilities of the proletarian class. One must follow the basic worker impulses to action. These impulses will be mythical visions of the better world, but not blueprints designed to lay out in specific terms the design of the new city. The road to the new city would clearly be dotted with incidents of physical violence. One must be prepared for such violence or its occurences will shock and delay. As with every problem there is a solution. Cooperation within a state sponsored framework will provide an answer. This came about through an unusual, Italian conception of Hegel's dialectic.22 In the writings of Italian Hegelians, the conflicting and mutually exclusive thesis and anti-thesis do not disappear completely as they do in Hegel's pure dialectic. Rather, in the synthesis, formed by the clash of thesis with antithesis, the individual elements of both thesis and antithesis are still evident. While the synthesis may indeed be a higher and better idea than its progenitors, the thesis and the antithesis, it still shows separately each o its sires. Thus, in Italian Hegelian philosophy it is possible to f see labor and management, that is, proletariat and bourgeoisie, existing together, although diametrically opposed to one another, in the synthesis.23 The practical application of this doctrine is seen in syndicalism.24Within the syndicate one finds both labor and management. They are joined there by the fascist representative, that is, the representative of the omnipresent state mechanism. In the co-joining of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie one has a new synthesis, the others being respectively the thesis and the antithesis. The new synthesis is the syndicate and it has recognizably within it the heretofore diametrically opposed classes of the workers and management. Hegel's law of "negation of the negationUz5 wherein the worst or most negative elements of each of the dialectically opposed thesis and antithesis cross one another out is at work. The most negative, the most mutually exclusive, the most hostile elements of management and labor are negated. Under the beneficient eye of te fascist representatives this frozen dialectic, this syndicate, operates to the good of state, labor and management.

12

TltE JOlJRNAL 0 : HISTORICAL REVIEW 1

With the introduction of the syndicate would also be created what French utopian writer saint-simonZ6called a nationalindustrious class, what Sorel called a producer class. Within the group were all those who were productively engaged in bettering the state. It was, in turn, opposed by those indolent souls who contributed nothing to the well-being of the state, what SaintSimon called the anti-national class. Sorel did not trust the workers and the industrialists to come up with such a cooperative arrangement on their own. Indeed, even after the syndical arrangement was fixed one might reasonably expect neither would wholeheartedly support it or work within it. This then was the reason for the fascist party. It would be given the coercive power by Mussolini not only to control the syndicalist structure but to force creation of it in the beginning. Without the use of force, violence if necessary, syndicalism could neither be created nor maintained. One can see in the willingness to use state coercive power to achieve an end the general will philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In his Social Contract 27 he had spoken of a general will, that is, of a set of values which had to be created a n d then authoritatively allocated for the masses, even if they did not consent to such allocation. There was a general will, that which represented the greatest good for the masses, a distillate remaining from the individual wills of all men after their own petty desires had crossed one another out. This was really a political program that carried with it quality of moral necessity. It had to be enacted, once recognized, for the good of all men in the state. Where men could not or did not recognize what was in their own best interests the state was obliged, in order to justify its existence, to step in and guarantee that the provisions of the general will be carried into execution. The fascist state then could justify its actions both in creating syndicalism and in enforcing compliance with its requirements under good, liberal Rousseauist philosophy. Creating a general will and carrying it into execution is correct liberal philosophy. The general will of course could be expressed in natural, irrational terms in order to make that compatible with Sorel. The fascist party was able to sustain its claim to legitimacy by assuming a guardianship over the contents of the general will. The myth, in turn, was legitimate because it was recognized, sustained and articulated by the fascist party. The myth became whatever the fascist party saw it being at any given time. It was ultimately enforced by legitimatized violence and the power of the totalitarian state mechanism. In fascism there was a reciprocity established with the prG ducer class. Production, full employment, wages, prices, distribution and the like were guaranteed by the state. In turn, both

Italian Fascism

13

management and labor gave up the right to have strikes, lockouts, and disorders which would interrupt the production processes. Since they could not legally act independently, they would only act together, not as capital and labor, but as the producer class. Outside fascism such a class was not held to be possible. 28 Since only fascism could provide the essential union of workers and management into the producer class, it was logical that the state should have a monopoly of power. Power and coercion go hand in glove for Sorel. Fascist theoreticiafis had no reason to change this when they were required to articulate an ideology of fascism. No rival power was to be permitted. The state's monop oly on power and coercion effectively translated to a monopoly for the fascist party since no other party was permitted. This exclusiveness is also based on an obvious logic. The fascist party had conceived the fascist state. One could not think of a "corporate state" or a "syndicalist state" without thinking of the fascist party. Fascism was inseparable from corporativism or syndicalism. If one removed the one concept, he necessarily removed the others. The fascist party, not the state, was the guardian of the fascist ideals, especially including syndicalism and the corporate organization of the state. The orthodoxy of syndicalist ideas was safeguarded in the fascist party. Hence, the highest value in the fascist state was syndicalism-corporativism. All force must be available to ensure its purity and its continued existence. The fascist party then is able to exercise in the name of ideological orthodoxy the state's power. The fascist party had a special mission to the world as well as to the Italian people in keeping the ideology orthodox. Initially, fascism was conceived a s an Italian movement, the natural byproduct and the logical culmination of the emerging Italian nationalism and its cultural r i s ~ r ~ i m e n tLittle~ thought was o.~ given to its potential exportability. By the middle of the 1930s Mussolini had come to the conclusion that fascism represented the new dynamic driving force that would conquer the world and take the place of the faded liberalism of the nineteenth century. Giuseppe Mazzini,dO philosopher, revolutionary, soldier-offortune, patriot and nationalist leader of the nineteenth century had sought in vain a set of Italian principles wherewith Italy could re-establish her intellectual leadership and philosophical pre-eminence in Europe. One or two great ideas, ideas that would motivate mankind to abandon the false premises of French liberalism, that was all Mazzini wanted. His own search for ideas or revolutionary zeal failed. Nonetheless, he was quite convinced that the rebirth of Italian philosophy and culture, the risorgimento, would indeed be ultimately productive to the extent the Italy would once again be the birthplace of some new idea wherewith the world would become enticed away from liberalism.

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TI IE JOIJRNAI, 0 ' HISTORICAI, REVIEW 1

When the nineteenth century ended without producing such an awe-inspiring idea many Italian patriots were heartbroken, but the dream was not vacated. After Italy's catastrophic betrayal at Versailles, after so many promises made and broken by England and France, after her dreams of territorial acquisitions had been betrayed, after so much loss of life, the dream seemed lost forever. But with the post-war rise of fascism some few fascist supporters saw the fulfillment of Mazzini's dream. Fascism was to be the single inspiration point for the Italian nationalistic dream of cultural and spiritual leadership. All that remained was to export the idea, the idea that was to supplant liberalism, to others civilized nations. By the time of the great depression, other fascist movements had arisen in Europe. Even in Southern a n d Eastern Europe fascist movements and parties had been founded.31 The rise of Adolf Hitler in Germany was the culmination of Mazzini's idea. Germany, a mighty culture producing nation had seemingly accepted an Italian idea. England was on the brink of discovering fascism with Oswald Mosley32 a mighty leader at the helm. It soon appeared that the fascisms that grew up in the remainder of Europe bore only little similarity to that of Italy, excepting notably Mosley's British party. Germany's Nazism was based not on Italian ideals but on German myths, on racism grounded in a Nordic-Aryan race. The movements in Eastern Europe remained mystical-religious movements for the most part, excepting antiSemitic ideals accepted especially in Poland33 and ~oumania. 34 These movements were decidely anti-foreign and extremely nationalistic. They had little interest in the syndicalist-corporativist state that lay at the heart of Italian fascism. They shared common features more of national socialism than of Italian fascism, although each was based in the nationalist sentiments and frustrations of the particuliar nationality involved. Fascist movements in general had certain distinguishing features.35 They opposed parliamentary governments a s being impotent to handle such worldwide crises as the great depression of 1929. They distrusted the laissez-faire economic system of capitalism as associated with the French liberal philosophy of the nineteenth century, for the system had collapsed in 1929. They preferred authoritarian governments which they felt alone were powerful enough to deal with crises without failing. They looked for collective social security against the social atomism of the liberal society. Liberal value systems grounded in utilitarian and value-relativism had failed to provide basic morality for society. In seeking collectivist alternatives to the socially disintegrating systems of liberal philosophy, fascist movements rushed toward the deification of the state. They reacted collectively to problems of society and the state. Fascism was thus able to attract follow-

Italian Fascism

15

ers by offering class solidarity against individual isolationism. The groups found, discovered or fabricated common ethnic heritages and found the enemy within to be those who did not share these characteristics. The community was sewn together with the fabric of tradition, custom, language, religion and culture. Those not possessing these group characteristics were different, hence evil, the cause of the problems of state. The fascist movements exhibited essentially lower-middle class values. They viewed the upper strata of society as being run by those who shared other, often foreign, values. They found that the values that the upper classes created were foreign, non-traditional, liberal-value relative, and removed from their kind. Where foreigners made up a goodly portion of the upper strata, or where natives were socialized to foreign, internationalistic or non-traditional value systems, the lower and lower-middle class groups were treated as merely tributary classes in their own nation. Fascist movements as nationalistically oriented parties were most distrustful of international communism. The short-lived Bela Kun regime in Hungary had, through its excesses, put real fear in the hearts of many. Fascism often became a convenient stopover point for militant anti-communists. Communism was often associated with Judaism because many of the communist leaders were Jews. Thus, traditional Christian anti-Semitism was combined in fascism with political anti-Semitism in anti-communist crusades. Fascism often offered elitist movements which spun off the ordinary fascist parties and which were dedicated strongly or exclusively to fundamentalist religion. Such movements lost virtually all ties with the real world of politics and spent their time and effort on frequently quite bizarre religious practices. The tie here is most clear in Roumania and in Hungary, but such elitist fascist religious organizations were known to exist on the fringes of most fascist movements. Many fascist movements looked fondly backwards to a former period of alleged accomplishment. The members had liked simpler times with less demanding schedules and ideals. Fascism often became a kind of telescope through which one could look behind him and enjoy the blessings of medieval society. The prospects of a highly industrialized society frightened many fascists, especially in Central Europe. Fascism there often offered a lower class rejection of the fragmentation of society brought about by modernization of industry. A kind of emotional revivalism was presented against archaic medieval backgrounds, with primitive displays of symbolisms being offered almost as a rejection of anything modern. Against this varied background Italian fascism stood out as a nearly unique movement. It had no special longing for the past,

16

T t l E JOIJRNAI, OF HISTORICAL REVIEW

for its leaders pointed the way to modernity as the desired road to be travelled. Italy's future greatness was indeed predicated upon past greatness, but the future offered a mission quite different than that performed by Rome. The only similarity was to be found in the fact that in both the case of Rome and in the case of fascism, Italy was predestined to lead other nations. While it would have been more than possible for Italy to have spent much time a n d effort on the past, it had no inordinate preoccupation with past glories. To be certain, the symbol of the fasces had Roman roots, but the doctrine that stood behind Mussolini's fascism was thoroughly modern. Mussolini gloried in past cultural and artistic accomplishments, with Italy's role a s creator of art types, but he sought futuristic fascist art as the way of the future. Anti-Semitism was virtually unknown in fascist Italy, at least before the Second World War. Italy as a nation before fascism was one of the least anti-Semitic nations of Europe. It had little racial prejudice of any type. In the third phase of fascism there was some anti-Semitic literature associated with the regime, but that was never incorporated into the ideology in the way racism became a part of Nazism or many of the East European fascist movements. While there was ample reason why anti-foreign sentiments might have developed, given Italy's long occupation by a variety of foreign powers and her late achievement of nationhood, this did not become a n important integral p a r t of the ideology. Religion did become an important consideration in Italian fascism, but, again, in a way unlike other fascisms. The Roman Catholic church was dominant in Italy. Mussolini reached an important accord with the papacy, ending a struggle that had gone on since Italian reunification. After that the conservative papacy, seeing in fascism a bulwark against communism, transferred its loyalty from aristocratic conservatism to fascism. Mussolini had no plans for a fascist religion a s did many of Nazi Germany's leaders. He was generally content to accept the recognition of the papacy and had no good reason to break the generally quiet accord. Fascist found in several papal encyclicals apparent justification and support for fascist doctrines. The denunciation of liberalism in Rerurn Novarurn (1891) seemed to justify subsequent fascist doctrine. Pope Leo XI1136 and Pope Pius XI^^ had both denounced communism,38 and, generally, socialism, while praising the interventionist state and capitalism. They had called, especially Pius XI in Quadragesirno Anno (1931),for control over the unions and moral responsibility in the application of economic laws and principles. The call by Pius XI for worker-employer confederations seemed to justify the corporate state. The call for

Italian Fascism

rebuilding society along the lines of harmonizing social-producers classes again seemed directed at the syndicalist organization o f fascism. Superfluous income could be redirected by the state. The intervention on behalf of the very poor according to principles o charity but by the state and not just by individuals again f seemed tailor made for fascism's practices. With socialism p r e scribed by papal decree fascism offered one viable alternative for the proletariat to the liberal state which had failed it. The great enemy of Italian fascism was liberalism. There would, of course, have been no fascism without liberalism, but nonetheless fascism found in liberalism the antithesis of the needs of the working class. It was nineteenth century laissezfaire liberalism that was objected to, not the contemporary interventionist liberalism. Since liberalism had originated in France there was a certain measure of Italian national pride involved in the out of hand rejection. Still, there were other, far graver errors associated with liberalism that caused the fascist state to regard it so bitterly. Virtually every evil modern society was associated with it. Liberalism offered no place for the individual who wished to join with his fellow men in fraternal association. Liberalism was atomistic, meaning that it isolated men from one another, forbidding cooperation and association. Liberalism placed man higher than the state so that the state ultimately was subordinate to the individual. It denied the organic nature and structure of the state. Liberalism supported democracy. It was thought that a liberal democracy was inherently the most unstable form of government that man could create. The Italian flirtation with democracy had been short and it had been a very unfortunate experience. The majority of Italians were not enfranchised; among those who were there existed, for the formative years, a papal prohibition on political participation owning to the fact that the papacy was most displeased at the seizure of papal lands and other properties during the unification. Democracy had been blamed for all the failures of the infant republic. It had never served the agrarian interests of the Southern rural poor. It had become the seat of state capitalism, serving large industry and corporate monopoly. It had failed to accomplish tangible results in the first world war, even after the machinations of secret diplomacy. And it had collapsed during the workers strikes in the immediate post-war period, opening the door for the march on Rome and the institution o fascism. f Liberal democracy was seen as an anachronism, an unfortunate vestage of a past epoch. It was impotent to deal with crises of the modern world. It was made up of many political parties, none of which could serve the worker, each of which could argue

18

TtfE IOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW

endlessly over trivial matters without ever reconciling even the pettiest matters. It functioned satisfactorily so long as there was nothing to be done and so long as the state was not involved in crisis. Once crisis came the leaders crawled away and the parliament failed. Such was the political legacy of liberalism. Liberalism not only fragmented society into isolated individuals, it encouraged the fragmentation of industry into bourgeoisis and proletariat. Rather than seeking closer cooperation between classes in society it acted as a separating agent. The Marxian analysis of the two classes is nothing more than natural observation of the consequences of liberalism. Marx had thought it necessary to wholly reconstruct society after the liberal state. That was because he was a victim of liberal ideology. Outside a liberal state a reconstruction of society was possible without undergoing a Marxian revolution. Thus, Marx was himself entrapped by the same liberal society he chose to try to overthrow. Marxism was a product of liberalism, as was any doctrine which taught the class struggle as culminating in revolution. Liberalism was universalist whereas fascism was nationalistic. The various worldwide movements such as the League of Nations were the stepchild of liberalism as were pacifist movements. The spirit of nationalism would be freed only when the liberal state was destroyed. Liberalism encouraged monopoly and international cartels. While fascism was monopolistic itself, it found the same practice in liberalism to be quite objectionable. The laissez-faire economy of liberalism produced only monopoly while bringing about none of the benefits consequent to fascist monopolies. The romantic spirit that was part and parcel of liberalism had its counterpart in fascism. Indeed, the romanticism of such writers as Rousseau find much in the way of fulfillment in fascism. Still, fascism criticized the romantic spirit as being too rational, not mythical enough. Perhaps the most objectionable feature of liberalism, in fascist terms, was its value relativism. While fascism entertained some elements of value relativism, it preached, by and large, value absolutism. In many areas of ethics this meant a return to Roman Catholic teachings. In other areas the state merely granted values authoritatively by virtue o its supremacy. In any case the f pragmatic or utilitarian values of especially English liberalism were rejected. An idea in the fascist state was absolute today, yesterday and tomorrow. Truth was not an event that happened to a n idea; it was a necessary part of that idea. There is a paradox here, for fascism was the value of the twentieth century -having superseded liberalism, the value of the nineteenth century. Hence, the value of ideologies came to them in their own epoch and not in another epoch, certainly a relativist concept.

Italian Fascism

Fascism sought to create an idea that would be as lasting and as influential in its own time as liberalism was in its time. First and foremost it wished to achieve the quality Mazzini had posited o any system: it must necessarily represent the unity of thought f and action. Action without some sort of doctrine was useless; and, conversely, doctrine alone without consequent action was useless. The thought need not be too specific. A general idea, some sort of dream of the future, some picture of the new and better world had to preceed action. After the action commenced, a goodly portion of the thought could be made up along the way. Better to begin action before the ideology is completed than miss the opportunity for action. Mussolini expanded that idea of creating while practicing to include the individual and the nation. The nation need not exist before nationalist fascism begins to forge the state. Indeed, he thought of the state as most generally preceeding the creating of a nation. The state could, on its anvil, forge the people o that f state into precisely what it wished them to become. The contrast with Nazism is obvious. Only with satisfactory materials could a nation be built, according to Nazi ideology. Inferior races could never be forged into anything worthwhile, no matter how great the effort. The national spirit in Nazism exists within the people, albeit latently. Nazism can only reawaken that spirit; in could not create it. Only Nordics could ever realize the Nazi racist dream.39 In fascism there is no suggestion of either recruitment of suitable subjects or of the exclusion of unsuitable ones. The fascist state could take people as they were given to it and then make them over according to the desires of the power elite. While there might still be within the population those who dreamed the Roman dream and could identify with the Roman spirit of the past, it was far more important what they should become rather than what they were at the time of fascist ascension to power. Since nothing eluded the fascist state its power must necessarily extend to the creation of a superior race. It was the ideology, the doctrine of fascism, that would make of the race a people fit to control a substantial share o the earth. The vitality of the race f would be shown by its works and deeds rather than by its genetic purity and its physical characteristics. A manufactured nation would enjoy power and prestige; one that had not been properly articulated could not enjoy the fruits of expansionism. If the state has done its job properly its race will show an aggressive foreign policy. Its art, drama, music and literature will show an ideologically motivated vitality that can be appreciated only if observed. The people inhabiting a given geographical area are a nation after they have been motivated and inspired by the ideological fascist state. Their nationhood is then not a natural but a n

20

TtiE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW

artifical construct, one superimposed on them from above by a charismatic leader and his fascist party. Thus the state is fully empowered to educate its people, to offer them propaganda, to indoctrinate them fully, and to persuade them by force if necessary. It is charged with maintaining ideological purity and with spreading that orthodoxy. This is the civilizing mission of the state. The state must provide enriching experiences for its members. Inasmuch as each individual is unique he must be fulfilled by offering him opportunities to develop his unique nature. The state must make him subservient to the state, its party and its leaders, but it must also enrich his life. While in the final analysis the individual lives to serve the state, it is equally important that the fully socialized citizen be given as many opportunities as he can utilize. Without individualizing experiences as offered by the state there would be no meaningful way for the individual to be differentiated from all other persons in the state. The uniqueness of the fascist state is to no small extent dependent upon the gathering in of the unique and individualizing experiences o its f various members. By offering him help in self-fulfillment, the state has helped to create the individual. By indoctrinating him with the ideology with which to approach outside phenomena, it has made him in its own image. For the fascist, the state has the obligation, while performing its social, political, and economic functions, to create the individual person. It must teach him the values established authoritatively by the state. It must strengthen the virtues of man. It must provide him with a world view. It must teach him to reject such alien values as move him from the state. He and every other individual must be inside the state, not against it nor outside it. He and all other persons make up the living body of the organic state. The state is properly viewed as a real organic being.40 It is not only like any other organic being; it is a living organism. It has a life all its own. It undergoes various experiences, including h a p piness, sorrow, joy, melancholy, ectasy and the like. It is born out o the ideas of men and their courage in culminating the act of f creation. It matures to adulthood. It can become ill and it can die. All other beings living within the state help to comprise it. Some parts die and others are born to replenish the needs of the state. The state can show courage, especially in an aggressive foreign policy; it can also show cowardice in the face of its enemies. Since the state is primary its life is far and away more important than the lives of the individuals who are its component parts. Like individuals it can create art, drama, poetry, music and literature as a national characteristic.

Italian Fascism

21

There is a spirit, a motivating factor, placed in the state much like the soul is for man. One can really speak of the "Italian national spirit" as being something actual, real and existing. Take away the spirit and the body public dies. Give the state a healthy spirit and its accomplishments can be almost without limits. The organic analogy offered by fascism is very important because it tells something of the individual's role in the state. Ideally, the individual cannot consider himself independent of his fascist state. He is completely immersed in his state. It would be unthinkable, inconceivable to be outside the state. When an individual posits his existence, he is positing the existence of his state simultaneously. The fascist state offers the only possible existence for him. The individual without the state would not exist. The individual and his fascist state are inseparable. Fascist ideology articulates the reason for the individual's being. It is his source of legitimacy. It is his home, his patria, his source o thoughts and ideas. An anti-state thought is impossible. f When his state accomplishes something he is proud. When his state suffers so does each individual. Creations of the state give the individual national pride which is itself inseparable from pride in self. The state's ideology is his own. He accepts no other state or ideology. The fascist party is legitimate because it is interconnected with the state. It guards the ideology and offers an orthodoxy which makes the individual orthodox. The party is supreme and allows no competition. As the bearer o the ideological orthodoxy41it has an historical mission. It f cannot tolerate public factionalism or party disputes. It cannot legitimately allow power to pass out of its hands, say, to the army or the bureaucracy. The fascist party is the sole agent of secular redemption; it is the guardian of the future and the protector of the past. It thus has an unquestioned right to an absolute monop oly of power. The party monopoly of power is not a part of fascist ideology, but it is the most important inference from it. Since the fascist state remained Roman Catholic and did not attempt to eradicate organized religion it did not create a rival religion. To be certain, a s a carryover from the days of the reunification there was some anti-clericalism, but its effect was negligible on the ideology. Therefore, the fascist party's role as the agent of secular redemption and secular salvation was not nearly so important a s it was in Nazism. The emphasis on a perfect society was less than that of Nazism. It wished to produce the good society, but disdained the possibilities of the perfect society. The inordinate emphasis on the perfect society was one o the fallacies of communism. There was no teleolgy in fascism f as there was in Nazism and communism.

22

T H E JOllRNAL 0 : t~ISTORICA1.REL'IEW 1

Fascism did propound a theory of a nearly infallible leader. The cult of the personality was as well developed in Italy as it was in Germany. The word Duce was roughly the equivalent of Fuehrer. It was this charismatic figure who had created the fascist movement and who was destined to lead it to the final victory. He was the choice of the deity, the man o destiny. Through his personal f intervention history had been changed and given a new direction. His movement was one of the great accomplishments of mankind. In Italy this rhetoric failed to find deep roots, for I1 Duce was fired by his own Grand Fascist Council when his movement collapsed along with the Italian army on the field of battle. As long as the leader remained in power he spoke with a single voice of authority for his nation. Fascism never conceived of an oligarchy or a democracy governing. It is rather pointless to speculate about what the death o Mussolini might have brought, f provided fascism lived after him, for every fascist movement has risen and fallen with its single leader. Surely another leader 1 would have risen to the position of I Duce. Fascism required that the party be led by a single individual who could, by sheer force o will, decide all disputes and right all wrongs. Only a single f individual was considered to be the rightful spokesperson for an entire nation; no combination of individuals could accomplish this. Where fascist movements have not come to power they usually die with their charismatic leader. Where a fascist movement might outlive its leader because he has brought the movement to power is just a matter of guesswork. Fascism, as noted above, accepted the idea of violence as a political tool; indeed, it was one of the most useful tools available to those seeking political power and those already possessed of political power. We also noted that fascism rejected the idea of the class struggle that would culminate in revolution. The doctrine of violence and the idea of revolution require additional qualification and explanation. Mussolini rejected the notion of the warfare between opposing classes. Following Gaetano ~ o s c ahe ~ ~ not reject the possi, did bility of warfare between segments of classes, as between, say, socialist workers and fascist workers, or between socialist workers and reactionary strikebreakers hired by industrial management. These portions of classes were less guided by ideological considerations than by a natural, irrational, and generally incomprehensible determinism. Most frequently portions of classes would clash because they were seeking identical goals through identical means than because they were conscious of differences between them. The determinism of Marxism was found in the class struggle a ~ whereas ~ o s c and~Mussolini found it to be unrelated to any social struggle. Whatever struggles there may be in society were

Italian Fascism

23

determined beyond the powers of man to change or alter. Men became the pawns of deterministic fate. In the long run, the politicized portions of all classes struggled with one another in a predetermined manner for control over the rest of the men in that state. Hence, fascists could expect, as one political element or fragment of the classes in Italy, to have to meet socialists, anarchists and communists, these being other politicized fragments of the various classes, in open combat. Violence was thus fully justified, indeed, determined, long ago and by powers beyond the pale of men to control. This leads us to the ideas of Roberto ~ i c h e l sMichels form.~~ ulated a hyposthesis known as the Iron Law of He believed that there would necessarily and inevitably be competition among elites for political control of all states. Political leadership is then recognizable only in small groups, fragments of society, never in larger organizations. Leadership is always in the hands of the few who compete with other small groups for control. Stated simply, society requires organization; organization requires leadership: and leadership in inevitably oligarchical. To Mussolini, this meant that Mosca's politicized fragments of society were nothing more than oligarchical groups who were competing for power. The socialists, the anarchists, the communists and the fascists were all oligarchies. The competition was necessarily accompanied by violence. The most prepared and the most violent would win. The fascists had to be ever vigilant because no victory was final. The competing fragments of society were always waiting in the wings, ready to rotate power to themselves. Hence, another of Michels laws comes into play. Because o the threat to the oligarchy in power from other potential rivals f the ruling elite becomes obsessed with the maintaince of power rather than the application o programs. f If the proposition that action and thought should always go together was to have meaning the fascist party had to both maintain power and develop programs. Without power, programs were useless. Without doctrine, the maintenance of power was nothing but an exercise in futility. Mussolini theorized that the threat of an opposition party ready to seize power would stimulate fascism to increasingly superior acts on behalf of the state and its people. Without the agitation of a bit of sand inside its shell the oyster does not produce a pearl and its value is naught. Violence is necessarily produced by an irrational act, but, then, fascism was an irrational ideology. It was not an ideology of violence, but it was a doctrine that found violence useful. The violence was to be directed at its enemies. Both fascists and their enemies were predetermined to use violence or fail. The revolution, since it involved only competing elites, was superimposed on society from above. Fascism rejected complete-

24

TI IE IO[JRNAL Of: HISTORICAL REVIEW

ly the Marxist doctrine of whole class struggles a s we saw above following Mosca. Thus the idea of a mass revolution, a popular revolution involving the masses of men rising up spontaneously from below, this was unthinkable in fascism. All revolutions were elitist and involved only small fragments of all classes. By many standards, these titanic struggles could not be called revolutions since they presume the seizure of the state by the few, classically called coups d'etat. The bulk of the fighting would be done in the underworld of society, much like two giant sea monsters fighting in the depths who only occasionally surface enough to show us that a struggle is going on. Fascism never claimed that it would necessarily win all such struggles the way communism claimed inevitable and final victory. The determining features of nature offer only determined struggle, not determined outcome. No fascist victory was necessarily final. While fascist states could cause by their own efforts final victory, they could a s well by e r r o r s of ommission and commission cause the battle to be lost. Since no victory was final, violence would never disappear in the state. Violence was the means to come to power and it was the means of most successfully maintaining power. Violence was seen to harden the individual. Life after fascism was not to be the proverbial bed of roses. Fascism promised neither a millenium nor utopia. The heart and soul of fascism was the corporative state. Its great concern w a s the syndicalist organization of industry through the worker-management cooperatives. This was and remains its most exportable element. Mosley recognized this in Great Britain. Few other fascists have seen this fact. The racist fascism of contemporary fascism is more kindred to Nazism than to fascism, and even it has generally lacked the basic understanding of Nordic volk and Aryan racism.

Footnotes
1. For a good general treatment of the roots of fascist thought see, J.L. Radel, Roots of Totalitarianism, New York, 1975. See also, John H. Hallowell, Main Currents in Modern Political Thought, New York, 1950, pp. 521-617;S.J. Woolf (ed.) European Fascism, New York, 1968, especially Hugh Trevor-Roper's "Phenomenon of Fascism"; also Eugen Weber, Varieties of Fascism, Princeton, 1964, and M. Halperin. Mussolini and Italian Fascism, Princeton, 1964. 2. More than any other ideology, fascism openly acknowledged its roots. Mussolini's speeches are flavored with quotations from intellectual giants of the nineteenth century. Such quotations are not footnoted, but no r e a l effort was made to conceal the sources either.

Italian Fascism

25

Hegel's influence on Italian philosophy is often understated. Few if any Italian writers openly expressed their indebtedness to Hegel, but Gentile was especially influenced by Hegelian concepts. See the Report to the Grand Council of Fascism included herein. See Radel, op, cit., pp. 78ff. See Alfredo Rocco, "The Political Doctrine of Fascism" in 223 International Conciliation, 1926. See the flow chart provided in Radel, op. cit., p. 92. See S.J. Woolf, "Italy" in Woolf (ed.), op. cit., p. 60. See flow chart in Radel, op. cit., p. 93. See Woolf, op. cit., p. 58. There were four quadrumvirs, leaders, along with Mussolini, of the March on Rome. They were elected for life to the Grand Fascist Council. Mario Palmieri, The Philosophy of Fascism, Chicago, 1936. See Benito Mussolini, "The Political and Social Doctrine of F a 5 cism" in 306 International Conciliation, 1935; see also his Fascism: Doctrine and Institutions, Rome, 1935. On Gentile we have his own Genesis and Structure of Society (trans. H.S. Harris, Urbana, 1960), and Harris' book, The Social Philosophy of Giovanni Gentile, Urbana, 1960. These are the facts of fascist accomplishment admitted even by its severest critics. This is a constant theme of Mussolini's speeches from the early 1930s on. See Hallowell, op. cit., pp. 592-93, Sabine, op. cit., pp, 863-64 and Woolf, op. cit., p. 41. See especially Radel, op. cit., pp. 66f. The influence of "pre-scientific" thinkers is greater than one might imagine for we are victims of Marx's criticism of them as being unscientific. Many were quite influential in regard to the develop ment of European doctrines including fascism. Note Desjacques, Babeuf, Blanqui. Proudhon, Saint-Simon, Fourier and others. Georges Sore1 (1847-1922) authored Le Proces du Socrate, 1889; La ruine du monde antique, 1890; L'avenir socialiste des syndicats, 1900; Saggi di critica del marxismo, 1903; L'illusion du progress, 1909; and Reflections on Violence, (trans. T.E. Hulrne, New York, 1914), this latter being of greatest concern to us. See J.P. Mayer, Political Thought in France from Sieyes to Sorel, London, 1943, and Hallowell, op, cit., pp. 458-63. The "Italian" conception of Hegel really begins with Benedetto Croce (1866-1952).Croce was a major philosopher of international reputation. Mussolini would have liked to have had Croce write a theory of fascism, but Croce refused to have anything to do with the fascist state. Nonetheless, Mussolini allowed Croce to continue his liberal-democratic writing without interference. Unlike many other Italian intellectuals, Croce was neither harrassed nor forced to emigrate. See Croce's obviously Hegelian philosophy in his Philosophy of the Spirit, 1917, or in his Aesthetics, 1902.

26

T H E JOIJRNAI, 0 ; tIISTORICAL REVIEW 1

See Croce's Philosophy of the Spirit and his History: Its Theory and Practice, (trans. Ainstre; New York, 1921). See William N. Loucks, Comparative Economic Systems, New York, 1952, and H.A. Steiner, Government in Fascist Italy, London, 1938, for good explanations of the corporate state. See Sabine, op. cit., pp. 638-47; see the explanation of the dialectic in G.R.G. Mure, An Introduction to Hegel, Oxford, 1940: or W.T. Stace The Philosophy of Hegel, London, 1924, especially IV, part 2. See Radel, op. cit., pp. 47ff. Claude Henri de Rouvroy, Comte de Saint-Simon (1760-1825)wrote Reorganization of Europe, 1814; The Industrial System, 1821; Catechism of Industrials, 1824; and The New Christianity, 1825. See Rousseau's Social Contract, especially Book 11, parts i and iv. See the Fascist Labor Charter, included in this book. See Derek Beales. The Risorgimento and the Unification of Italy, 1 London, 1971, and A. Gramsci, 1 Risorgimento, Turin, 1949. Giuseppe Mazzini (1805-1872) is covered well in Radel, op. cit., pp. 38ff. Radel attributes the fascist idea of the unity of thought and action to Mazzini. He attaches great importance to Mazzini as a necessary forerunner of fascist doctrine. See Woolf, op, cit., for a good general treatment of various European fascisms. The essays in his book include treatments of Italy, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Roumania, Poland, Finland, Norway, Great Britain, France, Spain and Portugal. See also Hans Rogger and Eugen Weber (eds.) The European Right: A Historical Profile, Berkeley, 1964. See Colin Cross, The Fascists in Britain, London, 1961. Mosley's principal work is The Greater Britain, London, 1932. See S. Andreski's "Poland in Woolf, op. cit., pp. 167-83. See Z. Barbu's "Rumania" in Ibid., pp. 146-66. See H.R. Trevor-Roper, "The Phenomenon of Fascism" in Ibid., pp. 18-38. See also Christopher Seton-Watson, "Fascism in Contemporary Europe" in Ibid., pp. 337-353. See also Eugen Weber, Varieties of Fascism, Princeton, 1964, and Ernst Nolte, Der Faschismus in seiner Epoche, Munich, 1963. Leo XIII, "The Condition of Labor," usually cited by its Latin title, "Rerum Novarum" issued 15 May 1891. A convenient English language source is Gerald C. Treacy and William J. Gibbons (ed.) Seven Great Encyclicals, Paulist fathers, 1963. Pius XI, "Reconstruction of the Social Order" more commonly known by its Latin title, "Quadregismo Anno," issued 15 May 1931, included in Treacy and Gibbons, op. cit. Atheistic communism was again rejected by the Church in stronger language in an encyclical issue by Pius XI, "On Atheistic Communism" known by the Latin title, "Divini Redemptoris," issued 19 March 1937, included in Treacy and Gibbons, op. cit. This is one of the principal topics of Alfred Rosenberg, Myth of the Twentieth Century, Munich, 1935. See also the English language commentary on Rosenberg, A.R. Chandler, Rosenberg's Nazi Myth, Ithaca, New York, 1945. There is an obvious comparison with Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), Leviathan, wherein Hobbes writes on the third type of body, the

Italian Fascism

27

41.

42.

43.

44.

45.

body politic, the highest and most complex body, the state. Hobbes developed a substantial analogy between a human body and the state. It is important to understand that within all ideological party doctrines the role of the party as the carrier of legitimacy is vital to the existence of the party. This was true in Nazism. It is emphasized to the extreme by all branches of the communist party. Gaetano Mosca (1856-1941) wrote Sulla teorica dei governi e sul governo parlamentare, 1884; Elements of Political Science, 1896, which was revised several times and is known in English as The Ruling Class, New York, 1939, and Storia delle dottrine politiche, 1932. See James H. Meisel, Pareto and Mosca, Englewood Cliffs, 1965, and his Myth of the Ruling Class, Ann Arbor, 1962. See also a discussion of Pareto and Mosca and their respective relations to fascism in Radel, op. cit., pp. 66ff. Roberto Michels wrote Political Parties, 1915, which developed the Iron Law of Oligarchy, his thesis being that leadership is always oligarchical and that such oligarchies cannot be prevented by any devise, including constitutional limitations. See Chester C. Maxey, "Iron Law of Oligarchy" in Joseph Dunner (ed.) The Dictionary of Political Science, New York, 1964, p. 270.

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On April 1, 1982, the Institute for Historical Review announced the opening of a $50,000 reward for proof that "gas chambers for the purpose of killing human beings existed at or in Auschwitz concentration camp during World War 11" On December 31. 1982. the offer was closed-with no serious takers. This eight-page, full-size tabloid gives the complete details of this extraordinary reward offer-the terms, the reasons, the several claims received and why each did not measure up, the reactions among the "Holocaust" Establishment. In its course it also provides an excellent introduction to and review of the entire "Holocaust" controversy, with a full page, five-language bibliography at the end of every publication that has ever questioned the "Holocaust." This tabloid is both a handy reference guide for the convinced revisionist, and an excellent tool for influencing and converting new people.

IN STOCK IN A DELUX VOLUME TWO, 1981

Through its second year of publication. The Journal of Historical Review has achieved what no other periodical dared even to attempt: the dissemination of the most impacting "Holocaust" revisionist material ever to apArticles, book reviews a n d commentary d e v a s t a t i n g t o t h e "Holocaust" Establishment by such prominent revisionist scholars as Faurisson, Rassinier, Butz. M a r t i n , Buchn Staeglich, Wesserle, Weber and ienthal-to name but a few-have earmarked The Journal a s the only consistently reliable and in-depth source of such information so vital in this age of historical blackout. Now, the four 1981 issues have been bound into a h a n d s o m e l y - c r a f t e d , gold-imprinted hardcover volum page index, a valuable guide to which appears in the volume. You will treasure this volume not only for its enjoyable readability and use as a continued reference source, but as an attractive addition to your revisionist collection. Each copy comes wrapped in protective plastic. Order your copy Journul ofHistorica1 Review, Volume Two/1981, $20.0 limited number of Volume One is still in stock, $20.00)

The Holocaust As Sacred Cow

L.A. ROLLINS

There's been a lot o f . . . people walkin' around my ranch lately, talkin' about some hollow-cast. What's a hollowcast? Is it like a spincast or a dry-cast? They don't look like fishin' types, and there ain't no water here anyhow. -Letter to National Lampoon Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt. -H.L. Mencken That one m a n o r ten t h o u s a n d o r ten million men find a dogma acceptable does not argue for its soundness. -David Starr Jordan Dogma demands authority, rather than intelligent thought, a s the source of opinion; it requires persecution of heretics and hostility to unbelievers; it asks of its disciples that they should inhibit natural kindness in favor of systematic hatred. -Bertrand Russell

Everybody knows about the Holocaust. In barest essentials, the Nazi State, on Adolf Hitler's orders, planned and attempted to kill all European Jews, and succeeded in killing six million of them, mainly in gas chambers in such death camps as Auschwitz and Treblinka. Everybody knows this.

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A few years ago, I got into a discussion with the brother of a friend of mine. He had recently returned from Israel, where he had been living for a few years. (He is not Jewish, but had gone to Israel with his Israeli-Jewish wife.) Eventually we ended up debating the merits of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and, in the course of that debate, he brought up the six million Jews who, so the familiar story goes, were killed by the Nazis. Since a few years before this I had become a skeptic regarding the Holocaust in general and the six million Jewish victims in particular, I asked him if he was sure that the Nazis had killed six million Jews. He then told me of a visit he had made to Yad Vashem, the state of Israel's official memorial to the "martyrs and heroes" of the Holocaust. He told me that he had seen the names of the victims of the Nazis. I asked if he had counted the names. Of course, he had not, but he informed me that he didn't need to count the names to know that there were six million of them. This fellow's remarkable ability to determine the number of names a t Yad Vashem without counting becomes even more remarkable if one knows that, in fact, Yad Vashem has thus far managed to collect only about three million names of supposed Jewish victims of the Nazis. According to Los Angeles Times staff writer Dial Torgerson in a 25 October 1980 story from Jerusalem: "In the somber Hall of Names a t Yad Vashem, Israel's memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, are the names of nearly 3 million Jews who died in the Nazi death camps of the 1930s and '40s." Yet, despite this, my friend's brother somehow "knew" that he had seen six million names of Jewish victims a t Yad Vashem! This fellow's will-to-believe in the Six Million murdered Jews was so strong that he imagined a non-fact (the six million names at Yad Vashem) to give support to his belief. Such are the absurdities of which a true believer is capable. But this is by no means a unique case of dogmatism. For many people, the six million figure is not a fact. although they call it that; rather it is an article of faith, believed in not because of compelling evidence in its support, but because of compelling psychological reasons. For such people, the six million figure is a Sacred Truth, not to be doubted and, if necessary, to be defended with dogmatism, mysticism, illogic, fantasy or even downright lies. (Such pious frauds, or holy lies, have a venerable pedigree, going back to the early Christians who attributed their writings to other persons better known and more revered than themselves, to the pre-Christian Jewish writers who forged pro-Jewish versions of the Sybilline Oracles, and to even earlier true believers.) In April of 1982, controversy swirled about a Los Angeles teacher, George Ashley, who had reportedly told a class of Jewish students that the number of Jewish deaths in the Holocaust had

The Holocaust a s Sacred Cow

been greatly exaggerated, that, perhaps, one million had died, rather than the familiar six million. Among the responses to the news reports of Ashley's heresy was a letter published in the Los Angeles Times signed by one Joseph Rosenfeld, which proclaimed: "All reputable scholars have accepted the 6 million figure-a figure reached painfully and painstakingly by pouring over countless lists of concentration camp victims, family histories, body counts, and every conceivable heartbreaking method available to social scientists and historians." But Rosenfeld's story of how the six million figure was arrived at is pure fantasy. In fact, as early as 1943, two years before the end of the Holocaust, the narrator of Ben Hecht's propaganda play We Will Never Die, was already claiming that two million Jews had been killed and that four million more would die by the end of the war. Thus, the six million figure was never more than a very rough estimate of Jewish deaths. How could it have been anything more, given that, a s Roger Manvell and Heinrich Fraenkel wrote in their 1967 book, The Incomparable Crime, "No figures have been published giving the numbers of Jews left alive in the Soviet Union; the estimate differ widely, and lie between 1.6 and 2.6 million." Of course, the number of Jews killed in the Soviet Union is a correlative of the number of Jews left alive. The more Jews that were killed, the fewer that would have been left alive. The less that were killed, the more that would have been left alive. If the estimates of the numbers of Jews left alive in the Soviet Union differ by as much as one million, then, by implication, the estimates of the numbers of Jews killed in the Soviet Union must also differ by as much as one million. And so I repeat: Rosenfeld's story of how the six million figure was "painfully and painstakingly" arrived at is pure fantasy. It is akin to, though not nearly as entertaining as, Alice's adventures in wonderland. Rosenfeld's assertion that all reputable historians have accepted the six million figure smacks of a tautology. If he defines "reputable historians" to mean "historians who have accepted the six million figure," then what he says is, by definition, true, but also trivial because there is no reason why anyone else should accept such an obviously loaded definition. On the other hand, if he does not define his terms in a loaded manner, then he has the problem of explaining how French-Jewish historian Pierre Vidal-Naquet, in an essay devoted primarily to critizing revisionism regarding the Holocaust, could say that "nothing must be considered sacred. The figure of the six million Jews exterminated, which originated at Nuremberg [not true, as I've already pointed out] has nothing sacred or definitive about it, and many historians arrived at a somewhat lower figure."

TI-IE JOllRNAI, OF tIISTORICAL REVIEW

Among the historians who have arrived a t lower figures are two prominent Jewish Holocaust historians (Holocaustorians), Raul Hilberg and Gerald Reitlinger, both firm believers in Nazi genocide and the gas chambers. Hilberg estimated that about 5.1 million European Jews died during World War 11, while Reitlinger estimated between 4.2 and 4.6 million dead. An appendix to Nora Levin's The Holocaust (pages 715-718) gives the estimates of Hilberg and Reitlinger a s well a s the more conventional estimates of the AngleAmerican Committee of Inquiry Regarding the Problems of European Jewry and Palestine (5,721,500) and of Jacob Lestchinsky (5,957,000). As Levin explains: Reitlinger's considerably lower estimates are traceable largely to what he calls "highly conjectural estimates" of losses in territory presently controlled by the Soviet Union and losses in Romania. He has also pointed to the "widely differing estimates of the Jewish populations of Russia, Poland, Hungary, Romania and the Balkans" before the war. One wonders if Rosenfeld would dismiss Hilberg and Reitlinger a s disreputable. If so, then it would only be fair to dismiss Rosenfeld a s a n incorrigible dogmatist. In any case, Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal, "the avenging angel of the Holocaust," has his own fantasy about the six million figure. In the wake of a brief but favorable commentary by British author Colin Wilson on a booklet titled Did Six Million Really Die?, Wiesenthal wrote a letter, published in the April 1975 issue of books and bookmen. According to Wiesenthal: "Scientific researchers and historians in various countries reached the conclusion, based on German documents, that the figure of exterminated Jews was between five million eight hundred thousand and six million two hundred thousand. They agreed to a round figure of six million." I think I've already given enough information about the widely divergent estimates of Jewish deaths to show that this is just another fairy story. The only question is: does Wiesenthal himself actually believe it? Another letter published in the Los Angeles Times concerning the aforementioned Ashley affair was signed by one Robert Glasser, self-identified a s "the Anti-Defamation League's staff person handling the case of George Ashley. . . " Glasser insisted that "the question regarding this instructor is not . one of academic freedom. It is simply a fact that 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, and any attempt to teach otherwise is akin to teaching that 1 plus 1 equals 3." But, a s I've already demonstrated, the six million figure is not a fact; it is, at best, a n estimate, a n estimate disputed even by some prominent Jewish Holocaustorians. If Glasser is not simply a tale-spinner, his assertion can best be

..

The Holocaust as Sacred Cow

33

explained a s a result of ignorance and dogmatism, which so frequently go hand-in-hand. As Montaigne said, "Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know." In any case, Robert Glasser is not the only ADLer in L.A. given to making dogmatic assertions about the six million figure. The Los Angeles Times of 3 May, 1981 quoted ADL attorney David Lehrer's comment on the claim that the Holocaust is a myth: "It's a historical fact and we're not going to debate it. Are there any reputable historians who deny that 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust?" Yes, Mr. Lehrer, there are "reputable" historians, i.e., Jewish Holocaustorians, who deny that six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. But, in any case, if the Holocaust is a historical fact, rather than an article of faith, why is Lehrer unwilling to debate it? Is it not because, as Learned Hand said, "All discussion, all debate, all dissidence tends to question, and in consequence to upset existing convictions"? Apparently, Lehrer cannot tolerate the thought that existing convictions about the Holocaust might be upset by open discussion and debate, and so he simply refuses to debate. My point that the six million figure is sacred to many people is explicitly confirmed by the oath sworn by attendees of the World Gathering of Holocaust Survivors in June of 1981: "We vow we shall never let the sacred memory of our perished 6 million be scorned or erased." But the belief in the six million figure is only one of the tenets comprising what might be called the Holocaust Creed. And, though some may not regard the six million figure as sacred, they may nevertheless consider other tenets of the Holocaust Creed to be sacred and unquestionable. For example, Eugene Wetzler, a Jewish Marxist, has written an essay largely devoted to attacking Noam Chomsky, the libertarian socialist and MIT linguist, because of his defense of the civil liberties of French Holocaust revisionist Robert Faurisson. Wetzler writes:
The often quoted figure of 6,000,000may be an underestimate. It was the figure given by the Allied Tribunal at Nuremberg. Studies of objective facts that tend to lower or raise the figure are acceptNone of this brings into question the fact that genocide able was indeed committed.

...

For Wetzler, to raise or lower the six million figure is acceptable, but to bring into question "the fact" of genocide is not. Thus, for Wetzler, "the fact" of genocide is a Sacred Truth, not to be doubted or questioned. But I propose to question this Sacred Truth of genocide. Did the Nazi State attempt to kill all European Jews? Consider this passage from Goebbel's diary of 27 March 1942, which is sometimes

34

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cited a s evidence of Goebbel's supposed knowledge of a program to exterminate all Jews: Beginning with Lublin, the Jews in the General Government [German-occupied central Poland] are now being evacuated eastward. The procedure is a pretty barbaric one and not to be described here more definitely. Not much will remain of the Jews. f On the whole it can be said that about 60 per cent o them will have to be liquidated whereas only about 40 per cent can be used for forced labor. Assuming the authenticity of the passage, and assuming that "liquidated" meant "killed," then Goebbels was projecting the killing of about 60 per cent of the Jews, with the others to be used for forced labor. While such a n interpretation does give support to a charge of mass murder committed by certain Nazis, it does not support a charge of genocide, of total extermination. Now consider the postwar confessions of Rudolph Hoess, commandant of Auschwitz. Hoess repeatedly said that in June of 1941 he received from Himmler a n order for the total extermination of European Jewry. There are, however, a number of oddities in Hoess' confessions, including his reference to a n "extermination camp" named "Wolzek," which nobody else on Planet Earth ever heard of. Also, the confessions Hoess made a s a prisoner of the British and a t Nuremberg differ in some respects from the confessions he later made a s a prisoner of the Polish Communists. For example, in his later confessions he reduced his estimate of the number of Jews killed a t Auschwitz from about 2% million to about 1'/4 million. And he modified his story about the extermination o r d e r he s a i d h e received from Himmler. While h e still claimed to have received such a n order, he also claimed that Himmler had soon modified the order to exempt from extermination Jews capable of war work. As Hoess put it: Originally all the Jews transported to Auschwitz on the authority of Eichmann's office were, in accordance with orders of the

Reichsfuhrer SS, to be destroyed without exception. This also applied to the Jews from Upper Silesia, but on the arrival of the first transports of German Jews, the order was given that all those who were able-bodied, whether men or women, were to be segregated and employed in war work. This happened before the construction of the women's camp, since the need for a women's camp in Auschwitz only arose as a result of this order. (Commandant of Auschwitz, Popular Library, pp178-179.) Putting it more succinctly, Hoess wrote that, "When the Reichsfuehrer SS modified his original Extermination Order of 1941, by which a l l J e w s without exception w e r e to be destroyed, a n d ordered instead that those capable of work were to be separated

The Holocaust as Sacred Cow

35

from the rest and employed in the armaments industry, Auschwitz became a Jewish camp." (Op. cit., p122.) Whatever one may think of Hoess' confessions, it is a fact, acknowledged by nearly all Holocaustorians, that many Jews were used by the Nazis for forced labor. So, if there was an extermination program, it is hard to see how it could have been a program for total extermination, for genocide. Thus, Eugene Wetzler's unquestionable "fact" of genocide is questionable indeed. O course, dogmatism comes as easily to a Marxist intellectual f like Wetzler as swimming does to a fish. But consider the way in which 34 French historians responded to the heresies of Holocaust revisionist Robert Faurisson. These historians signed a declaration, published in Le Monde on 21 February 1979, which concluded thusly:
Every one is free to interpret a phenomenon like the Hitlerite genocide according to his own philosophy. Everyone is free to compare it with other enterprises of murder committed earlier, at the same time, later. Everyone is free to offer such or such kind of explanation; everyone is free, to the limit, to imagine or to dream that these monstrous deeds did not take place. Unfortunately they did take place and no one can deny their existence without committing a n outrage on the truth. It is not necessary to ask how technically such mass murder was possible. It was technically possible, seeing that it took place. That is the required point of departure of every historical inquiry on this subject. This truth it behooves us to remember in simple terms: there is not and there cannot be a debate about the existence of the gas chambers.

But who, other than twdegged sheep, would take seriously such a dogmatic declaration? For all I know, there may have been gas chambers used for the mass murder of Jews in some of the Nazi camps. But I refuse to believe in such gas chambers merely because some gang of would-be intellectual dictators tries to lay down the law. As the late novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand once said, speaking through John Galt, the hero of her novel, Atlas Shrugged, "Independence is the recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility of judgement and nothing can help you escape it-that no substitute can do your thinking, as no pinchhitter can live your life-that the vilest form of self-abasement and self-destruction is the subordination of your mind to the mind o another, the acceptance of an authority over your brain, the f acceptance of his assertions as facts, his say-so as truth, his edicts as middle-man between your consciousness and your existence." The insistence of 34 French historians that the mass murder of Jews in gas chambers was technically possible because "it took

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place" is reminiscent of the argument of Joseph Glanvill in Saducismus Triumphatus (1681):"Matters of fact well proved ought not to be denied, because we cannot conceive how they can be performed. Nor is it a reasonable method of inference, first to presume the thing impossible, and thence to conclude that the fact cannot be proved." What were the "matters of fact well proved" that Glanvill thought should not be denied? They were the well proved "facts" of existence of witches and witchcraft. It should be pointed out, however, that, unlike those who denied the existence of witches and witchcraft because, as Glanvill said, they "presumed" it to be impossible, Robert Faurisson does not simply presume the Nazi gas chambers to have been impossible. Rather, he presents arguments based on allegedly factual information about the properties of Zyklon B, the gas allegedly used for mass murder at Auschwitz. For example, in "The Gas Chambers of Auschwitz Appear to be Physically Inconceivable," (The Journal ofHistorica1Review, Winter 1981),Faurisson writes that, "This gas is inflammable and explosive; there must not be any naked flame in the vicinity and, most definitely, it is necessary not to smoke." He then cites the testimony of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Hoess that immediately after opening the door of a gas chamber, following the gassing, prisoners would begin to remove the corpses, smoking and eating as they worked. Faurisson asks:
How could they smoke in a place with vapors from an inflammable and explosive gas? How could all of that be done near the doors of the crematory ovens in which they were burning thousands of bodies? The gas chambers were allegedly housed in the same buildings as the crematory ovens. Who are these beings endowed with supernatural powers? From what world do these tremendous creatures come? Do they belong to our world which is ruled by inflexible, known laws of the physicist, the doctor, the chemist, the toxicologist? Or do they indeed belong to the world of the imagination where all those laws, even the law of gravity, are overcome by magic or disappear by enchantment?

Assuming that Faurisson is right about the inflammability and explosiveness of Zyklon B, he has raised some pertinent (and impertinent) questions about the physical possibility of the notorious Nazi gas chambers, questions which deserve to be answered by those who maintain that those gas chambers really existed. But, rather than answer Faurisson's questions, 34 French historians dogmatically insist that the alleged mass murder with Zyklon B was possible because "it took place." Such dogmatism regarding the gas chambers is the intellectual equivalent of the dogmatism of Catholic historians who insist that it was possible for the sun to plunge toward the earth above Fatima because "it

The Holocaust as Sacred Cow

37

took place," as attested by thousands of eyewitnessess. As some people believe in the Holy Ghost, others believe in the Holocaust. However, Lucy Dawidowicz, one of the leading Jewish Holocaustorians, actually approves o the French historians' dogmatf ic declaration, which, she says, "could well serve as a guide to American historians." Dawidowicz would undoubtedly be pleased, therefore, to know that some American academics have reacted to Holocaust revisionism with the same degree of openmindness as was displayed by the astronomers who refused to look through Galileo's telescope but nevertheless "knew" that he could not possibly have discovered any new heavenly bodies with it. One of the reactions to newspaper reports about Holocaust revisionist Arthur Butz and his book, The Hoax of the Twentieth Century, was a letter to the New York Times by one Professor Wolfe of New York University. Wolfe said that Northwestern University, where Butz teaches electrical engineering and computer sciences, should bring him up on charges of "academic incompetence" and "moral turpitude" for having written a book whose title he gave as Fabrication of a Hoax. Wolfe had seen the New York Times story which reported this incorrect title, but he had not seen the book itself. Noam Chomsky has written that, "No rational person will condemn a book, however outlandish its conclusions may seem, without at least reading it carefully; in this case, checking the documentation offered, and so on." But Professor Wolfe is not a rational person, at least, not in relation to Holocaust revisionism. Another true believer who was moved to comment on "the Faurisson affair" was a Michael Blankfort of Los Angeles, perhaps the same Michael Blankfort who was a playwright, novelist, and screenwriter, and who, in an interview given shortly before his death in July 1982,spoke of a visit he made to Israel in 1948 which resulted in "the onset of a devotion to Israel that is without parallel in my life." In a letter published in The Nation, Blankfort wrote, "Anyone who claims the Holocaust never happened is insane. Why shouldn't a university fire a crazy teacher who might harm his students with his criminal delusions?" Coincidentally, iconoclastic psychiatrist Thomas Szasz, in The Manufacture of Madness, mentioned a doctor of the Sorbonne who wrote in 1609 that the witches' sabbat was an objective fact, disbelieved only by those of unsound mind. The parallel is obvious, and ominous. Blankfort's dogmatic assertion that anyone who says the Holocaust never happened is insane, is an example of one of the most common ploys of Holocaust dogmatists, a fallacy Ayn Rand identified as "the Argument from Intimidation," which, as she explained,

38

TFiE ]OURNAI, OF HISTORICAL REVIEW

. is not an argument, but a means of forestalling debate and extorting an opponent's agreement with one's undiscussed notions. It is a method of by-passing logic by means of psychological pressure. . the psychological pressure method consists of threatening to impeach an opponent's character by means of his argument, thus impeaching the argument without debate. The essential characteristic of the Argument from Intimidation is its appeal to moral self-doubt and its reliance on the fear, guilt or ignorance of the victim. It is used in the form of a n ultimatum demanding that the victim renounce a given idea without discussion, under threat of being considered morally unworthy. The pattern is always: "Only those who are evil (dishonest, heartless, insensitive, ignorant, etc.) can hold such an idea.

..

..

In Blankfort's case, "the Argument from Intimidation" took the form: Only those who are insane can hold such an idea, i.e., the idea that the Holocaust never happened. But, as Rand said, "The Argument from Intimidation is a confession of intellectual impotence." Another true believer is my very own Congressman, Representative Henry A. Waxman. In a column published in The B'nai B'rith Messenger of Los Angeles, Waxman waxed abusive:
To be realistic, we must note that the recognition of the horrors of the Holocaust in civilized circles has been sharply answered by an incredible repudiation of the Holocaust by those who would destroy us. How perverse, how deranged and utterly sick are the people behind the "debunking of the Holocaust?" Who are these people who offer prizes to anyone who can prove a single Jew died in the concentration camps?

It appears that Waxman does not even know what he's talking about. The Institute for Historical Review has offered a reward of $50,000 to the first person to prove to its satisfaction, in accord with American legal standards, that Jews were gassed to death at Auschwitz, but no one has offered prizes "to anyone who can prove that a single Jew died in the concentration camps." In any case, Waxman's response to Holocaust revisionism is simply a variation of "the Argument from I~ltimidation": Only the perverse, the deranged or the utterly sick can engage in debunking the Holocaust. Another confession of intellectual impotence. One more variation of "the Argument from Intimidation" was employed by British writer Alan "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner" Sillitoe in a letter published in books and bookmen, April 1975. Responding to Colin Wilson's aforementioned favorable comments on Did Six Million Really Die?, Sillitoe declared: "To disbelieve that an act of colossal and monstrous injustice has been committed is an act of injustice in itself." In other words: Only the unjust can disbelieve the Holocaust. Yet

The Holocaust as Sacred Cow

39

another confession of intellectual impotence. Some true believers, however, are not content merely to censure Holocaust heretics; they want to censor them as well. For example, Professor Franklin H. Littell of the religious studies department at Temple University, who is a member of the U.S. Council on the Holocaust, warned participants in a Jerusalem symposium on anti-Semitism that the damage being done by revisionists (what damage?) should be taken seriously. According to The Jerusalem Post International Edition, 19-25 October 1980, Littell announced, "You can't 'discuss' the truth of the Holocaust. That's distortion of free speech," and was applauded when he declared, "The U.S. shold emulate West Germany, which outlaws such public exercises. We now have to deal with a minimum of violence; later, we'll have to fight them in the streets." Thus, in true Orwellian fashion, Littell declares: Censorship is free speech. But, as Ayn Rand wrote in her book, For the New Intellectual:
Let no man posture a s a n advocate of freedom if he claims the right to establish his version of a good society where individual dissenters are to be suppressed by means of physical force. Let no man posture as an intellectual if he proposes to elevate a thug into the position of final authority over the intellect. No advocate of reason can claim the right to force his ideas on others. No advocate of the free mind can claim the right to force the minds of others. No rational society, no co-operation, no a g r e e ment, no understanding, no discussion are possible among men who propose to substitute guns for rational persuasion.

Since Littell proposes precisely to substitute guns for rational persuasion, no discussion of the truth of the Holocaust is possible with him. So I have only one thing to say to Littell: Just try and stop me from discussing the truth of the Holocaust! Wendell Phillips once said: "If there is anything in the universe that can't stand discussion, let it crack." And I say: If the Sacred Truth of the Holocaust can't stand discussion, let it crack. Another confirmation of my point about the sacredness of the Holocaust for true believers can be found in what I call the canonization of the surviviors. With rare exceptions, such as Roman Polanski, Holocaust survivors are seen as Semitic saints. Instead of halos over their heads, though, concentration camp numbers tattooed on their arms serve as the insignia of their sainthood. This canonization o survivors is reflected in their f immunity from criticism, or even skepticism, by the minions of the mass media of communications. How often have you seen or read any mass-medium journalist doubting or disputing the word of a Holocaust survivor? Rarely, if ever, I'll wager. Yet another manifestation of the sacredness of the Holocaust is revealed in the headline of a Los Angeles Times story about the

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T H E JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW

increasing numbers of people visiting the site of the Dachau concentration camp. The headline: "Record Number Visit Shrine to Nazi Victims." Thus, Dachau is a shrine, one of many, to which the pious make pilgrimages. But, if, for so many people, the Holocaust is a sacred cow, a matter of blind faith, the question is: Why? I think that Jewish psychohistorian Howard F. Stein has given at least part of the answer in "The Holocaust and the Myth of the Past as History," (The Journal of Historical Review, Winter 1980):
why, for Jews, the Holocaust? What, in sanctifying the Hole caust, do Jews not want to know about that grim era? Whatever be the "facts" of the Holocaust, it is experienced as a necessity, a s p a r t of a r e c u r r e n t historic pattern. Reality must be made to conform to fantasy. Whatever did happen in the Holocaust must be made to conform to the group-fantasy of what ought to have happened. For the Jews, the term "Holocaust" does not simply denote a single catastrophic era in history, but is a grim metaphor for the meaning of Jewish history. . . . the "reality" of the Holocaust is inextricably part of the myth in which it is woven-and for which myth it serves a s further confirmatory evidence for the timeless Jewish theme that the world is in conspiracy to annihilate them, one way or another, at least eventually.

...

Jean-LouisTristani, one of the contributors to the book Intolerable Intolerance, gives an analysis which I think complements that of Howard Stein:
The Holocaust, which represents one of the most popular themes of contemporary Judaism, thus falls into a long tradition. It is bound up with what it would be necessary to call the "invention of Israel," of the Israel of today. The Hitlerian genocide perpetrated in the gas chambers, the Exodus and the creation of the Israeli state, do they not attain in effect the lofty meaning which the servitude in Egypt, the Exodus, and the installation in the Promised Land once had?

Judaic scholar Jacob Neusner, in his book, Stranger at Home, treats the Holocaust as part o a myth of "Holocaust and ref demption.''
The myth is t h a t "the Holocaust" is a unique event, which, despite its "uniqueness," teaches compelling lessons about why Jews must be Jewish, and, in consequence of that fact, do certain things known in advance (which have nothing to do with the extermination of European Jewry). The redemptive part of the myth maintains that the State of Israel is the "guarantee" that "the Holocaust" will not happen again, that it is that State and its achievements which give meaning and significance, even fulfillment, to "the Holocaust."

The Holocaust as Sacred Cow

41

. . . so if you want to know why be Jewish, you have to remember that (1) the gentiles wiped out the Jews of Europe, so are not to be trusted, let alone joined; (2) if there had been "Israel," meaning the State o Israel, there would have been no "Holocaust"; and so f (3) for the sake o your personal safety, you have to "support f Israel."
If we synthesize these three analyses, we get the following conclusions: (1) the Holocaust is a metaphor for the meaning of Jewish history, that is, that the world is in conspiracy to annihilate the Jews; (2) the Holocaust is part of a myth, comparable to earlier Jewish myths, encompassing the Holocaust, the Exodus and the Rebirth of the State of Israel: and (3) this myth explains to Jews why they must support the State of Israel. Thus, it is not surprising to find Alfred Lilienthal reporting, in The Zionist Connection: To ingrain the State of Israel more deeply into the Jewish consciousness, the International Association of Conservative Rabbis incorporated the events of the last 2,000 years in prayer. The death of the six million as well as the establishment o Israel, the f June war, and the reunification o Jerusalem was all woven into f the revised liturgy. One Holocaust p r a y e r c a n be found in B e r n a r d Martin's Prayer in Judaism. It is "An elegy for the Six Million" by David Polish. (Polish, incidentally, makes use of numerous variations on the mythic theme that the fat of murdered Jews was used by the Nazis to make soap.) As Howard Stein says, the Holocaust-the alleged Nazi extermination of European Jewry-is a metaphor for the meaning of Jewish history. The question is: is it anything more than a metaphor? In his book Heresies, Thomas Szasz says, "Most of the heresies in the book. . . pertain to matters where language is used in two ways, literally and metaphorically: where the true believer speaks metaphorically but claims that he asserts literal truths; and where heresy may consist in no more than insisting that a metaphorical truth may be a literal falsehood." Szasz, however, believes that the metaphor of the Holocaust expresses a literal truth, so let me be the one to commit the heresy of insisting that the metaphorical truth of the Holocaust may be a literal falsehood.

"Factual, well wntten, well documented The readlng of thls book w ~ ladd toone'sde th of thesubject l and particularly orthe thtnklng and feelings of tens of rn~ll~onsArab of people -DR JOHN H DAVIS

BITTER HARVEST
Palestine: 1914-1979
-

To the future generations of Palestinians lest they forget what they lost and how they lost it. BITTER HARVEST Palestine Between 1914-1979 by Sami Hadawi With a foreword by Dr. John H. Davis Former Commissioner-Generalof the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA 1

SAM1 HADAWI

This book places before the reader fully documented evidence of the history of the struggle for Palestine, with an understanding of the forces responsible for the conflict, the ambitions, traditions and alliances that make up the Palestine problem. Writing with clarity and force, the author also gives an unrivalled account of the events and factors behind the current high-tension occurrences in the Middle East with a special section dealing with the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Agreement of 1979. Bitter Harvest is not only the result of meticulous research, but also of first hand knowledge of the problems of the area. The author's conclusions therefore deserve careful study. Sami Hadawi was born in 1904 in Jerusalem. He served with the Palestine Government under the British as Official Land Valuer and Inspector of Tax Assessments. In 1940 he was awarded the M.B.E. for "outstanding service." In 1960 he established the Arab Information Center of the League of Arab States in Dallas and became its first director. Five years later he moved to Beirut as Director of the Institute for Palestine Studies. During the past twenty years he has lectured extensively and has written numerous pamphlets and monographs. He is the author of the Prize-winning book, Palestine: Loss of a Heritage, and co-author of the two-volume The Palestine Diary 1914-1945 and 1945-1948. The chapters in Bitter Harvest include HistoricalBackground Palestine and the Jews The Zionist Movement Palestine Under Mandate Palestine Problem Before United Nations Strife, War, Truce The Armistice The United Nations Efforts for Settlements The Arab Refugee Problem The Arab Minority in lsrael Repatriation and Compensation Violation of Human Rights Racism and Racial Dixrimination Terrorism The Palestine Resistance Movement The Arab Boycott of lsrael Israeli Policy of Expansion River Jordan Irrigation Project lsrael and the United States United Nations Peace Efforts and Failures Palestine Befween War and Peace. Bitter Harvest by Sami Hadawi, Pb, 326pp, index, bibliography, appendices. ....$8.00 available from: INSTITUTE FOR HISTORICAL REVIEW Post Office Box 1306 Torrance, California 90505 -available after May 1, 1983-

Who Are the Palestinians?

SAM1 HADAWI

Since Mr. Hadawi's paper was prepared for the IHR's 1982 Chicago conference, much of a one-sided and devastating nature has transpired in the Middle East. Particularly, the world witnessed with mounting horror the massive invasion of Lebanon carried out by Israeli "Defense" Forces allegedly in response to one of their own being slain elsewhere. But the public information trough was soon thereafter filled with so much illogic, obfuscation and anxiety over the increase in anti-Israeli sentiment that the final question pouring forth from the majority of Op/Ed pages across the land came as no surprise: Was the invasion justifiable? As usual, few stirrings of consideration of the deeper question were to be found-the deeper question that refuses to go away despite the column miles of anguished, argumentative waste offered in its stead for the past 30 years: What are these "Israelis" doing in the first place on lands belonging to a people who have lived there for countless generations; what Palestinian counterterror would not be justifiable in order to simply regain what has been expropriated from them? Zionism both here and abroad appeared outraged when the reports of the slaughter of thousands of defenseless refugees were made known the world over-outraged not particularly at the massacres themselves, but at the fact that they were being talked about with fingers pointing in the direction of Jerusalem. So in a lastditch effort to stave off the mounting criticism, they held a court of inquiry and politically hung (but still we're not sure) a few of their own -a turn of events, incidentally, tailormade to make all that came before off-handedly appear "legitimate," thus further clouding the deeper question by focusing attention elsewhere. To reiterate, it was the immigrant Zionists from Eastern Europe who ganged up on the Palestinian Arabs and threw them off their own lands. And yet it is these very usurpers who most loudly

44

TIiE JOIIRNAI, OF' HISTORICAL REVIEW

screech about the "PLO terrorists," who remonstrate that if but a single one is abroad in Lebanon (or any nearby Arab nation?) the entire region must be put to the torch. This is not only the "logic" of the insane, but, to boot, it adds considerably more chutzpah to the big lie. Who, now, can keep track of what really has been going on in the area, and why? With better than $251 billion in various forms of direct assistance from our elected since 1948, Americans have been committed to nurse-maiding what has turned out to be the most uncontrollable stepchild since the Workers' Paradise idea gained a Wall Street following. In 1970 about 1% of the total U.S. foreign aid budget wound up in Israel's pocket. In 1971 Israel knocked on Congress's door for 7 . 4 % and it was verily opened unto them. In 1974 "the only democracy in a sea of Arab tyranny" wanted 28% of our foreign aid budget and got it-a figure that jumped to nearly 35% in 1976. These figures do not even include America's indirect subsidies such as tax-free Israeli bond sales here, tax-exempt donations and bribe money to Egypt. The figure will probably top $10 billion in fiscal 1984-but no George F. Will or Geraldo Rivera will dare highlight these facts in juxtaposition to the growing financial crunch said to be besetting our own economy. In early March 1983 at a meeting of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Europe and the Middle East, pro-Israeli chairman Rep. Lee Hamilton (D.-Ind.) questioned what the political [read: media] impact would be of a proposed decrease in direct U.S. aid to the nation that, with somebody else's money, made somebody else's desert bloom. Speaking to Nicholas Veliotes, assistant Secretary of State, Hamilton asked "What kind of signal do you think would be sent to Israel in the event Congress would agree to the . . . decrease (in) assistance to Israel?" When the assistant Secretary of State replied that assistance to Israel was already quite substantial, Hamilton countered that the Israeli economy had weakened, making a decrease in aid difficult to justify. (!) Veliotes then remarked that he didn't think that was particularly relevant, whereupon Rep. Hamilton emphatically rejoined: "In due course you'll find that it's relevant." That, in a nutshell, is the essence of the problem. The whole contemporary Middle East mess, its basic nature and the reason for its continuance, can be traced back to the U.S.A. Only the tremendous economic leverage extending from these shores could hope to "pacify" an Arab region which has suffered such continual betrayal and has witnessed with amazingly calm resolve, given the situation, the unabating hypocrisy and black propaganda.

Who Are the Palestinians?

45

Historically, it h.as been the Palestinian Arabs who have worked for peace, and for what is rightfull theirs. It is the "Holocaust" Establishment, and all who urge it on with dollars and favorable editorials, which is the real Middle East problem. The excuse for the Israelis to seize more real estate does not have to amount to much-most anything will do. This excuse is that the only way the Arab "threat" can be eliminated is by eliminating all non-subservient, proximate Arabs. With this said, let us start at the beginning with Mr. Hadawi's brief on the development of the conflict-a history written by one who has spent the greater part of his life in Palestinian diplomatic service. Mr. Hadawi's thesis may not be entirely free of passion, but it certainly deserves a hearing because of the justice of its cause, the scarcity of opportunities to present the case for that cause, and the overwhelming indications that the conflict will continue for years and even decades to come until the suppressed side of the story is understood broadly and something resembling justice and reason prevails. -Tom Marcellus To many Americans the expression "Palestinian" is synonymous with either a refugee or a terrorist. The first receives philanthropic sympathy like all other refugees of the world; the second outright condemnation. Few attempt to find out the background of either, Let me explain: Responsibility of the creation of the Palestine refugee problem rests primarily with the Christian Church. Influenced by Zionist arguments that the Jews a s the "Chosen People" enjoyed special favor and interest of an omnipotent deity and that Palestine was their "Promised Land," many of the church leaders used their frocks and the pulpit to misinterpret Holy Scriptures into the belief that in supporting the realization of the dreams and goals of political Zionism of establishing a state in Palestine and ingathering the Jews of the world into it, they would be pleasing God and bringing closer the Second Coming of the Messiah. They made no attempt to explain, or even to comprehend, the difference between Judaism a s a religion and Zionism as a political movement which was deliberately and maliciously using Judaism and Christianity to achieve its political aims in Palestine. Thus the Holy Land and its Moslem and Christian indigenous inhabitants, who claim descent from the earliest people of the country, were crucified on the cross of political intrigue and personal greed with the Christian Church acting as the Judas Escariot of the 20th century. What the Christian Church began in the early 1900s, the Western politician accomplished in 1948 to make the crime against humanity complete.

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THE JOURNAL 01: l IlSTORlCAL REVIEW

After the creation of the state of Israel and the expulsion and dispossession of the Moslem and Christian inhabitants of the country, Christian church leaders began to doubt that the newly established "physical Israel" that they so unwisely helped to create was the "Israel of God" which is ordained in Holy Scrip tures. They realized that their blind support of political Zionism was ill-advised and, strictly speaking, had nothing to do with the Bible: while Israel's treatment of the Palestinians brought home to them the enormity of the sin that was being committed against humanity. Consequently, certain American Christian leaders made demands on the U.S. President to terminate all military aid to Israel which continues to act as judge, jury, and executioner in its own cause without regard to human decency, equity and justice. The exposure of the true character of Zionism and the aggressive nature of Israel and the resultant change in attitude of the Christian Church, were a setback which the Zionists and Israelis had not contemplated. For succor they turned their attention to evangelical Christians and found support among some who were willing to sell their soul to the devil for thirty pieces of silver. Dangling fame and the dollar before their eyes with free trips to the Holy Land, the honor of being photographed with Israeli leaders, as well as adequate financial means to maintain a comfortable way of life for themselves, the misguided and corrupt among them have turned Christianity into a lucrative business with Christ serving as the product and they the beneficiaries. They take out television and radio time for their Sunday so-called "Crusade for Christ," and conduct tours of the Holy Land under the guise of visiting holy sites but the real purpose behind these is to influence Christians in favor of Israel. For example, if their faith was what they claim it to be, where is their Christian charity and conscience on what has been going on in Lebanon? Not a word of sympathy, not a word of condemnation, not even a prayer for the bereaved, the murdered men, women, and children, the maimed and those buried under the rubble of their own homes! In 1975 the U.N. General Assembly adopted a resolution which determined that "Zionism was a form of racism and racial dis~rimination."~ This placed it on the same level with the "apartheid" policy of South Africa. The U.S. Government, faithful to the proddings of the Jewish Lobby, condemned the Resolution without taking into account the actual character of Zionism as declared in its principles of a state for Jews only. The Neturei Karta, a community of pious orthodox Jews, described Israel as a state "conceived in atheism, based on materialism, nurtured by antiSemitism, led by Marxism, ruled by chauvinism, and trusting in militari~m."~ anyone to support such a racist destructive For movement is to court disaster!

Who Are the Palestinians?

47

With regard to the Palestinians and terrorism, the Jewish Lob by in the United States has succeeded through intrigue, intimidation, economic power, and corruption in influencing the U.S. media of information and politicians to label the Palestinians as terrorists without attempting to understand the nature and reasons for their so-called terrorism. There are two basic categories of terrorism that can be defined, namely: (1) There is the violent a c t done to destroy or disrupt a n oppressive or tyrannical institution which has violated the legitimate rights and offended the fundamental values of a society or people; and (2) There is the act of an institution or body against a society or people which tends to force or enforce its will and achieve thereby the surrender of principles and rights maintained by the society or people being acted against. Under the first category fall such cases as the operations of the resistance movement in France during World War 11. The Allies described their members as "freedom fighters" and supported them morally, militarily, and financially. The Occupying Power, on the other hand, called them "terrorists, saboteurs, murderers" and tried to exterminate them by any means at their disposal because their activities were intended to destroy their potential and military strength and re-establish freedom and human dignity. Although this type of action might terrorize the ruling and military institution, it cannot be conceived as a depraved "terrorism" in the true sense of the word. For all its negative attributes the world has seen fit to exonerate it as a struggle for human freedom, liberty, and dignity, and to endow it with almost religious sanction. Included in this category are the Palestinians who are fighting to regain possession of their usurped homeland, confiscated homes, and plundered property. In this category also fall the peoples of Africa who fought a n d those who a r e still fighting for their freedom, liberty, and independence. The second category comprises such cases as the unique case of Palestine. There the Zionist movement, after enjoying for thirty years British patronage a n d protection for its programs to achieve political control over the country, turned against its erstwhile patron when the latter began to show signs of vacillation. One must be careful not to confuse the image of the French underground pitting itself against an army of occupation, or even PLO operations, and the illegal underground subversive organizations, the Hagana, the Irgun Zvei Leumi, and the Stern Gang, striking off the restraining fetters of their sponsor-turned-disciplinarian. When the time was right and the demoralized British were committed to abandon their mandate, the Zionist momentum was smoothly channelled into achieving what they had ex-

48

T H E JOLJRNAI, Of: I IISTORICAL REVIEW

pected the British to achieve for them, namely, the seizure of Palestine, the demographic purgation of Palestine's Moslem and Christian inhabitants, and the declaration of the all-Jewish state of Israel, contrary to the provisions and spirit of the U.N. Charter, the U.N. Resolution of Partition, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and every principle of international law, justice and equity. Thus the Zionist movement's successful so-called "resistance" against the British mandatory government cannot be described as a liberation movement against colonialism, but was more in the nature of a "palace coup" carried out by one colonialist against another. Recalling the situation in those days, author Arthur Koestler said of the present Israeli leadership that as Zionists they "preached resistance but denied indignantly acting against the law; they alternately tolerated, fought against or engaged in terrorism, according to the opportunity of the moment, but all the time carefully maintained the fiction of being guardians of civil virtue."3 Correspondent David Hirst, on the other hand, referring to the present situation reported: "After the creation of the state of Israel, classical terrorism gave way to the outwardly more respectable terrorism designed to cow and subjugate the Palestinians and the Arab sympathizers." He condemned "an Israel which was built on terrorism and continues to glorify its terrorists to this day."4 Commenting on U.S. policy in this respect, White House Correspondent Robert Pierpont accused the Government of having lost its sense of fair play and justice, and seems to be operating on a double standard. This double standard is present even when it comes to terror and murder. For so long Americans have become used to thinking of the Israelis as the "good guys" and the Arabs as the "bad guys" that many react emotionally along the lines of previous prejudices. 5 Never in the modern history of mankind have human rights been so grossly violated as in the case o the Palestinian people f and naked aggression so strongly and generously supported morally, politically, economically, and militarily, as in the case of Israel, by a nation which professes to be the champion of human dignity, liberty, and freedom. It should be understood that the Palestinians are human too, made up of flesh and blood and have feelings like other human beings. They too love their country, regard their homes as their castles and, like people in the West, are willing to sacrifice all in defense of the same fundamental rights and principles for which peoples of the West fought two world wars and now enjoy and take for granted. The fact that the Palestinians have been denied similar rights and principles for the past thirty-four years should disturb the conscience of those who truly believe in equality for

Who Are the Palestinians?

49

all peoples, human dignity, and the right to be free and secure in one's own homeland. The Palestinians believe in these principles and will go to any length o sacrifice to attain their objective f whatever the cost. To understand the issues involved in the Palestine Problem one must begin with three basic questions, namely, who a r e the Palestinians, what are their rights and grievances, and why are these rights denied. Unless these questions are amply recognized and equitably dealt with, man's inhumanity to man will continue unabated until it explodes into greater and wider conflagration. Today there is a madman loose in the Middle East aided and abetted by a gang of criminals including such people as Ariel Sharon and Yithak Shamir of pre-Israel Stern Gang fame who will stop at nothing to reach their objective of a "Greater Israel." The invasion of Lebanon and the cruelty of the invader have produced surprises that the Israel which emerged is not the Israel contemplated when it was born. The impotence of the world to stop the genocide of men, women, and children, and the indiscriminate bombing and shelling of Beirut encouraged Menachem Begin to arrogantly tell his benefactors in moral, political, economic, and military support that "a Jew will not bow to anybody except God" and that Israel today does not need the help of anybody. It is the duty of all peace-loving peoples to ensure that this madman and his gang do not by their irresponsible actions gradually embroil the world in a nuclear tragedy. While it is not too late, time is running out. Before I deal with the three questions I have posed, I would like to present certain background information relative to Israeli thinking: When it was suggested to the late Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir that Israel would be wise to agree to return occupied territories to their Arab owners as a gesture of goodwill and compromise in return for peace with its Arab neighbors, she replied: "How can we return occupied territories? There is nc+ body to return them to." On another occasion she said: "There is no such thing as a Palestinian. . . It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestine people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist." 7 The late Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol was no less emphatic in his denials and distortions. In an interview with Israeli newspaper Davar, he declared:
What are the Palestinians? When I came here (to Palestine) there were only 250,000 non-Jews, mainly Arabs and bedouins. It was desert-more than underdeveloped. Nothing. It was only after we made the d e s e r t bloom a n d populated it t h a t they became interested in taking it from us.8

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THE JOLIRNAI, 0 . t-IISTORICAL REVIEW 1'

Such denials and distortions of facts are not only preposterous but are also an insult to the intelligence of man. When I read of them, I could not help but wonder if both ex-prime ministers were in their right mind. At the same time I pinched myself to find out if I, as a Palestinian, really existed. I can assure the Israelis and their friends that the Palestinians do exist and that nothing said or done will ever make me and the other over four million Palestinians scattered throughout the world to "go away" as former U.S. President Jimmy Carter once hoped the Palestinians would do. The Palestinians are here to stay and to multiply until justice triumphs and right overcomes wrong. The world has experienced grave injustices and great crimes but in the end the rule of law and order has prevailed. The Palestinians believe that through their own endeavour and determination they are not going to be an exception. The Zionists endeavoured during the early period of their movement to make the world believe that "Palestine was a country without a people and that the Jews were a people without a country." Given the opportunity, they said, they would be able to make the desert bloom and bring prosperity to the few nomad bedouins who roamed the countryside. The facts about the number of the Arab population and the extent of the productivity of the land have been grossly distorted. According to the Palestine Government statistics, the total population of Palestine in 1918 was 700,000 persons, Of these 570,000 were Moslems, 70,000 were Christians, and 56,000 were Jews; 9 with the Jews owning less than 3% of the total land area. According to a study carried out by the British authorities soon after the occupation of the country, the estimated Jewish population between the years 1882 and 1922 was placed at a figure of 24,000 in 1882, rose to 85,000 in 1914, dropped to 56,000 during the war years of 1916-1918,and according to a government census rose in 1922 to 83,794 persons.10 By the year 1948 when the British mandate over Palestine came to an end, the population of the country stood at 1,415,000Arabs (including 35,000 "others"), and 700,000 Jews who not formed one-third of the total population. l1 Jewish ownership of land increased from about 3% to about 6%, still an infinitesimal figure. For Levi Eshkol to claim that the so-called "non-Jews" were only 250,000 souls and that the Jews had made the desert bloom is misleading. The 3% of Jewish owned land fell within the fertile lands of the coastal and other plains. They could therefore not have been in a position to make the desert bloom because the desert was not under their control. Even today with Israeli control over all the lands of Palestine the desert lands are still desert except for patches here and there where soil exists. The Israeli allegation of development consists chiefly of confiscated Arab

Who Are the Palestinians?

orange groves which made the "Jaffa orange" famous, centuriesold olive trees and fruit orchards, and first class cultivable land for all of which they now claim unearned credit and pride! Given the financial support the Israelis received from the U.S. Government and world Jewry during the period 1948 to date, estimated to exceed fifty billion dollars, is it any wonder that extensive developments could have taken place in Israeli-occupied territory? With such colossal amounts of aid, it is possible to make even the vast deserts of Africa bloom! Incidentally, a visit to the Arab Gulf states show what money can do in the way of development; but if Israeli developments with free U.S. dollar contributions were to be compared with what the penniless Palestinian refugees were able to do on their own in Jordan, for example, the contrast would be enormous. In regard to the fertility of the soil and production, foreign travellers visiting Palestine have described the country as it existed before the Jewish immigration, in glowing terms. One visitor of the 18th century said Palestine was "a land that flowed with milk a n d honey; in the midst a s it were of the habitable world, and under a temperate clime; adorned with beautiful mountains and luxurious valleys; the rocks producing excellent waters; and no part empty of delight or profit." Such reports persist in profusion through the 18th and 19th centuries, not only in travellers' accounts but, by the end of the 19th century, in scientific reports published by the Palestine Exploration J?und.12 To go farther back in time, perhaps it would be in order to solicit the help of the Holy Bible that describes Palestine as a land flowing with milk and honey and the fact that when Joshua sent his scouts ahead of the Israelites they returned carrying huge bunches of grapes which clearly proved that the country was inhabited, that its lands were fertile, and that its production was abundant. If that were the case in these ancient times, surely the situation could not have deteriorated to such an extent that it needed Jewish skills and endeavours to revive the land! Whether Palestine was a land flowing with milk and honey or a desolate desert is beside the point. The fact remains that the country in whatever form it is belongs to its indigenous inhabitants and should not be taken away from them merely because the new-comers are in a better position to develop the land. If such Zionist logic were to be accepted in the world today there would be utter chaos. The Zionists were aware all the time that Palestine was fully occupied and about its agriculture productivity potentials. In claiming otherwise, they hoped to raise the minimum of objections to their schemes of removal of the Arab inhabitants from their ancestral homeland and the seizure of their lands. In 1895

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THE JOURNAL 0 . IIISTORICAL REVIEW 1'

Theodor Herzl noted in his diaries that something will have to be done about the Palestinians. He wrote:
We should try to spirit the penniless Arab population across the borders by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country. Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly.l3

Other diabolical intentions towards the Palestinians came to light in later years. In 1921 Dr. Eder, a member of the Zionist Commission in Jerusalem, told the British court of enquiry a p pointed to investigate the causes of the first riots to break out between Arabs and Jews that "There can be only one national home in Palestine, and that a Jewish one, and no equality in the partnership between the Jews and Arabs, but a Jewish preponderance as soon as the numbers of the (Jewish] race are sufficiently increased." He then asked that only Jews should be allowed to bear arms.14 A later disclosure of Zionist plans of expulsion and dispossession of the Moslem and Christian inhabitants was reported by General Patrick Hurley, Personal Representative of U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt. He wrote in 1943:
The Zionist Organization in Palestine has committed itself to an enlarged program which would include (1) a sovereign Jewish state which would embrace Palestine and probably eventually Trans-Jordan; (2) an eventual transfer of the Arab population from Palestine to Iraq; and (3) Jewish leadership for the whole Middle East in the fields of economic development and control.

Zionist plans were partly realized in the 1948 and 1967 wars of aggression, and a third attempt at expansion is now in progress in southern Lebanon. The history of Palestine and the Palestinian people is being deliberately obscured and distorted by the Zionist/Israeli propaganda machine. Palestine was traditionally a wholly Arab country until the arrival of the Zionists after World War I. The name Palestine, it should be remembered, was derived from the word "Philista" which was the land of the biblical Philistines who occupied the southern coastal area in the 12th century B.C. and remained there even after the Israelites had invaded the land. An examination of human remains by anthropologists revealed that 50,000 years ago the inhabitants of the country were of mixed racial stock. From the 4th millennium B.C. until 900 B.C., the predominant indigenous stock were the Canaanites. l6 The Zionist claim to Palestine is based on pure fiction and would not have been taken seriously in this modern age but for Jewish political and economic influences and pressures over the

Who Are the Palestinians?

53

Christian Church and Western politicians. The claim is based mainly on two premises, namely, on ancient biblical promises of 4,000 years ago, and on Israelite (or Hebrew) historical connection. In the case of the first, the "Divine Promise" said to have been given by God to Abraham, if it were to be taken seriously in the 20th century, was not made to the Jews but to the "seed of Abraham" which includes the Arabs who are the descendants of Abraham through his son Ishmael who was born and circumsized before Isaac was even conceived. Furthermore, the Jews of Ashkenazi extraction are descendants of the Khazars, a people of Turkish stock, who occupied an area between the Black and Caspian Seas, a territory now a part of the Soviet Union. The Khazars, originally pagans, had in 740 A.D. embraced Judaism and their descendants, while they may profess the Jewish faith today, cannot claim to be of the "seed of Abraham" and "heirs according to the Promise." The ancestors of those Jews who today immigrate to Palestine from Europe and the Americas and claim Palestine and beyond as their ancestral homeland, came not from Jordan but from the Volga, not from Canaan but from the Caucasus, and that genetically, they are more closely related to the Hun and Magyar than to the seed of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Besides, religion does not confer heritage or property rights on people! (For a full understanding of the Khazar origin of Ashkenazi Jews, see The 13th Tribe, by Arthur Koestler.) As regards the second claim that the Israelites were in previous occupation of the land, this occupation started with an invasion under Joshua in 1100 B.C. and lasted to 585 B.C. when the Israelites were driven into captivity by Nebuchadnezzar. That occupation was limited to the hill regions, and at no time covered the entire country. It was short-lived, unstable, intermittant, long extinct, based on nothing better than the right of conquest and subject to the condition that there should have been national affinity between the Hebrews of 4,000 years ago and the Russian, Polish, American, and European Jew of today. If this transitory occupation can give the Zionists an historic right to the country, then it may be argued that the Arabs, who occupied Spain continuously for 800 years could claim that country today, while the Italians could claim the British Isles and the Red Indians could demand withdrawal from the Americas of all those who settled in the Western hemisphere and now call themselves Americans, Canadians, and Latin Americans! To consider the three questions posed at the beginning of this statement, namely, who are the Palestinians, what are their rights, and why are these rights denied, I would explain: (1) The present Palestinians are not, as is popularly believed, exclusively the descendants of the Islamic desert conquerors

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TFiE JOURNAI, 0 : I-IISTORICAL REVIEW 1

of 1300 years ago. They are, in fact, mainly the descendants of the original inhabitants, namely, the Philistines from whom the name "Palestine" is derived, the Canaanites, the Jebusites, etc. They were there when the early Hebrews invaded the land under Joshua, survived the Israelite occupation, retained possession of a large part of the country throughout the Israelite period, and remained in the land after the Hebrew dispersion to be intermingled with the Arabs of the 8th century, then with the Crusaders in the 11th century, and continued the occupation of the land in their new Arabized form until the political Zionist immigration began in the 20th century. (2) As regards Palestinian rights, the only real title that any people has to its country comes from birth and long and uninterrupted possession. It is these that give the British their right to the British Isles, the French their right to France, and the Americans their right to the United States. This is a criterion which the common acceptance of mankind has set up as a universal principle. It is recognized as the basis of the integrity and security of all nations, and no just international order can be established in the world today on any other foundation. It was only in Palestine that this principle was abused. If such a formula can apply to a new country like America with only 450 years of history, how much sounder in comparison is the right of the Palestinian Arabs to their country which dates back to the dawn of history? This right is claimed today and will continue to be claimed until it is realized. What is apparently unknown in the Western world is that part of the Arab character is attachment to the soil where one's ancestors had lived and are buried. Their removal creates in them a spiritual emptiness which no amount of material compensation can satisfy. Although those fighting today for the liberation of Palestine were born after 1948, they are unwilling to accept the ouster of their parents from the land of their ancestors and are ready to lay down their lives in defense of what they believe is their heritage. The PLO is not made up of matter; it is an ideology, an idea, a symbol, that cannot be defeated or erased until justice returns to the Holy Land. (3) With regard to the third and last question why Palestinian rights continue to be denied, it is because the Israelis, with the moral and political support of the U.S. Government, refuse to comply with U.N. resolutions on Palestine and abide by their obligations under the various international instruments that they signed willingly but defy with arrogance. In 1948 the U.N. General Assembly called upon the Israelis to allow the refugees to return to their homes and to pay compensation to those who do not wish to return and for loss of or damage to property.17 This

Who Are the Palestinians?

resolution was affirmed and reaffirmed annually but Israeli noncompliance continued with impunity. Other Israeli defiances are in respect of the following provisions: (A) The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948):Article 13 provides that "Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country." (B) The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966) reaffirmed the fundamental rights of people and, in 1976 the U.N. General Assembly adopted a resolution which, in Article 12, stated: "Everyone shall be free to leave any country, including his own . . . (and) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his own country." (C) The U.N. Commission on Human Rights, emphatically and solemnly declared that "Everyone is entitled, without distinction of any kind . . . to return to his country; No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality . . . as a means of divesting him of the right to return to his country; no one shall be denied the right to return to his own country on the ground that he has no passport or other travel document."lS The Israelis argue that since the Palestinians left the country they have forfeited their right of return. But the principles quoted above do not place any restriction or conditions on the right of return whatever the circumstances. Furthermore, the United Nations resolution admitting the state of Israel into membership of the World Organization was on the understanding that the Israelis were ready to comply with the provisions of U.N. resolutions of 1947 (on territory) and 1948 (on repatriation and compensation).19 Before I conclude I would like to comment on the Second Camp David Accord dealing with a comprehensive settlement of the Palestine Problem. The Accord provides for so-called "autonomy"-not for self-determination-for the inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza. Menachem Begin made it clear on more than one occasion that autonomy, according to Israeli definition, means that the local population will be allowed to run their own internal affairs under Israeli supervision but will have no jurisdiction over the land which shall remain the responsibility of the Israeli Government. Apart from this absurd interpretation, the Accord makes three other very important omissions, namely, it ignores all resolutions of the United Nations on Palestine since 1948;it makes no mention of the status of Jerusalem; and it puts aside the question of the future of the majority of the Palestinians who now live outside the West Bank and Gaza. For these and other reasons the Camp David Accord is regarded to have been still-born, and its resur-

56

TIIE JOIJRNAI, O :l IlSTORlCAL REVIEW f

rection is a s close to realization a s "the entry of Satan into Heaven," to quote an Arabic expression. Because of Zionist control over the mass media of information in the West few people are aware that the Camp David Accord was rejected and strongly opposed by the majority of the world community of nations. Due to its importance I will quote in some detail the provisions of U.N. Resolution No. 34/65B of 29 November 1979:
The General Assembly, recalling and reaffirming the declaration contained in paragraph 4 of its resolution 33/28A of 7 December 1978, that the validity of agreements purporting to solve the problem of Palestine requires that they be within the framework of the United Nations and its Charter and its resolutions on the basis of the full attainment and exercise of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, including the right of return and the right to national independence and sovereignty in Palestine, and with the participation of the Palestine Liberation Organization, (1)Notes with concern that the Camp David Accords have been concluded outside the framework of the United Nations and without the participation of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the representative of the Palestinian people; (2) Rejects those provisions of the Accords which ignore, infringe upon, violate, or deny the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, including the right of return, the right of self-determination, and the right to national independence and sovereignty in Palestine, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, and which envisage and condone continued Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel since 1967; (3) Strongly condemns all partial agreements and separate treaties which constitute a flagrant violation of the rights of the Palestinian people, the principles of the Charter, and the resolutions adopted in the various international forums on the Palestinian issue; (4) Declares that the Camp David Accords and other agreements have no validity in so far as they purport to determine the future of the Palestinian people and of the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel since 1967.

In a subsequent resolution No. 35/169D dated 15 December 1980, the General Assembly reaffirmed its rejection, expressed strong opposition to the Camp David Accords, and declared
that no State has the right to undertake any actions, measures, or negotiations that could affect the future of the Palestinian people, its inalienable rights, and the occupied Palestinian territories without the participation of the Palestine Liberation Organization on an equal footing, in accordance with the relevant U.N. resolutions, and rejects all such actions, measures and negotiations.

Who Are the Palestinians?

57

The Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the indiscriminate bombings and shellings, the cold-blooded murder, maiming, burning, and burying under the rubble of innocent men, women, and children, the wanton devastation of Beirut, and the murder and torture of young men in the hurriedly established concentration camps in southern Lebanon under the pretext that these young men were either PLO guerrillas or sympathizers, and claiming that all this is being done in defense of border security and peace in the Middle East, have left the conscience of the world stunned by the magnitude and cruelty of the Israeli action. But what is more pathetic and distressing is the fact that whereas the U.S. Government would apply sanctions against the Soviet Union and urges other Western nations to follow suit because of the political situation in Poland, it opposes sanctions against Israel for its invasion and genocide in Lebanon, and has gone so far as to veto resolutions of the U.N. Security Council calling upon the Israelis to stop the aggression and withdraw from Lebanese territory. All this leads to the conclusion that the Israeli invasion was arranged if not with the connivance at least with the full knowledge o President Reagan and Alexander Haig. It is American f planes which are flying over Lebanon; it is American bombs of every description including those prohibited by international agreements which are being dropped on Beirut; it is American tanks, guns and ammunition which are being used against the Lebanese capital; and it is American money which is paying for the entire operation. To claim that the U.S. Government can do nothing to stop the holocaust, is an insult to the intelligence of man. The mere removal of the PLO from Beirut will not solve the issue. On the contrary it has complicated the matter further. While the Israelis may now feel free to dig in themselves in southern Lebanon up to the Litani River, annex the West Bank and Gaza, and thereby realize part of their dream of "Greater Israel," the Palestinians are not likely to give up and resign their fate to remaining refugees in other peoples' lands. It is too early to comment on what is likely to happen. It is now more urgent than ever that Menachem Begin and his gang of criminals should be out-maneuvered by the world community of nations by following up the withdrawal of the PLO from Lebanon with immediate and determined steps for a political settlement of the entire Palestine Problem on a just and equitable basis. It is my personal considered opinion that the U.S. Government, which holds the purse strings of the Israeli state and provides it with the needed weapons to carry out its aggression against the Arabs, is the only power in the world that can bring about an

amicable and just settlement between Arab and Jew. After what has happened in Lebanon, it is no longer advisable to delay or procrastinate. Immediate steps must be taken first to stop the bloodshed and destruction in Lebanon to be followed by complete withdrawal of the Israeli forces, and then to follow up by taking the following measures: (1) Recognition of the PLO as the sole representative o the f Palestinian people wherever they may be; (2) Arrange for the immediate withdrawal of Israel from the West Bank and Gaza and the dismantling of the Jewish settlements established since 1967; (3) Hand over authority in the West Bank and Gaza to the United Nations with the objective of assisting the Palestinians to gradually take over and administer their own affairs; (4) The United Nations to arrange for the transfer of those Palestinians who are willing and are now living in refugee camps in Lebanon and are in receipt of UNRWA rations to new locations in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and to assist them to get established on a permanent basis; (5) Arrange for a conference between the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people and the Israeli authorities, attended by representatives o the Arab governments concerned f and the United States to settle the position of the Palestinians who originated from the territory now known a s Israel either by repatriation or compensation; (6) An international tribunal should then be established to assess Palestinian losses and damages since 1948, using as a guide the settlement concluded between West Germany and the Jews whereby the latter have been accorded reparations in the total sum of 85.3 billion German Marks of which, ironically, the state of Israel received by March 1966 3.5 billion German Marks (equivalent to $862 million at the then rate of exchange) as its share in the settlement. Once these steps are taken and completed and the Israelis are made to recognize and hopefully discard the racist expansionist character of Zionism which has done the Jews more harm than good in their relations with the Arabs during the last thirty-four years, there is no reason why the peace of pre-Balfour Declaration days between Arab and Jew should not return once again to the Holy Land.

Footnotes
1. U.N. Resolution 3379 (XXX) of 10 November 1975. 2. From Principles and Definitions and Judaism and Zionism, by the Neturei Karta, P.O. Box 2143, Brooklyn, N.Y., 11202.

Who Are the Palestinians?

3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.

Koestler, Arthur, Promise and Fulfilment, p. 139. Hirst, David, The Daily Star, Beirut, 13 October 1972. Christian Science Monitor, 8 March 1973. Golda Meir, 8 March 1969. Golda Meir, 15 June 1969. Davar, January 1969. Hadawi, Sami, Bitter Harvest, Caravan Books, New York, 1979, p. 43. A Survey of Palestine 1945-1946, Vol. I, p. 144. Hadawi, Sami, Palestine: Loss of a Heritage, The Naylor Co., San Antonio, 1963, p. 131. Said, Edward, The Question of Palestine, Times Books, New York, 1980, p. 11. Herzl, Theodor, Complete Diaries, The Herzl Press, New York, 1960, p. 88. Ziff, William, The Rape of Palestine, Longans, Greens & Co., New York, 1938, p. 171. Foreign Relations of the United States: Near East 6. Africa, Washington D.C., 1960, pp. 776-777. Lilienthal, Alfred, The Zionist Connection, Dodd, Mead & Co., New York, 1978, p. 149. U.N. Resolution 194 (111) of 11 December 1948. U.N. Publicauon 1978, pp. 6-7. U.N. Resolution 273 (111) of 11 May 1949.
'

NOW I NITSSIXTHU.S. PRINTING I TCONTINUES TO INFLUENCE HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE AROUND THE WORLD Each time we order a new printing of Arthur Butz's book we think of it as a celebration. The book survives as the definitive statement on what did and did not happen to the Jews of Europe during the time they are alleged to have been nearly wiped out. ~ uThe Hoaxofthe Twentieth Century doesn't merely survive-itprospers, Now in its sixth t American printing, it has developed into a force that has broken through the barriers of cultural lag and historical blackout and is now finally on its way toward the recognition of excellence it deserves. When the book was first released here in 1977, revisionists were quick to make it a success, but its basic distribution appeared limited mainly to that market. Today, however, individual and wholesale orders are received from all over the world, and from sources we never could have anticipated. Demand for the book seems to be increasing at a much faster rate. This sixth big printing is not just a new printing, but anewedition incorporating as two addenda in 53 pages the complete texts of Professor Butz's lectures delivered at the 1979 and 1982 IHR Revisionist Conferences. These will bring the reader right up to date on the continuing controversy over Professor Butz's thesis and where it is expected to lead in future years. More works within this genre have appeared and will appear courtesy of the IHR in future months, but it was Arthur Butz's The Hoaxofthe Twentieth Century that brought a new and far deeper understanding of the "Holocaust" to literally hundreds of thousands who might have otherwise been kept deliberately in the dark. It is a mighty book, written by a man who simply discerned a gaping historical void and took i t upon himself to fill it. Join with us in celebrating this brand-new, permanent-quality paperback edition by ordering a copy for yourself, or as a gift for a friend, associate or library. I t is a classic book-one which will live on for generations to come, we plan, as a testament to the quest for truth in history. THE HOAX OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY New paperback edition with addenda. . .. . . . .$8.00 Hardcover edition without addenda.. . . . . . . . .$12.00 INSTITUTE FOR HISTORICAL REVIEW POST OFFICE BOX 1306 TORRANCE, CALIFORNIA 90505 U.S.A.

How Many Jews Were Eliminated by the Nazis?

A PRELIMINARY SURVEY OF THE QUESTION
FRANK H. HANKINS

This study is part of the history of World War Two revisionism. It was written by Prof. Frank H. Hankins in 1958 at the suggestion of Prof. Harry Elmer Barnes, Hankins's friend and colleague from Smith College days in the 1920s. Barnes-spurred to investigating the "Six Million" thesis as part of his revisionist program by his own long-held doubts and particularly by James J. Martin's seminal letter to him of 13 July 1955-could have found no better qualified scholar than Hankins to work on this project. Besides being a renowned sociologist and historian (at one time president of the American Sociological Society and editor of the American Sociological Review), Hankins was an expert demographer with a world-wide reputation. He was a fellow and president (1945) of the American Population Association, a member of the American committee of the International Population Union, the National Committee for Planned Parenthood, the editorial board of Birth Control Review, and the Association for Research in Human Heredity. He was the author of Adolphe Quetelet as Statistician, The Racial Basis of Civilization (a liberal book of 1928 attacking the Nordic supremacist sentiments then in vogue), An Introduction to the Study of Society, and a contributor to many other books, including Biology in Human Affairs, Contemporary Social Theory, and History and Prospects of the Social Sciences. Hankins thus brought to the study of Jewish population movements in the mid-twentieth century an expertise sorely needed in a field noted-then and now-for the inherent malleability of its basedata, the extreme ease with which that data might be obtained or interpreted in entirely different ways by different persons, professional or amateur, who would wish to have any advance-conclusion "confirmed." No twentieth century subject within the study of population movements has seen more varied conclusions arrived at, nor more varied ways of arriving at those conclusions, than the subject of what happened to the Jews of Europe during World War Two. Hankins's effort was an attempt to review and explore this situation, approaching it objectively as a demographer, minus the standard starting-assumption that, six million (or more) Jews having perished, therefore any analysis of the problem must fit the data to this assumption rather than the other way around. It was a testament to the times in which he

62

THE JOlIRNAI, OF t1ISTORICAI. REVIEW

wrote that Hankins could not, because of this approach, affix in all wisdom his name to his study, and that it h a s remained unpublished-circulating only in photocopied manuscript form among a limited number of interested students-until now. It is an early study, based on documentation available at the time. The mighty increase in source material and published analyses since then has not alleviated the basic problems inherent in any such study, problems which Prof. Hankins explicates at the outset. The whole essay may indeed be viewed as no more-nor less-than "a statement of a problem." It is certainly not intended to be a "final wordM-viz. its subtitle. The author was concerned with, first, showing how conjectural in 1958 was any approach to the problem of determining how many Jews were "missing" by the end of the war and, second, demonstrating the factors that would have to be considered in finding the answer to another problem, namely, that of determining how many Jewswhatever their number "missing "-actually died, and of these how many died as a result of deliberate Nazi extermination (as opposed to a host of other causes). Hankins was the first demographer to raise seriously these issues in a way which tended to cast doubt on the commonly-cited demographic bases of the "Six Million (exterminated)" thesis. Though his private correspondence with Barnes of the period shows that Hankins was extremely skeptical of the entire "Six Million" story-the story of a deliberate extermination program, of "gas chambers" in "death camps," and so forth-he deliberately refrained from couching his essay in terms of a general debate on that whole question. Rather h e restricted himself purely to a study of the possible numbers involved, a critique of previous explanations and methods of arriving at conclusions. Hence the particular question-form in which the title of the essay is given. Note should be taken of one item Hankins brings up which is, in fact, outdated. At one point in the essay he states that "Those who have led in the charge that the Nazis did exterminate 4-7 million Jews do not allege that the large-scale extermination plan was formulated until after the Casablanca Conference of January, 1943, which launched the Unconditional Surrender formula for ending the War. . . . But even those who support the extermination charges do not contend that the machinery for such extermination was well established before the late autumn of 1943." Hankins was referring to standard sources which in 1958 alleged just this. Since then, of course, the recognized mainstream "line" of the "Holocaust" school as it has developed is that an extermination plan was decided on in 1941-42 (cf. Goering's directive to Heydrich of 31 July 1941 and the Wannsee Conference of 2 0 January 1942), with the first "actions" as part of this plan occur-

Holocaust Demographics

ring later in 1942. But Hankins's citation of the earlier line was merely an aside, reflecting the established notion of the time, and does not affect his general conclusions. The appearance after so many years of "How Many Jews Were Eliminated by the Nazis?" is especially noteworthy in view of the planned publication by the IHR in June 1983 of The Dissolution of Eastern European Jewry by Walter N. Sanning, with an Introduction by Dr. Arthur R. Butz. Sanning's book is the result of years of intensive study utilizing the latest in technological research methods. It was actually written, its figures compiled and cross-checked, on a computer. It will be, in a word, the definitive study of the demographics of the Jewish population of Europe during World War Two, rendering all other studies of the particular question "Whatever happened to the 'Six Million'?" obsolete or superfluous. Its conclusions will not comfort the "Holocaust" Establishment. It is fitting that the publication of what promises to be the "final word" for years to come on this subject from the revisionist point of view should be immediately preceded by the publication at last of Frank Hankins's first foreshadowing of that word. -Keith Stimely
Introductory Considerations

The usual estimates, generally based on Jewish figures or charges, range from about 4 million to 6 or even a possible 7 million. Every estimate is, however, little more than an informed guess. The extensive variations in estimates show that all include a wide margin of probable error. The more one studies the matter, the clearer it becomes that the larger the estimate the greater the probable error. In most of these there is the tacit but gratuitous assumption that any decrease in the numbers of Jews in a given area after 1939, some allowance being made for the shiftings of territories from one jurisdiction to another, gives an approximation to the number of Jews deliberately eliminated. Such decreases, however, actually included large numbers who escaped by various routes and devices. Large numbers were lost behind the Iron Curtain; thousands died from the same conditions that caused the abnormal increase in the wartime mortality of the civialian populations of all central Europe. There would seem to be no reasonable way to give the Jews special exemption from the general hardships of wartime, especially in occupied areas. Indeed, they were probably worse for the Jews. The correct estimate of those who perished because of Nazi persecution should only include: (1) those who were slaughtered by shootings, gas chambers and other violence, and (2) those who died of hardships

THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW

during the numerous forced deportations, or in the concentration camps because of excessive labor, starvation or disease, which they would probably have escaped had they remained in the usual civilian status. Some Mfficulties in Getting Reliable Figures The most obvious and troublesome difficulty is the scarcity of census materials. In some areas, the last prewar census was made in 1930,1931,or 1933,For areas of special Jewish concentration there were: for Poland, a census, 9 December 1931 and an "official estimate," 1 January 1939;for Russia, a census in 1926, and January 1939,but neither included a question as to religion; for Rumania, a census of December 1930 and an "official estimate" of December 1938;also a "census" in April 1941;and for 1 Hungary, a census of 3 December 1930 and an "official estimate" of December 1938.To these may be added the immediate postwar census of Poland of February 1946 which, like most of the other population countings of the immediate postwar years, was largely only a sampling and an estimate computation. This was made inevitable by the vast movements of population still going on to the end of 1946,and even later. The result is that one finds very considerable differences among the estimates of the numbers of Jews in various areas in the critical year 1939.It should be recalled that, from 1939 on, there was an unprecedented upheaval of populations, both Jewish and Gentile, throughout central Europe, first ahead of the German armies as they swept eastward after September 1939,and especially after 22 June 1941,and then behind the Russian forces as they swept westward, beginning in 1943. As the Germans went east, large numbers followed, especially from Germany: as the Russians went west, large numbers sought to return to former homesteads. In these moving hordes of all nationalities, including Jews, large numbers died from the hardships of war; other millions of several nationalities, including Jews, were deported; still other millions throughout the area were killed in civilian bombings, or died in the armed forces. During this whole period, the records of births and deaths were incomplete and otherwise defective. It should be obvious that this situation makes all estimates of the numbers, both of total populations and especially of the numbers of Jews, at the best only informed guesses. It opens the way for tendentious calculations. A perusal of the literature shows that the large unknowns led to much carelessness in the use of figures. The same author, in a number of cases, gives different figures for the same item on different pages, as though a variation by some thousands could not add anything to the errors

Holocaust Demographics

already involved. Every calculation has to have what the U.S. Bureau of the Census workers call a "residual" item, or a figure to strike a reasonable balance between the very probable numbers with which you start. For example, in 1939, the probable changes due to "normal" births and deaths, the probable number dying from various abnormal causes, and the probable number still surviving. This residual figure opens the way for all sorts of manipulations. Thus, the Bureau of the Census (The Population of Poland, pp29 &31) says, after noting that it is impossible to strike a true balance for the Polish changes, 19341945: "(Even after July, 1945) millions of displaced persons milled about. Across these currents of voluntary migration moved other millions permanently expelled from their homes etc." and (p31) "War losses could have been anywhere from 2 million to 7 million persons. Either of the extreme figures seems unlikely, but the exact war losses cannot be determined precisely." (For same quote, see p187.) These a r e some of the problems which face even the most honest and competent persons who seek to obtain reliable figures about the number of the Jews in Europe in 1939, the number who perished in some way during the war, how they perished, how many that remain unaccounted for really perished, and how many may now be living behind the Iron Curtain, in Israel, in the United States, and elsewhere. It is obvious that all these uncertainties which confront honest and objective students of the s u b ject also provide almost unlimited opportunities for those who wish to juggle the figures, whether they seek to minimize or exaggerate the number of Jews who perished during the war.

..

Some Avenues of Escape for the Jews

Several studies make passing reference to the numerous Jews who escaped the Nazi round-ups by: (a) being secreted by nonJewish friends; (b) using false identification papers; and (c) b a p tism into a Christian religious community. Those under (a) were probably not very numerous because the Nazi penalty was death for the entire family of the "good Samaritan." Some find the numbers under (b) and (c) running into the thousands or tens of thousands. In census taking the individual classifies himself as of a certain nationality. This somewhat ambiguous term covers such alternatives as race, country of birth, country of residence, and country of citizenship. Jews could thus classify themselves as of Jewish or of some other nationality, according to their background, physical traits or language proficiency. Those born in Poland, but

TlrE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW

speaking German fluently and living in Germany, could classify themselves as Jewish, Polish or German, the latter on occasion requiring a new set of identification papers. A Jew born in Germany, living in Poland, and speaking Polish, had similar choices. This old method of escaping the harsher aspects of anti-Semitism seems to have been widely practiced by Jews under the pressure of the Nazis and the intense hostility in Poland and elsewhere, especially after 1933. Some illustrations: The U.S. Census Bureau report on Poland, with reference to an additional 900,000 Poles unaccounted for in their calculations, says (p78) that "these may have been nonPoles reclassed as Poles and thus lost to their previous category." There is no way of knowing how many of these were Jews, but they certainly had the strongest motivation to use this avenue o f escape, and it is difficult to conceive of any other racial or nationality group that would thus shift their classification on a large scale. This same authority in its study of Czechoslovakia notes (p26 & Ftnt. p14) that the last prewar census of 1930 reported 354,000 Jews by religion but only 110,000 by nationality. Jacoby (pp308 & 310) gives comparable figures but with a larger difference. In this case, the small number classed as Jews by nationality was due to the large number classing themselves as German by nationality. Jews in the Soviet Satellites states (pp239240) that "thousands of Jews in Poland went through the occupation masquerading as Poles"; at the war's end some 20,000 Jews were estimated still to possess forged identification papers. The number of Jews reported a s Jews by religion is rather uniformly greater than the number so reported by nationality. This is partly due to the Jewish custom of reporting as Jews all members of the Jewish community, regardless of their religious orthodoxy. It is partly due to the associated fact that Hebraism is not a universal type of religion but is closely identified with the Jews as a racial or genetically related group. However, special wartime conditions made conversion to some branch of Christianity a logical avenue of escape from surrounding hostilities. For example: The Hungarian Statistical Review for 1944 estimated that the number of Christians of Jewish origin in Greater Hungary was about 100,000. (See Jews in the Soviet Satellites, pp1845.) Kulischer notes (p199) that the number of Jews in Austria declined from 222,000 in 1923 to 180,000in 1938, and adds that this was due in part to change of religion. These avenues of escape may account for a considerable part of the reduction in the number of Jews reported as still in Europe. Official Jewish statistics, which are almost the only ones now available for postwar calculations, are likely to reflect the numbers living in organized communities or congregations. Many o f these, as stable groups, were disorganized by various causes,

Holocaust Demographics

67

and the members scattered more or less widely. If they have adopted a protective coloring (classification), they may not r e a p pear until another day. Other statistics are based on the numbers of "professing" Jews, and these would at any time be only a part of the total number. It does not seem likely that we shall have clear guides to the number of "escapees" for a long time to come. These are samples of what was a general practice which must have been widely utilized from 1933 onward. The hunted cannot be blamed for seeking out all avenues of escape. Some thousands of Jews were killed in the fighting forces of the various nations, notably Poland and Russia. Just how many is conjectural. Jews in the Soviet Satellites (p242) says that thousands of young Jewish males were drafted into the Russian army and labor battalions. Also (p229), some 250,000 to 300,000 Jews were sent by the Russians to forced labor camps and settlements in northern and Asiatic Russia in the early 1940's. And again (p226),68,000 Jewish officers and enlisted men were in the Polish army. Lestschinsky (p9) estimates that 200,000 Jewish soldiers in the Red armies fell during the war. Also "About half a million Jews died in the Asiatic provinces where twice that number were deported after evacuation from previous Polish and Rumanian regions a s well a s from the Soviet Ukraine and Soviet White Russia." It is to be noted that some of the computations class all missing Jews as "killed or "murdered (notably Frumkin), making no allowance for those who died either in the fighting forces, or in air raids, or as a result of the increased hardships and special mortality of wartime. Many Jews were either evacuated, as by the Russians, to safer areas, or migrated to refugee territory such as Switzerland, England, Turkey, Palestine, the United States and elsewhere. The numbers are uncertain, but that they were very large is evident from the scant data available. Hitler's Ten-Year War on the Jews (p300) says: "Some 1,800,000have been evacuated into the interior of the Soviet Union." This figure for the period immediately following the outbreak o the war with Russia becomes f only 1,200,000 five pages later in the summary table but no explanation for the change is given. Jews in the Soviet Satellites (p182) found in 1945 no less than 21,000 refugees, mostly from Germany, in the ghetto of Japanese Shanghai. It also notes (p183) that Spain and Portugal harbor about 8,000 refugees; (p183) 163,423 Jews entered the U.S., 1933-42; (pp183 & 190) there are 27,000 refugees in Switzerland, mostly from France and Italy; (pp190-1) 6,000 Jewish refugees are in Sweden, mainly Danish; 150,000 Rumanian Jews were living in Transnistria, behind the Dniester. The numbers migrating to Great Britain 193845 are placed at 300,000 with a similar number migrating to Palestine between 1933 and 1947. It should not be overlooked that even

68

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those who migrated from 1933 to 1939 might appear among the "losses," since most calculations necessarily begin with censuses dating from the early 1930s. Kulischer's Europe on the Move (p192) notes that migration from Germany, Austria and Bohemia-Moravia amounted to 370,000 from 1933 to 1939-40. Of these, 200,000 went overseas and 50,000 to Switzerland, Great Britain and Scandinavia, 85,000 to France and the Low Countries, 10,000 elsewhere in western and southern Europe and only 25,000 eastward. Among them, about 250,000 were thus removed from Nazi reach. Elsewhere, the same author (p260) adds that, with the German advance eastward, the Russian "officials and a large proportion of the Jews were evacuated" (alongwith factories and factory workers). He estimates the total thus evacuated at 12,000,000 including more than 1,500,000transferred or deported from former eastern Poland, the Baltic countries, northern Bukovina and Bessarabia. Since these were thus moved "to save them from German atrocities," it would not seem unreasonable to consider at least 2 million of them to have been Jews. Kulischer, however, considers f the number to have been only about 1.2 millions. O the millions of Jews uprooted by the war, he finds (p264) that only "about 1.5 million escaped Nazi rule, some 300,000 by emigration overseas and to the neutral countries, and the remainder through evacuation to interior USSR." The figure here is crucial to any estimate of what happened to the 3.1 million Jews estimated for prewar Poland and the probable even larger number that lived in the Soviet Union. As the quote above from the Census Bureau study of Poland indicates, the "probable error" of estimates relating to the Polish population is colossal. An additional million Jews behind the Iron Curtain alters the picture for all Europe. We can add to the above "Avenues of Escape" three areas of difficulty and probable sources of error in the estimates.
Excess Mortality and Decreased Fertility

While the total population o Europe outside Russia remained f almost the same in 1945 that it had been in 1939, the total excess of births over deaths almost exactly balancing the losses due to war, this was almost entirely due to the rise in fertility among the countries of western Europe. The opposite situation obtained in central Europe, the scene of the main war depredations. Here, there was an "excess mortality" above what would have occurred in peace times. There was no way for the Jews here to escape the usual hazards of war, such as deaths from air raids and other military attacks on the towns and cities. Nor could they escape the reduction in vitality and, hence, of resistance to usual diseases, due to the increased hardships which affected all other

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elements in the civilian populations. Their infant mortality also went up along with that of their fellow citizens. Now, curious as it may seem, this "excess mortality" item is usually given separate computation for Jews and non-Jews. For the Jews it is quite unfairly added to the numbers "killed" or "murdered." Thus, Frumkin's summary table (p173) for "Total Europe" outside the 1939 Soviet Union (that is, including the Poles and Jews of the Ceded Polish Territory but excluding N. Bukovina, Bessarabia and part of Carpathia) gives the following figures: War Losses 15,117,000 i) Military 5,824,000 ii) Civilian excluding Jews-4,922,000 iii) Jews killed 4,371,000 It should be obvious that, among the Jews "killed" are listed all those who suffered from the increased mortality which they shared on an enlarged scale with other civilians. Since this figure gives the total reduction in the Jewish population of this area, it obviously includes also those Jews who should be listed under all the above items a s well a s the one that follows. The Jewish population, because it was so largely concentrated in the heart of the eastern war zone would, along with the rest of the population there, have suffered its proportionate diminution of numbers even if they had been treated exactly like all others. The "excess mortality" cannot be charged to Nazi "murders." Frumkin thus, quite dishonestly, lists all Jews lost or unaccounted for during the war as "killed," implying that they were deliberately exterminated by the Nazis, which is nonsense. More may have perished in other ways than lost their lives in all Nazi camps. And in the camps more may have died from exposure, disease, lack of medical care, and starvation than from deliberate extermination. The importance of this item can be shown from Frumkin's figures for Poland. He starts with a total population, including only the Poles and Jews in the Ceded Territory, of 28,400,000 of whom 3,500,000 are Jews. He estimates the civilians other than Jews who died from "excess mortality" at 2,500,000; and Jews "killed" at 3,400,000.If one subtracts the original number of Jews from the original total, he gets 24,900,000 among whom there were 2,500,000 deaths from the extra hazards of wartimes. That equals 10 percent of the original population. The same proportion for the Jews would have been 350,000. These, to be sure, died, but they were not "killed" in Frumkin's meaning. In much the same category, mention should be made of the reduced fertility (i.e. births) of the Jewish population as a result of the forced migrations, under-nourishment, and other hardships and deprivations they experienced. This item is of second-

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ary import; but one cannot list among the "killed" those who were never born. This reduced fertility naturally lessened the numbers surviving after 6 years of harassment, but all reductions in the numbers of Jews become "killed" in some of the calculations. Numbers that might have been were not there at the end of the upheaval; they were "missing" and "lost." But all of them were not "killed" by the Nazis or anybody else.
Numerous and Extensive Population Shifts during the War

A supreme difficulty with all estimates arises from the repeated shiftings of populations and territories. A major illustration is the division of Poland in 1939. The main question here is not the number of Jews in the Polish territory ceded to Russia in 1939,although even here differences need not be neglected, but what happened to the Jews in the Ceded Territory. Some estimate that they were all caught in the Nazi net by the eastward advance of the German forces after 22 June 1941. Others estimate that from 1.2 to 1.8 million of Polish and other central European Jews migrated, were evacuated by the Russians, or were forcefully deported by them to areas behind the Russian lines. Moreover, the number of German, Polish and Czech Jews who had moved east ahead of the Germans on their first advance in September, 1939,is unknown, but guesses are made. An equally striking case is supplied by Rumania.* Parts of this country, estimated to have 900,000 Jews in 1939, were shifted back and forth between Russia and Rumania: other sections went to Hungary and back; still others to Bulgaria and back; the Germans controlled different parts for different periods. With every shift of political control there were varying shifts of populations, including Jews. At the same time, the Jews in self-defense were migrating in different directions and escaping their Jewishness by every device known. It is little wonder that the Rumanian figures, whatever they are, should be suspect. The Rumanian census of 1930,the last before the war, found a Jewish population of 756,930. This is the figure used by Sylvain (Jews in the Soviet Satellites, Table 1, p493) as the prewar popu*After finishing the manuscript I find in my notes that Frumkin (p170) puts the "Jews killed" for the postwar area at 160,000, The "killed" for him, as already noted, includes all missing or lacking by his estimates. He admits that this figure "is substantially adjusted" (see his p12 footnote), that is, "represents a rough estimate with a wide margin of error." Elsewhere (p131) he estimates those "killed" in Bessarabia, Bukovina and S. Dobrudja at 230,000, also subject to "adjustment." For a good sample of the necessity of really juggling with figures in order to arrive at any estimate for such areas as Rumania see this author's study, op. cit., pp129-134.

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lation, instead of the number 900,000 which is found in most other references as the 1939 number. (In this table, incidentally, he gives the figure for Bukovina as 93,101, this becomes 102,900 but three pages later.) It is now necessary to keep track of the shifts of land and people. Bessarabia, previously part of Rumania, went to Russia in 1940,back to Rumania, 1941-44, and to Russia again in 1944.Much the same changes apply to Bukovina. Transylvania was divided, the southern portion going to Bulgaria in 1940 and returning after the war. Sylvain gives the combined areas of Bessarabia, all Bukovina and all of Transylvania a Jewish population of 381,562for the prewar era in Table I, but (pp516-7) this figure becomes 457,000,excluding S. Bukovina, from whom there were only 100,000survivors. There are other glaring question marks which one must put alongside his text. In Table VII, giving the Jewish population o f Rumania for the present area (excluding S. Dobrudja, N. Bukovina and Bessarabia), he computed 478,042in 1930; 466,128 in 1941-the year of a census; and 300,000in 1944.By 1947 their number in this "Rump Rumania" had risen to 428,000. then He allows 28,000as the probable number of returnees from German and Hungarian camps, N. Bukovina, Bessarabia and Transnistria. Then comes this remarkable statement: "Thus around 100,000 persons out of this population.. . represent in fact what remained of the 457,000 Jews of Bessarabia, Bukovina and Transylvania." (Italics in original.) Since the territories mentioned were excluded from Table VII, I cannot understand how he can conclude from it the numbers of Jews missing therefrom. Perhaps I do not understand his manipulations of the data. In any case, it is interesting to note that the numbers given in Table VII for the present territory were much the same in 1930, 1941,1942 and 1947.The difference between the first and last is about 50,000. This figure makes no allowance for the natural increase of numbers, but on the other hand neither does it make any allowance for the excess mortality of civilians, the thousands who are said to have fled to Turkey, the 150,000noted above as having taken refuge behind the Dniester. As for the 381,562Jews reported in the prewar census in Table I (not the 457,000derived by some mysterious process) they were under German-Rumanian control from 1941 to 1944,when they once more slipped behind the Iron Curtain. What happened to them is as much an enigma as what happened elsewhere along the borders of the War Zone. The above examples a r e designed to show how the lack of reliable census materials makes it necessary for the computer to continually conjecture the numbers here and there, now and then. If he is inclined to over-estimate the missing in repeated guesses, he may end up with a compounding of exaggerations.

TIiE JOIJRNAL OI: IHISTORICAL REVIEW

I see I have overlooked some other sources of possible error. First: the computers make different allowances for the number of deportees who died in the process of deportation, never less than 25010, usually 50% and in some cases as high as 80% or more. Since there were no actual counts in such cases, these estimates must be charged with a large probable error. Secondly: the vast upheaval, with its migrations, deportations and evacuations, made some duplication in the count of those "lost" or "killed" quite easy. The evacuees behind the Iron Curtain, e.g., are considered among the latter, unless they returned, at least in large part. Those sent to the camps of Poland by the Germans could easily be counted a s among the "losses" of the countries from which deported and charged again among those killed in Poland. That this is done in some instances seems indicated by the fact that out of the estimated original Polish Jewish population of 3.1 million in 1939, somewhat more than that are usually estimated to have been killed there.
Examples of Varying Estimates

1. HOW MANY JEWS WERE THERE IN EUROPE IN 1939? Since this is the basic figure from whieh any over-all estimate must start, variations in it are of primary significance. The following represent the estimates of the American Jewish Committee as given in the World Almanacs in various years: Year of Publication 1939 1941 1945 1949 1949 Year of Statistics 1933 1939 1939? 1939 1947 Numbers 9,494,363 8,939,608 9,372,666 9,739,200 3,920,100 Numbers given under World Religions 9,494,363 not given 8,939,608 not given not given

One is bound to wonder at the reduction of nearly 555,000 between 1933 and 1939. Even more striking is the increase for the year 1939 in comparing the World Almanac issues of 1941 and 1949. This amounts to almost 800,000 (8,939,608in the 1941 issue, and 9,739,200 in the 1949 issue). It is easy to see that this makes the loss much greater than if the numbers given in 1941 for the year 1939 were used as the basis of computation. We may note a similar elevation of the base in the same organization's estimates of Jews in the World: Year of Publication 1939 Year of Statistics 1933 Numbers 15,319,459

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73

Here is an increase in the figure for 1939 of almost 955,000 as given in the 1949 issue. How account for such a huge elevation of the world total? Were more Jews discovered? Was a more c a r e ful count made? Or was it seen by that time that a larger base from which to compute the war losses would serve a useful purpose?
2.

HOW MANY JEWS WERE ELIMINATED IN EUROPE BY THE WAR? This is the leading question and one now impossible to answer with any assurance. However, it is pertinent to take a look at the variations in the estimates of various investigators. A. SOME FIGURES FOR POLAND 1. Bureau of the Census, (p2)-"War losses in postwar boundaries amounted to approximately 4 million persons, of whom 2 million were Jews executed by the Nazis." (See p3 above for quotation from pp31 & 187.) 2. Frumkin, (pll9)-for approximately the same territory, 2.3 million. 3. Gottschalk & Duker, (pl1)-Poland, the Baltic States, Soviet White Russia and the Ukraine, "the greatest areas of Jewish concentration in Europe, became a vast death-chamber for about 5 million Jews." 4. Frumkin, (pll9)-for Poland's Ceded (to Russia) Territory, with a prewar Jewish population of 1.2 million, the number of "killed" is estimated at 1.1 million. For all prewar Poland he thus computes a loss of 3.4 million. 5. Frumkin, (pl82)-having estimated (p173) the Jews killed outside the Russian areas at 4,371,000, comments that, if the Ceded Territory is added "the total number of Jews murdered by the Germans amounted to some 5 million." (Note that this would give only about 700,000 for the Ceded Territory, although the figure quoted just above is 1.1 million.) B. EUROPE AS A WHOLE 6. Frumkin, (pl82)-following the above quote, goes on to say: "if the USSR territory occupied by the Germans during the war were likewise taken into account, the figure might easily be f between 6 and 7 million." (This o course excludes the USSR territory behind the Russian lines.) As a comment on the reliability of Frumkin's methods and figures, the competent and objective Belgian statistician Maurice-Pierre Herremans estimated that only 25,000 of the prewar Jewish population of Belgium were

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"missing" from all causes at the end of the war, while Frurnkin states that 27,000 of them were "killed," mostly by the Nazis. 7. Kulischer, (p279)-puts the number of Jews "exterminated" at 5.5 million.* 8. Institute of Jewish Affairs, (World Almanac, 1952, p240) -estimates that 71O/o of Jews in Europe at the start of the war were lost, of whom 5.7 million were killed and 200,000 lost in battle. (This would give the 1939 Jewish population of Europe as 8,450,000.) There are many other estimates made by Jews or based on Jewish figures, but most of these are either copied from statements of the Institute of Jewish Affairs or the World Jewish Congress or, like Fay's statement in Current History of 6 million, round numbers loosely used without any investigation of the facts and reflecting the prevailing mood of the day. To quote them adds nothing to the picture. 9. As a commentary on the above estimates, most of them by Jewish writers, and nearly all based on Jewish figures, one may well point out that Gerald Reitlinger, in his SS: Alibi of a Nation (1956), a large and heavily documented work, estimated that the number of Jews actually deliberately exterminated by the Nazis in their death camps, euthansia camps, gas chambers, and the like, was far less than 500,000. Reitlinger writes as a strong critic of the Nazis, so he is not seeking to defend or exonerate them.

General Conclusions
The foregoing pages should have made it clear that the answer to our title question is, for the time being, unanswerable in terms that satisfy any scientific standards. There are so many loopholes amid so few relatively sound figures that the calculator can set his own figure in advance and arrive there by estimates and guesses, all of which can be given a certain plausibility. Even the best studies, therefore, are little more than crazy quilts of conjectures made somewhat more substantial than a tissue of lies by scattered bits of fact. Frumkin, former statistician for the United Nations, has made the most ambitious effort to estimate the numbers of Jews missing ("killed" in his findings). He starts with a 1930-33 census, estimates the number attained in 1939 through an excess of births over deaths, and thus gets a base figure for the prewar year. He then estimates the changes due to "normal" births and deaths to

*". . nearly 3 million were nationals or residents of European countries and territories lying now outside the Soviet Union." (See No. 5 above)

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1945, the changes resulting from changes in territory, the war losses and the gains and losses for given areas due to population shifts, and thus gets an "adjusted" population for each area for 1945. He frequently notes that his figures are "elevated" or "represent an upper limit" but has the scientific honesty at least to indicate that most of them are "slightly" or "substantially" adjusted. He thus lends himself to the charge of piling Ossa on Pelion by adding one high estimate to one and then another and another. His conclusions are severely criticized by the Bureau of the Census study of the Polish figures, mainly on the grounds that (1) they make no allowance in the case of the Jews for the excess mortality of all civilian populations in the war areas, and (2) no account is taken of the highly problematical number of Jews who left Poland and elsewhere in central and western Europe, and are still behind the Iron Curtain. To show how one may manipulate the figures, taking only those that someone considers quite authentic or reasonably so, look at the following:* 1. Jews in Europe, including USSR & Turkey, 1939. .8,940,000 2. Jews in the remainder of Asia. ,771,000 Total in Europe & Asia, 1939. .9,711,000 3. Jews in Europe, including USSR & Turkey, 1946. .3,920,000 5,791,000 4. Jews in the remainder of Asia, 1946. .917,000 4,874,000 5. Migrants to areas outside Europe & Asia.. .300,000 4,574,000 6. Number dying in military forces, Poland & USSR. ,274,000 4,300,000 7. Probable underestimate of USSR areas. .l,0(20,000 3,300,000 8, Possible underestimate for remainder of Asia. .300,000 Total loss to Jews in Europe & Asia. .........3,000,000 9. Excess wartime mortality, like others. .300,000 10. Killed by excess wartime persecution. . . . . . . . . . . .2,700,000

. .................. ............. .
.............

.......

..

........

.... ...........

The first four of the above figures are taken from estimates of the American Jewish Committee. The probable underestimate for the USSR & Turkey derives from the statement of the Bureau of
*Caution: Do not take the above table too seriously as it is intended merely to show the possibilities of manipulating data, every item of which seems within reason. Omitting items 7 & 8 gives a total killed of about 4 million.

the Census study of Poland (p189) that possibly as many as 2 million more Polish refugees were there than Frumkin allows for. Since the racial Poles would be far more likely to return to their own country than the Jews-Poles by residence-anti-Semitism being very strong in Poland after the war-it is quite likely that most of the underestimate would be composed of Jews. Here is another possibility: Kulischer, a s noted above (Europe on the Move, p279) puts the total Jews exterminated at 5.5 million, of whom "nearly 3 million" lived in Europe outside the present USSR territories. His total allows 2.5 million for the Soviet Union and is thus highly conjectural. Schwartz, whose study is the only extensive one of the USSR, computes the Jewish "losses" there as follows:
Region White Russia Ukraine RSFSR Prewar 375,000 1,533,000 250,000 to 275,000 Total loss Loss 300,000 900,000*

100,000 1,300,000

*Exclusive of 133,000 who died in the Russian armies, a figure which Lestschinsky puts at 200,000.

Since this "loss" includes deaths from all causes and this was the area of greatest population upheaval and civilian hardship, it is reasonable to allow 300,000 for all items of "excess mortality" from causes suffered by all residents. That would leave a net loss due to Nazi persecution of 1 million. If we add this to Kulischer's "nearly 3 million" we get a total for all Europe and all the Soviet Union of nearly 4 million or 1.5 million less than Kulischer's total.* The writer cannot claim in these pages to have done more than scratch the surface of the question. It is for the statistician a most frustrating problem, because of the numerous pitfalls. My aim has not been to seek a more decisive estimate than those made by others, who may have spent many months and consulted thousands of original documents. Rather it has been to show the transparently conjectural nature of the current estimates and to point out some of the probable sources of error, which are mainly
*Caution: This estimate may be too large or too s a l because the estimates of ml Schwartz for losses in Soviet territory are conjectural, and a much larger margin of error attaches to Kulischer's. However, the 4 million estimate is likely to be far closer to the actual figure than the 5, 6 or 7 million of some studies. And, of course, 4 million may be grotesquely in excess of the actuality, since most of the figures which have to be used are those of Jewish students of the problem or are based on figures given out by Jews and Jewish organizations.

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lack of adequate and u p t ~ d a t e population statistics, the manufacture of statistics where they are actually lacking, the manipulation and juggling of such statistics (both reliable and manufactured) as are used, to exaggerate the number of Jews in Europe and the world in 1939 and decrease the number known in 1945, and the general absence of students or studies that have no political, racial or religious axe to grind and are really seeking facts to promote truth and serve scientific purposes. Many interesting aspects have been neglected. For example, Reitlinger in several passages notes the conflicts between Himmler, who was commissioned to find a "final solution" to the Jewish problem, and Goering who wanted Jewish workers for his munitions factories. On one occasion, Hitler himself intervened for a like reason, and Himmler then bragged of the large numbers preserved for such purposes. There are numerous cases authentically reported of Jews who were led to believe that they were headed for extermination camps but actually turned up at factories or in labor camps. Another aspect to be considered is the large increase in numbers of Jews in Israel. That increase was about 400,000from 1933 to 15 May 1948,when independent statehood was achieved. From then to February 1954 the population rose from 650,000to 1,675,000. This and other items suggest that, during the immediate postwar years, a million or more Jews may have been among the displaced persons scattered all over the Eurasian map. As time passes, more of these come to statistical counting. At least, the vast increase in Israel has not been accompanied by concurrent diminutions in the settled populations elsewhere. The Jews can keep close account of their numbers where there are settled communities but even they could not keep a close count during the recent Diaspora following 1939 and 1945. Another point to be considered is that, even if it could be proved that vast numbers of Jews died in the Nazi concentration, euthanasia, and death camps, it would not follow that all, or possibly even a majority of these, were deliberately exterminated by the Nazis. There was a huge death rate in all of these camps due to disease. In one camp, at least, there was a serious typhus epidemic. Lack of drugs and medical treatment, coupled with general low vitality and lowered physical resistance to disease, made the death rate abnormally high. Many died from exposure, and others from hard labor. Starvation was common, especially toward the end of the w a r , when supplies r a n low even for soldiers and civilians. It is useful to reflect that it is generally estimated that at least five million expellees from East Prussia, Poland, Czechoslovakia and eastern Germany perished mainly after the war was over, and it is generally conceded that relatively few of these were deliberately murdered. They died in

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large part from the horrible exposure and starvation during the process of expulsion. The Jews who moved back and forth during the war, either voluntarily or by forceful evacuation, before and following the movement of the armies, were subjected to just as harsh conditions as the expellees, in some cases to even worse situations. Until it is disproved by better Jewish and other studies than are currently available, one may express some confidence in Reitlinger's estimate that the number of Jews deliberately exterminated by the Nazis was considerably less than 500,000. The soundest basis for scepticism regarding any such figure as 6 or even 4 million Jews exterminated by Hitler and the Nazis is that contributed by logistics rather than statistics. As you have seen, the latter are inadequate, manufactured, garbled, and consciously manipulated to establish a thesis and figure assumed in advance. Logistics is a well-established science, knows no political, racial or religious bias, and in this case relies upon a vast body of materials accumulated during the Second World War. Evidence in this field is as copious and precise for the years between 1939 and 1945 as it is sparse and fugitive for population changes and shifts during the same period. Students of logistics who have given some attention to the charge that the Nazis, however evil-minded and however much they wished to do so, actually exterminated 4 to 7 million Jews in less than two years during a desperate two-front war which turned against Hitler at the very moment he is alleged to have set up his extermination program, contend that it would have been utterly impossible for them to have achieved anything like such a result. It would have required so much more effort and manpower and would have brought such confusion and added strain to the already overtaxed transportation facilities that the Nazis could not have waged even a reduced one-front conflict. Those who have led in the charge that the Nazis did exterminate 4-7million Jews do not allege that the large-scale extermination plan was formulated until after the Casablanca Conference of January, 1943,which launched the Unconditional Surrender formula for ending the war. Hitler realized the implied threat to him, blamed the Jews for the decision, and may have decided on more drastic treatment of them at this time. But even those who support the extermination charges do not contend that the machinery for such extermination was well established before the late autumn of 1943. By 1944,Allied bombing in the West and Russian victories in the East rendered the German situation much more desperate and placed ever greater strains on German war material, plant, manpower, and transportation. Hitler could not have diverted enough effort to the extermination of the Jews between November

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1943, and May 1945, to have disposed of 6 million Jews without producing a virtual collapse of his whole war effort. Some students of logistics contend that such a breakdown would have resulted from the actual extermination of 3 million or considerably less. Further, as the tide turned against the Nazis, the Jews became ever more essential to the German war effort, and it would have placed a strain on even Hitler's folly to have wasted their urgently needed services in behalf of extermination based on hatred. Other considerations to be taken into account are such things as the paucity of authentic evidence as to the nature and extent of the Nazi extermination facilities and operations. A number of the sources are obvious forgeries. The testimony of many of the Germans at Nuremberg and other trials was extracted after the most cruel and atrocious tortures. Some of these "witnesses," knowing that they were going to be hanged in any event, boasted of what they very possibly never did at all but at the moment wished they had done, or they boasted to inflate their own egos. The total of such boasts amounts to far more than all the Jews in the world in 1939. One such German "witness" boasted that the Nazis had exterminated 40 million Jews! The charges about vast Nazi extermination operations came very late, most of them after the war. The first statement of the claim that the Nazis exterminated 6 million Jews was made in the New Jewish Frontier in January, 1945. The most competent Jewish account of Hitler's treatment of the Jews does not even mention the wholesale extermination program. Another leading Jewish historian of the subject even contends that Hitler deliberately forbade any extensive extermination of Jews in the latter part of the war, when it appeared that he was likely to lose the war, lest any such actions bring ruthless retaliation on the German people, The 6 million theme was picked up by President Truman early in his first administration, without anything but hearsay on his part, and has been so frequently repeated during the last decade that it is used almost automatically by journalists who have never made the slightest study of the subject. It has now become commonplace in journalistic lore. It is quite possible that more thorough studies of population statistics, more evidence from actual witnesses, historical study of the origins and dissemination of the extermination charges, checking of the charges with what is actually known, and demonstration of deliberate fakery and falsehood, in other words, such techniques as Lord Ponsonby and J.M. Read applied to the atrocity myths of the First World War, may reduce the allegation of massive Nazi extermination of Jews to the same level of morbid

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imagination and irresponsible, if deliberate, mendacity that the alleged Belgian atrocities were reduced to in the years following 1918. Surely, the authenticity of the Nazi extermination program has never been vouched for by any person of the prestige and reputation for integrity enjoyed by James Bryce in 1915. Of course, no realistic and informed student of the Second World War doubts the actuality of incredibly inhumane atrocities during the conflict, atrocities on both sides carred out against Jews and Gentiles alike, especially in the guerrilla and partisan warfare behind the lines of battle. As one competent authority has well described the situation, the fictitious atrocities of the First World War became the actual atrocities of the Second.

Partial List of References Used

Gregory Frumkin, Population Changes in Europe Since 1939, London, 1951, 191pp. Gerald Reitlinger, The SS: Alibi of a Nation, London, 1956, 502pp. Eugene Kulischer, Europe on the Move: War and Population Changes, 1917-1947, N.Y., 1947, 377pp. Displaced Persons Analytical Bibliography, Report of a Special Committee of the Judiciary, House of Representatives, Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office, 1950, 82pp. (Special section on the Jews.) AngleAmerican Committee of Inquiry, Report to the U.S. Government and His Majesty's Government, Department of State, Washington, D.C., 1946. (2 vo1s.-Europe and the Near East.) Max Gottschalk & A b r a h a m Duker, Jews in t h e Post-War World, Dryden Press, N.Y., 1945. *Maurice-Pierre Herremans, Personnes Deplacees (Repatries, Disparus, Refugies), Brussels, 1948. Eugene Kulischer, Jewish Migrations: Past Experiences and Post-War Prospects, American Jewish Committee, N.Y., 1943. Meyer, Weinryb, Duschunsky & Sylvain, The Jews in the Soviet Satellites, American Jewish Committee, Syracuse University Press, 1953. Institute of Jewish Affairs, Hitler's Ten Year War on the Jews. N.Y., 1943, 311pp. Gerhard Jacoby, Racial State: The German Nationalities Policy in the Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia, Institute of Jewish Affairs, N.Y., 1944. U.S. Bureau of the Census: A series published by the Government Printing Office, The Population of Poland, 1954,198pp; The Population of Czechoslovakia, 1953, 72pp. *This work is somewhat revealing, in that the careful calculations of the Belgian statistician find only 25,000 of the prewar Jewish population of Belgium "missing" while Frumkin finds 27,000 of them "killed."

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Encyclopedia Britannica Year Books of the American Jewish Committee World Almanacs Statistical Bulletin, Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, January 1946. Commentary Current History-Two articles by Sydney B. Fay on Europe's expellees, etc., Volumes 11 & 12, 1946-7. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Series noted above: Population of the Federal Republic of Germany 6. West Berlin, 1952, 95pp; Israel: Jewish Population and Immigration, 1952, 58pp. Solomon M. Schwarz, The Jews in the Soviet Union, Syracuse University Press, 1951, 380pp. Jacob Lestschinsky, "Soviet Jews and Soviet Jewry," New Leader, 8 March 1947, p9.

THE VERY FIRST ISSUE OF THE FIRST PERIODICAL TO OPENLY AND CONSISTENTLY CHALLENGE THE "HOLOCAUST" ESTABLISHMENT: VOLUME ONE, NUMBER ONE /SPRING 1980

The Journal of Historical Review

With the opening of the First International Revisionist Conference in the Fall of 1979, the Institute for Historical Review made an unparalleled leap forward in the systematic debunking of the most sweeping distortion of truth of this or perhaps any other century. The papers from that conference formed the very first issue of Thehurnalof Historical Review, launching a new era of historical inquiry that would, for the first time, bring together the best of revisionist scholarship into a single, highly readable forum that would shake the tenuous foundations right out from underneath the myth-makers of our age. Now, for those who missed that first, landmark issue of ThehurnalofHistorical Review, we've arranged an additional printing and are making a special offer for as long as supplies last: a copy of that first issue for only $2.00. Here's what that issue contains: Arthur R. Butz THE INTERNATIONAL "HOLOCAUST" CONTROVERSY Robert Faurisson THE MECHANICS OF GASSING Austin J. App THE "HOLOCAUST" PUT IN PERSPECTIVE Louis FitzGibbon HIDDEN ASPECTS OF THE KATYN MASSACRE Udo Walendy THE FAKE PHOTOGRAPH PROBLEM Ditlieb Felderer AUSCHWITZ NOTEBOOK and more . . . Order your copy today from Post Office Box 1306 Torrance, California 90505

REVIEW ARTICLE

A Memoir of Globaloney, Orwellianism and Dead Sea Fruit

JAMESJ. MARTIN

PERPETUAL WAR FOR PERPETUAL PEACE: A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF THE FOREIGN POLICY OF FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT AND ITS AFTERMATH. Edited by Harry Elmer Barnes, with the collaboration of William Henry Chamberlin, Percy L. Greaves, Jr., George A. Lundberg, George Morgenstern, , William L. N e u m a ~ Frederic R. Sanborn, and Charles Callan Tansill. Second, expanded edition, Torrance, California: Institute for Historical Review, 1982. Xvi+ 723 pp., $11.00 paperbound, ISBN 0-939484-01-3

I first saw Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace in the form of long galley sheets draped over the back of a chair in the study of Harry Elmer Barnes's spread, "Stonewood," overlooking Lake Otsego, a few miles above Cooperstown, N.Y.A few months later in the fall of 1953 it was published by Caxton Printers of Caldwell, Idaho. To say that it caused delight among revisionists and consternation and outrage among Establishmentarians is a most subdued relation. When Professor Bernard C. Cohen of Princeton University started his review of Perpetual War in the American Political Science Review with the sentence, "This is an unpleasant book to read," he uttered about the most neutral words regarding the book that one might have read in the estimates made by the official defenders of the Roosevelt faith in those turbulent days 30 years ago. The majority of reviews were notable for their incensed and abusive tone, making the long-observed mistake of confusing generalized snarling with criticism. That it has taken thirty years for it to reappear, in this new Institute for Historical Review edition, is a commentary on a number of things taking place in our land. One thing can be said of its current form: it at last is in the shape it was intended to be initially by its editor Barnes, with the addition of an originally suppressed chapter by him, about which more later. However, the wide distribution of the original edition, its many reviews and its inclusion in so many bibliographies over the last generation call not for a conventional review but for an assessment of the history of the three decades which have elapsed since the origi-

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nal edition, while calling attention to its contents for the benefit of a generation just now making its first acquaintance with this basic foundation work of revisionism a s it developed, historically, in this country. Like subsequent verses of well known songs, not many even of those well acquainted with this book recall or remember its subtitle: A Critical Examination of the Foreign Policy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and its Aftermath. That is the subject of the book, undertaken by its editor, Barnes, who wrote three of its chapters, assisted by Charles Callan Tansill, who wrote two, and six others participating in the symposium, who produced the remaining six. I often regret that political and other circumstances prevailing prevented it from being a two-volume set. Though its inspiration and supplier of its main title, Charles A. Beard, had died five years earlier, there were about the land sufficient members of the revisionist fold to have made a companion volume equally significant; the additional contributions of, say, John T. Flynn, C. Hartley Grattan, George Hartmann, Clyde R. Miller, William B. Hesseltine (I wonder what ever happened to Bill's work on Cordell Hull?), Fred A. Shannon (a chapter by him on the imbecilities of the wartime economy would have been a hilarious interlude in this somber tale), Francis Neilson and Harry Paxton Howard, would have induced utter disintegration among the brigade of critics who found the one book simply unbearable. But it was not to be, even if some of this latter contingent did get in their say in other works. In looking back on this book across the 30 years between editions, it is necessary to pay attention to the kind of world existing when it was put together. The various authors worked on the essays in Perpetual War mostly between 1951 and early 1953,a time of immense agony in the U.S.A. It was the time of the doleful Korean war, the shooting stage of which ended a bare three months prior to publication. It was a time when the high hysteria and megalomania of World War Two "victory" finally rubbed off, and the boasting and posturing of 1945-50finally was eclipsed by the reality of another war undertaken under circumstances quite removed from those which eventuated after December 7, 1941.It was not a case of jumping into someone else's war with the guidelines all drawn and the odds already determined. It was not the nice comfortable adventure in comradeship with an overwhelming coalition of world power and people and with resources so stacked in their favor that the wonder was that any war at all lasted more than a year. (Americans rarely undertook any campaign in the Pacific, for example, without manpower superiority of 3-1 or 4 1 , against an antagonist with hardly any raw material resources and virtually no sources of energy.)

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The Korean conflict was something else, begun from scratch in June, 1950 under the auspices of the United Nations, the then five-year-oldmutual insurance company put together in imitation of the defunct League of Nations created in 1919-21, but with important new designated functions which seemed to commit it in perpetuity to sending its armed bands a la the scalping parties of 1941-45to put down political sin wherever it might surface in the world. It was this looming function emerging out of the organizing sessions of 1945-48which had induced Beard to remark about the UNO's goal apparently being the guaranteeing of perpetual peace by fighting perpetual wars to achieve it, an absurd jwtaposition that appealed to Barnes's sense of humor as well as seeming to be quite an accurate analysis of the situation, leading to its adoption as the title of the symposium. The Korean war was no joke, an anyone who saw combat in this ugly, dreary, repelling struggle can tell you. But it was a complicated conflict, probably the earliest Orwellian skirmish, fought on several levels, but with little visibility for most of them. It undoubtedly had far more tangible results on the home front, quite as Orwellian wars are fought to achieve, but not all of these were expectable or desirable. A backlash caused by Americans finding out that they were almost the only ones involved in the "United Nations" war against the massed Communists of the eastern extremities of Asia where China, Korea, Manchuria and Siberia came together, accelerated an antiGomrnunist ferretingout program which grievously disturbed the in-place totalitarian liberal Establishment responsible for getting the country involved in it. The war in Asia, appearing more doleful by the month in that it appeared to promise an everlasting slogging across the immense reaches of East Asia in pursuit of an objective lost right at the start, provoked massive unhappiness with the state of politics on every level. The domestic search for Communists in places high and low alike was intimately related to this absence of military success the stacked scene of World War Two had encouraged all to expect all the time. Another consequence of this rattled state of the public mind was the encouragement of study about how these sorry situations had come to pass, and one of the beneficiaries of this psychic condition was revisionism. Overwhelmed in the first few years of national euphoria after "victory" in 1945, when few wanted to hear anything but "positive" things about the latest Great Crusade, revisionism made a sharp gain in these days of national dolors in the early '509, and one of its emanations was this book, a s Americans began to taste the Dead Sea fruit of "victory," and some of the consequences of emerging as the monitor of planetary political behavior, and did not like the flavor one bit.

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So it was in the decade of the '50s that the majority of the most influential revisionist books were to appear, powered by these same pressures and owing much of the reason for their birth and modest success to a climate of opinion more ready to listen to the obscured and suppressed reasons for this doleful state of affairs in the body politic, international and domestic. That the struggling and troubled New Order o things was immensely unsure of f itself in this decade also contributed to the growth of an audience for the revisionist critics. To be sure, the country had not got over its addiction to the fierce drug of world-saving. The "fix" of 1917-18 had gone into remission during the subsequent two decades, only to return with even stronger symptoms after 1937 and heightened in 1939. But the participation in the lethal posse from 1941-45 had really strengthened the dependence on the hallucinatory impact of the newest essaying-forth, ridding the planet of new ideological sin under Mr. Roosevelt at a cost, among other items, of several hundred thousand American lives and a quintupling of the national debt. The prospect that this might be exceeded and go on forever starting with the era o Mr. Truman had a depressing f impact on this zeal for world political purity, though the spectacle of what a war can do to erase unemployment and blot up the nation's energies was not entirely lost among even those who deplored other consequences. The half-hearted pursuit of "victory" in Korea, the first of the Orwellian wars, contrasted s h a r p ly with the all-out "total victory" effort of 1942-45. Its agonized serpentine crawl across the early 1950s had a domestic counterpart which gravely upset the lot running it however, and the campaign against all varieties of Communists and their transmission belts on the home front, viewed with such horror from the perspective of 30 years later, was thought quite proper and harmonious, when it happened, by a percentage of the community which truly frightened totalitarian liberalism. A measure of this fright was indicated in a booklet being worked on at the same time Perpetual War was nearing production, published by Barnes under the title The Chickens of the Interventionist Liberals Have Come Home to Roost: The Bitter Fruits of Globaloney. In a letter accompanying a pre-publication copy of what we were to refer to for years as "The Chickens," Barnes acknowledged my assistance by declaring, "I would dearly love to share the title page of this with you, but it would do you far more harm than good," a reference to his belief that I had a future in the academic world. I believe it is a good barometer for measuring the ideological climate of the land a generation ago, as well as assessing the state of impact of the early revisionism. When the restrained and cautious Establishment historian Dr. Louis Morton admitted in the U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings

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two years later that World War Two revisionism was an authentic force to conjure with, perhaps the apogee had been reached in the U.S.A. By that time a potent list of volumes was on the record, including those by Beard, Morgenstern, F.R. Sanborn, Chamberlin, Tansill and Francis Neilson, formidably buttressed by a succession of works by Britons, especially Russell Grenfell's Unconditional Hatred, the best-seller among revisionist books of the '50s; F.J.P. Veale's Advance to Barbarism; Montgomery Belgion's Victors' Justice; Victor Gollancz's two remarkable books on the nightmare the Western "victors" had made out of Germany in the first 4 years of "peace"; Freda Utley's The High Cost of Vengeance, and the two remarkable books cutting Churchill down to size by Neilson and Emrys Hughes. (Over the years this early sobered assessment of Churchill the great war leader has gone into obscurity while those who warmed up to the confrontation with Stalin and his successors tended to ignore what had happened to Britain and chose to refurbish and re-sell Churchill, simply replacing Germany with the Soviet Union in rephrasing his famous declamatory hokum in the bombastic period of 193843, the latter year being the one when Sir Winston first began to indicate he had some political sense. In 1976 Solzhenitsyn remarked that as of that date Britain was about as important or influential in the world as Romania or Uganda. Another Churchill and Britain will have the political importance of Easter Island.) The mention of Churchill recalls other worldwide political facts of life at the time of the publication of Perpetual War. The throaty blather of "war aims" during the recently concluded planetary war had become much muted by now, and a plaintive whining tempered the continuous oufflow of "gee, what a great job we did" wartime histories and memoirs from the lands of the "victors." Other than doubling the area of the world under Comrnunism there was not much to point toward in the area of achievements except the kangaroo court convictions and killing of limited numbers of enemy leaders, which in fact set a very ominous precedent for the future in that it guaranteed future wars, if fought to the same kind of conclusion as that of 1941-45, might well be fought with unprecedented ferocity and savagery, whatever it might take to avoid defeat and subsequent hanging or shooting as "war criminals." (Now, contrary to 1939, when no legal code in the world included a category specifically designated as "war crimes," there were all kinds of them, especially as stipulated in the long, tedious compilations of new "law" in the four Geneva Conventions signed on 1 2 August 1949, so many parts of which have been violated or ignored so many times in the 130 wars fought since 1949 that collected together as a single statement the infractions of these four Conventions might exceed in wordage the original Conventions themselves.)

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In the area of irretrievably lost war goals of the "victors" however was a most palpable physical one, the immense colonial empires of the British, French, Dutch and others; even the United States targeted the Philippine Islands for "independence." And China had come under the dominance of Maoist Communism less than a year before the Korean conflict, thus completing the bankruptcy of about all the "Western Allies" had told their populaces the war was being fought for. India was already adrift even before the Communist investment of China, and the prize Dutch and French real estate of Indonesia and IndeChina were departing or about to. One might argue that in the case of the Philippines, the U.S.A. was about to experience getting out from under an impossible burden, though it had not begun that way. Pearl Buck had remarked in a prewar issue of Asia magazine that in the early years of the century after America acquired the Philippines, part of the aspirations expressed by some hinged around a standing envy of Singapore, conditioned by the belief that a rival and competitor could be built in the Philippines. But what had been put together in some 40 years was another British West Indies instead, than which there was no worse slum. In the case of the European powers the losses sustained in East Asia were catastrophic, and they were shortly to be expelled from Western Asia and most of Africa as well. The ear-splitting bellowing about the "One World" during the conflict ending in 1945 had declined to a whisper by the early '50% and no one helped anyone as the colonial plantations of Asia and Africa went into local or "native" receivership. Few were so indecent as to suggest that the scuttle was a direct consequence of the total debility, exhaustion and indigence which their great "victory" had demanded. But the French did put up a fight for Algeria and for Indo-China (Vietnam), a pair of excruciating affairs during which they howled as though their fingernails were being pulled out, but to no avail. These were two more of the Dead Sea fruit harvested from "victory." It had been grand good fun financing and arming an immense civilian guerrilla war against the Germans, 1941-45, all in contravention of the very first article of the Hague Convention of 29 July 1899, and the Annex to this Convention, also signed at The Hague on 18 October 1907. Now, when the "victors" began to experience the very same thing in Asia and Africa, it did not seem anywhere near as pleasant. Even the U.S.A. were to get their share, first against the Hukbalahap Communists in the Philip pines, and then for an extended period of time in their ill-fated years in Vietnam, when for a time it looked as though the administrations of three successive Presidents were determined to succeed in the recolonization of Southeast Asia where the French

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had failed so miserably. (It now appears that thanks to enlightened new "international law," future wars will increasingly be fought around and through civilian populations, the massive removal of such populations now being construed a "war crime.") It is quite possible, it is true, to put a constructive emphasis on the American replacement of France in the fighting in Southeast Asia. Given U.S. military success and a lot of Japanese economic help, South Vietnam might easily have become another South Korea, a prodigious volcanic industrial beehive, contributing to the pouring of more billions of dollars' worth of manufactured goods upon Europe and America, to increase further American unemployment, resentment and social disorder. Of such things does "victory" often consist. A further case in point, while dealing with possible consequences of unanticipated results which come about from myopic "statesmanship" and gravely aggravated atrophy in the capability to look ahead, is the remarkable series of articles in the London Daily Mail in the last week of November 1982. A near high in hysteria is reached therein as the paper's Far East reporter, after several weeks in Japan and the other "four dragons" of South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore, witnessing what this Asian production is doing to Britain, the onetime "workshop of the world," suggests that if anyone in the United Kingdom looks forward to having a job of any kind by the year 2000, then they had better busy themselves in "finding another planet" at their earliest convenience. When the reporter contemplated what would happen in the field of cost and price cutting and competition should mainland China ever chuck their preposterous Communism and join the free enterprise system of the "free world," he could only summon a profound shudder. The republication of a 30-year-old book does not call for reviews. They are already part of the record and can be consulted. The purpose of republication, mainly to make the book available to those not born or too young to profit from its information and analyses at the time of original issue, calls for some effort on the part of these new readers in recapitulating the events between the two editions. In this way some rough measure of assessing the validity of the original authors' approach, mustering of facts and conclusions can be made, an effort the readers in 1953 and the years immediately following did not have to make, since they had lived and were still living through the actual times themselves. This brings up the aspect of the book related to the British novelist George Orwell and his influence on the thinking of Barnes, especially. The latter's chapter analyzing the early 1950s in terms of Orwell's nightmare vision of world politics laid out in his novel 1984 deserves special attention, since it was omitted from the 1953 edition and made available to readers old and young alike

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just recently. This however presents a problem ruminated upon by the hero of Orwell's tale, Winston Smith, reproduced as an epi-paragraph gracing the first page of Barnes's Chapter 10. With the passage of sufficient time and given systematic suppression or distortion of the past, it often becomes impossible to estimate the present because there is no reliable standard or picture of previous times against which to measure it. And the problem is not one just facing any given generation in such a place as the Soviet Union or any other Communist land, where constant tailoring of the past to conform to current policy is commonplace and procedurally expectable. What Orwell calls the "Memory Hole" is present everywhere; how diligently and comprehensively it is used to dispose of the inconvenient past is what separates one state from another, and there are none which are not involved in practical applications of it. Today efforts are made to blot out memory of things that happened just a few months or even weeks ago, let alone decades or generations past. Those in charge of the present are always in a position of asserting that things never were better, and given the assistance of sufficient camp-followers specializing in the past, can always come up with a version of what took place to provide the necessary comforting support. It is the republication of books such as Perpetual War which does so much to discommode and annoy the beneficiaries of the New Order. It is for this reason that the essays of William Henry Chamberlin and George Lundberg should also be paid special attention. Neglected 30 years ago, the passage of three decades gives these sober treatments a significance they could not have had in 1953, since we were still too close to it all. Eventually, the new Establishment steadied and began to assert itself in the euphoric years of the Eisenhower presidency, particularly 1954-60, laying the groundwork for the perfection of an essentially one-party State in regard to foreign policy in the last two decades. The concomitant derailing of revisionism is an integral aspect of this enlarging monolith, despite the recurrence of new crises and in recent years the growth of signs that the whole enterprise is in trouble, globally. But by and large the essential phoniness of the conflict we tend to call the Cold War, generically, can be buttressed with sufficient evidence to make the Orwellian analysis still essentially sound. And one must remember that the central idea in his book was the use of foreign policy to control domestic populations, thus requiring that world conflict be confined to sporadic and very localized encounters, easily terminated if necessary, employed as much as possible to entrench further the entrenched, while simulating endless confrontation. The utter failure to support anti-Soviet uprisings in '"ast" Germany (read: Central Germany, the East having disap

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peared behind the western frontier of Poland, after Stalin cut himself in on the eastern 45% of 1939 Poland at Potsdam),Czechoslovakia and Hungary in the 1950s puzzled many in view of the stentorian generalized anti-Communism of regimes both Democratic and Republican in this country. There may have been some connection between this action and the famous wire from Mr. Eisenhower's Secretary of State to Marshal Tito, the "independent" Red dictator of Yugoslavia in November, 1956 which announced that the U.S. did not favor the establishment of antiSoviet regimes on the borders of the Soviet Union. But we can not get into the strange relationship between the "West" and the "East" these last 38 years at this point without grievously overrunning the space originally allocated to a commentary on a book and its times. Perpetual War is a work which few settle down to reading at a simple sitting. Its diversity appeals rather to absorption of single chapters and reflection on the implications of their relationships as one goes along. Barnes's opening gun on the total situation, laying the foundation for the persisting confrontation between the Revisionists and the Establishment, will often be as much as some can deal with in one dose; it is a masterpiece, the result of much re-writing and concentration via several editions of his privately-publishedbrochure, The Struggle Against the Historical Blackout, an early edition of which came my way in the summer of 1948, initiating our first correspondence. The separate diplomatic history chapters by the late Professors Tansill and Neumann and the Oxford-trained international law scholar and subsequent Judge, F.R. Sanborn, have aroused no refutation, but much sputtering and choking on the part of angered paladins of Rooseveltian innocence in foreign affairs, annoyed at this attention to his steady movement toward war while uttering little but the formalized political patter of "peace." The chapters dealing with the Pearl Harbor tragedy stand to this day as capable of little improvement despite all that has come upon the record in the 30 years since they were published. George Morgenstern's is an admirable appendix to his 1947 book Pearl Harbor, a volume which should never have been allowed to go out o print. As for the analysis of the nine investigations of Pearl f Harbor by Percy Greaves, it is still the only thing of its kind and of inestimable value and utility. If one wants to see in outline the recent book Infamy by John Toland a generation before it was published, one just has to read Greaves's essay carefully. Reference has already been made to the balance-sheet contributors by Lundberg and Chamberlin. They and the concluding chapters by Barnes may excite someone some day to carry their story forward across the thirty years separating them then from us today. The final result may be well nigh unendurable. It is a landmark

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occasion and a publishing event to see Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace back again. It is indeed most pleasurable for me to say, "Welcome back!"

James J. Martin (left) with Harry Elmer Barnes in the back yard of Barnes's hunting camp, Redfield, New York, 8 August 1954.

Book Reviews
THE TERRIBLE SECRET: SUPPRESSION OF THE TRUTH ABOUT
HITLER'S "FINAL SOLUTION," by Walter Laqueur, Little, Brown and Company, 262pp, $12.95, ISBN 0-316-51474-8 AUSCHWITZ AND THE ALLIES, by Martin Gilbert, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 368pp, $15.95, ISBN 0-03-059284-4

According to a German proverb recorded for posterity by H.L. Mencken, "It takes a great many shovelfuls to bury the truth." Walter Laqueur, "a distinguished professor of history," whose book The Terrible Secret is subtitled "Suppression of the Truth about Hitler's 'Final Solution,' " might find this proverb apt. But, ironically, the question that arises from a critical examination of Laqueur's book is whether, in regard to the burying of the truth about "Hitler's 'Final Solution.' " it is an expos6 or an example. Did Laqueur produce this book with a typewriter, or with a shovel? As I've said, Laqueur's book is subtitled "Suppression of the Truth about Hitler's 'Final Solution,' " which immediately begs the question: what is the truth about "Hitler's 'Final Solution' "? In this book, which purports to be a study of when "the information" about "the Final Solution" became "known," Laqueur r e veals himself to be a rather dogmatic exponent of the conventional wisdom about "the Final Solution," to wit, that on Hitler's orders, the Nazi regime during World War Two embarked upon a program aimed at killing all the Jews of Nazi-dominated Europe, and succeeded in killing millions (5 or 6 million the figures most often claimed) by shooting and by gassing, mainly the latter. For example, Laqueur, in line with the conventional wisdom, asserts (pll) that Hitler gave orders to Himmler and Heydrich for the extermination of all European Jews soon after he signed the Barbarossa Directive in December 1940. But how Laqueur "knows" this is his (terrible?) secret. He cites no corroborating documentation or testimony; he cites no source of any sort in support of his claim. This scholarly sin could be forgiven if Laqueur were stating a well-known and indisputable fact. But, in fact, even the exponents of the conventional wisdom cannot agree on when Hitler is s u p posed to have given his supposed extermination order. According to Helmut Krausnick (Anatomy of the SS State, Walker and Company, 1968, p60), "It cannot have been later than March 1941, when [Hitler] openly declared his intention of having the political commissars of the Red Army shot, that he issued his secret decree-which never appeared in writing though it was

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mentioned verbally on several occasions-that the Jews should be eliminated." But according to Raul Hilberg (The Destruction of the European Jews, Harper Colophon, 1979, p177):

. . we are dealing with two of Hitler's decisions. One order was given in the spring of 1941,during the planning of the invasion of the USSR; it provided that small units of the SS a n d Police be dispatched to Soviet territory, where they were to move from town to town to kill all Jewish inhabitants on the spot. This method may be called the "mobile killing operations." Shortly after the mobile operations had begun [in June 19411 in the occupied Soviet territories, Hitler handed down his second order. That decision doomed the rest of European Jewry.
Thus, Hilberg does not agree with Krausnick, and Laqueur does not agree with either of them about when Hitler is supposed to have ordered the extermination of all European Jews. In such a situation, Laqueur's unsupported, dogmatic assertions are worthless, and leave unanswered the question of whether or not Hitler ever actually gave such an order. Laqueur virtually concedes that Hitler never gave a written order for the extermination of European Jewry, but then tries to save the day for the conventional wisdom. He says (p196) that
witnesses claimed to have seen the order, but it is doubtful whether there ever was a written order. This has given rise to endless speculation and inspired a whole "revisionist" literature-quite needlessly, because Hitler, whatever his other vices, was not a bureaucrat. He was not in the habit of giving written orders on all occasions: there were no written orders for the murderous "purge" of June 1934, for the killing of gypsies, the secalled euthanasia action (T-4) and on other such occasions.

But first, how does Laqueur know that Hitler ordered the killing of gypsies? Second, regarding the Blood Purge of 1934, David Irving points out (The War Path, Viking, 1978, p39) that Hitler did give a written order to Sepp Dietrich, in the form of a list of seven names of men to be executed. That 8 2 people were killed resulted, according to Irving, from the exceeding of Hitler's orders, mainly by Himmler and Goering. And, third, Hitler's written order for the T-4 "euthanasia" program is well-known. Gitta Sereny, journalist and devotee of the conventional wisdom about "the Final Solution," quotes it as follows:
Reichsleiter Bouhler and Dr. Brandt are charged with the r e sponsibility for expanding the authority of physicians who are to be designated by name, to the end that patients who a r e considered incurable in the best available human judgment after critical evaluation of their condition can be granted mercy-killing. (Into That Darkness, McGraw-Hill, 1974,p63.)

Book Reviews

Say, Professor Laqueur, just what a r e you doing with that shovel in your hand? Digging for the truth about "Hitler's 'Final Solution' "? Or burying it? In any case, Laqueur tells his readers (p30) that " . . . on 25 October 1941, in a conversation between Hitler, Himmler and Heydrich, rumours among the population about the destruction of the Jews had already been mentioned. ('Public rumours attribute to us a plan to exterminate the Jews.')" But what he doesn't tell his readers is that it was Hitler who was speaking and that this reference to rumors about a n extermination plan was made in the following context: From the rostrum of the Reichstag I prophesied to Jewry that, in the event of war's proving inevitable, the Jew would disappear from Europe. That race of criminals has on its conscience the two million dead of the first World War, and now already hundreds of thousands more. Let nobody tell me that all the same we can't park them in the marshy parts of Russia! Who's worrying about our troops? It's not a bad idea, by the way, that public rumour attributes to us a plan to exterminate the Jews. Terror is a salutary thing. (Hitler's Secret Conversations 1941-1944, Signet, 1961, pp108-109. See also David Irving, Hitler's War, Viking, 1977, p331.) If, a s Laqueur asserts, Hitler in December 1940 gave Himmier and Heydrich orders to exterminate all European Jews, then why was he making statements implying that his policy was to "park them in the marshy parts of Russia" in a conversation with none other than Himmler and Heydrich almost a year later? Hmmmmm? That is the question that Laqueur seeks to avoid answering by quoting Hitler out of context. Considering how good he is a t burying things, perhaps Laqueur should give some thought to a career a s a grave digger. In the meantime, "distinguished professor of history" Walter Laqueur makes many "factual" assertions about what "could have been known" about "the extermination of the Jews" a t various times. Almost invariably, these assertions, like his claim regarding a Hitler order for genocide, a r e unsupported by the citation of any source. But even when he does cite a source, his interpretations can be misleading. For example, regarding what "could have been known" by 1 January 1943, Laqueur writes (p14) that, "According to a n official SS report, 2.5 million Jews had been 'deported' by the end of 1942 and were no longer alive." A footnote reveals that the SS report in question is the report of the statistician Korherr, submitted to Himmler on 2 3 M a r c h 1943. But it w a s not according to the Korherr report that those 2.5 million deported Jews were no longer alive a t the end of 1942. Rather, it is according to Laqueur that they were no longer alive then. And, by equating deportation

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with killing, Laqueur is exaggerating the number of Jews killed by the Nazis by the end of 1942. As Laqueur knows, some of those deportees were not only still alive at the end of 1942, but managed to survive to bear witness to "the truth" later on. For example, Vrba (nee Rosenberg) and Wetzler, whose escape from Auschwitz in 1944 Laqueur mentions, were among the Slovakian Jews deported during 1942 who, according to Laqueur's interpretation of the Korherr report, were all dead by the end of that year! The Terrible Secret is supposed to be a study of when "the t r u t h about "the extermination of the Jews" became "known" in various quarters. But Laqueur is determined to demonstrate, by fair means or foul, that "knowledge" of "the truth" was widespread by the end of 1942. To that end he has gathered together a motley collection of wartime rumors (some travelling through diplomatic channels), "reports" of Resistance groups, accounts of self-proclaimed eyewitnesses, newspaper articles, radio broadcasts, letters, diaries, etc., as well as way too many postwar recollections, unsupported assertions, specious inferences and unproven assumptions. Auschwitz and the Allies, by Martin Gilbert, a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, and the official Churchill biographer since 1968, covers some of the same ground as The Terrible Secret, from a similar point of view. The book purports to be "an account of the facts of the extermination as they filtered out of Nazidominated Europe, and the Allied reaction to these facts. . . . " But regarding the matter of the Allied reaction to "the facts," Gilbert is concerned not just with the question of belief or disbelief, as Laqueur, but also with what was done, or not done, to save the lives of European Jews. There are other differences in the scopes of these two volumes. Laqueur has focussed mainly on the period July 1941-December 1942, while Gilbert carries his account through to early 1945. Gilbert is only concerned with when the Allies, especially Britain and the U.S., "learned" about "Hitler's mass murder," while Laqueur also poses this question in relation to Germany and her allies, the neutral European nations, and the Jews, both inside and outside of the Nazi-ruled Europe. Finally, Gilbert gives special attention to the story of one particular "extermination camp," Auschwitz. Like Laqueur, Gilbert repeatedly makes "factual" statements about what was "really" happening to European Jews during the war. And Gilbert is not much better than Laqueur a t citing supporting sources for these statements. For example, after alleging a Nazi plan for millions of Jews "using the most efficient and modern methods," Gilbert writes (p18) that "The first step in carrying out this new plan was taken on 8 December 1941, when

Book Reviews

several hundred Jews from small Polish towns were taken to a wood outside the village of Chelrnno, and gassed in a specially designed building." It's bad enough that this unsupported assertion is contradicted by the conventional wisdom about Chelmno, according to which Jews were gassed there in specially designed motor vehicles of some sort, not in a specially designed building, but, what's worse, it's contradicted by the official Churchill biographer himself! On page 40, Gilbert quotes a "report" sent to London in May 1942 by the underground Jewish Socialist Bund of Poland. Regarding the gassing o the Jews at Chelmno, the "ref port" said: " 'A special automobile (a gas chamber) was used.' " And, comments Gilbert, ". . . the details given in the Bund Report were precise, and, a s we now know, accurate." So, why did Gilbert contradict it on page 18? Who knows? It seems that the mind of the official Churchill biographer, like God, works in mysterious ways, its wonders of scholarship to perform. It also seems that the official Churchill biographer does not know the meaning of the word "eyewitness," which my dictionary defines thusly: "One who has seen something happen and can give testimony about it." Chapter 10 of Auschwitz and the Allies, titled "Eyewitness," is concerned primarily with a group of Palestinian Jews (women, children and a few elderly men, according to Laqueur) who, in a n exchange for German internees, had reached "the Holy Land" from Europe on 16 November 1942. Writes Gilbert (p88),
All had been eye-witnesses to Nazi brutality. Each one had horrific tales to tell of deportation, brutality, or mass murder. Among the facts reported were "Harrowing details recounted by eyewitnesses of people thrown into flames, specially constructed crematorium, locked up in poison gas chambers, and other forms of torture." (Gilbert is quoting Moshe Shertok's summary of these "eyewitness" accounts.]

But later in the chapter (p92) we find out that "what the eyewitnesses did report. . . was 'all sorts of rumours' which told 'of large concrete buildings on the Russian-Polish border where people are killed by gas and burned.' " Thus, on this crucial point in these "eyewitness" reports, the "eyewitnesses" were not eyewitnesses a t all. They had not seen anything; they had merely heard some things, some rumors. Laqueur also discusses the stories of this group of Palestinian Jewish repatriates, since it was their "evidence" which s u p posedly convinced the leaders of Palestinian Jewry of the "reality" o a program to exterminate all European Jews. Laqueur, at f least, does not call these people "eyewitnesses"; he merely calls them "witnesses." But he seems to take their "evidence" just as seriously as Gilbert. He writes (p191):

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So often before, simple-minded (and even not so simpleminded] people had simply repeated rumours, often baseless in character. But the new arrivals could not be so easily dismissed: among them was a scientific researcher at the Hebrew University, two members of Kibbutz Degania B-members of the Palestinian elite-a Zionist leader of long standing from Piotrkow and other such witnesses. ("People on whose judgment and discernment one could rely," E. Dobkin was later to say.) But was there really such a big difference between these people and earlier repatriates who "simply repeated rumours, often baseless in character"? Laqueur himself tells us that "what emerged from these accounts was firstly that a German government commission had been set up earlier that summer (Sonder- or Vernichtungskommission)under a certain commissar Feu or Foy to destroy Polish Jewry. (This information was, in fact, wrong or at least inaccurate. . . .)" (p191) Apparently, these people "on whose judgement and discernment one could rely" were simply repeating a baseless rumor. Futhermore, a s I've already pointed out, on the crucial question of the fate of Jewish deportees, these "witnesses" reported "all sorts of rumors" about "large concrete buildings on the Russian-Polish border where people are killed by gas and burned." Laqueur says (p192) that these rumors "were apparently correct," presumably meaning that they appeared to be correct to those to whom they were repeated in Palestine in November of 1942. But what was there about these rumors that made them appear more correct than any of the other rumors circulating about the fate of Jewish deportees? According to Vladka Meed (On Both Sides of the Wall, Holocaust Library, p43), "One rumor" regarding the deportees from Warsaw "was that they had been dispatched to the city of Smolensk, close to the Russo-German front, to dig trenches." And, in addition to the rumors about gassing, there were rumors about mass extermination by various other methods, including rumors about killing by live burial, rumors about thousands of Jews being run over by heavy motor lorries, rumors about throwing Jews into lime kilns, rumors about mass electrocutions at Belzec and Auschwitz, rumors about killing people with air pressure at Auschwitz, and rumors about mass executions by hot steam chambers of Treblinka. (The Black Book of Polish Jewry, published in 1943, contains an "Official Report submitted to the Polish Government," which includes "the report of an eyewitness" describing in detail the steam chambers of Treblinka. See pages 141-147. This was asserted to be "irrefutable proof of the atrocious horror wielded over their victims by the Germans.") So, why, in November 1942, were the rumors about gassing "apparently correct"? Laqueur does not explain this, though he does give a possible explanation of why rumors about mass extermination (not necessarily by gassing) may have appeared correct. He says of the deportees (p192)

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that ". . . there was not news from them, no letters, no personal regards conveyed." But there were letters, and Laqueur knows that. According to Vladka Meed (op. cit., p31), "Some letters from deportees were received in the [Warsaw] ghetto which gave credence to the German assurances that those forced to leave had been given employment elsewhere." And Laqueur himself writes (p153) that,
When. the Slovak leaders, slightly perturbed, mentioned to the Germans the "fantastic rumours" about the fate of the evacuated Jews, pretending they had no idea about what was happening to them in Poland, Eichmann referred to more than one thousand letters and postcards which had been received in Slovakia from evacuted Jews within the previous two months.

..

Laqueur also mentions letters received from deportees in other countries, although he usually emphasizes that the number of letters received was small in relation to the number of deportees. In any case, letters were received from some deportees. So if the rumors about the mass extermination of the deportees "were apparently correct" because of the claim that there were no letters from them, then the rumors about mass extermination "were apparently correct" because of what Laqueur knows to be a falsehood! Ironic, isn't it, that people could have learned "the truth" about "the Final Solution" by means of such falsehoods? Immediately following his mistitled chapter "Eyewitness," Martin Gilbert discusses the case of another "eyewitness," further demonstrating his incompetence as a historian. Gilbert writes (p93):
On November 25, a t the very moment when the half-million Jews in Palestine were learning of the mass murder of their fellow Jews in Europe, yet another report had reached the Jewish leadership in London. This new report described "the liquidation" of the Warsaw ghetto, and the gassings at Belzec. It had been brought from Poland to the Polish Government-in-Exile in London by an eyewitness, Jan Karski, a non-Jew.

A naive reader would most likely conclude from this passage that Jan Karski, the non-Jew, was an eyewitness to "the gassings at Belzec." But, strangely enough, in the course of detailing the contents o "Karski's report," Gilbert says (p94),"There followed f an account of the different methods of 'mass extermination': execution by firing squads, electrocution, and 'lethal gas-chambers', and the report continued with an account of the 'electre cuting station' at Belzec camp. . . . " Here is that account:
Transports of "settlers" arrive at a siding, on the spot where the execution is to take place. The camp is policed by Ukrainians. The victims are ordered to strip naked-to have a bath, ostensiblyand are then led to a barrack with a metal plate for floor. The door

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is then locked, electric current passes through the victims and their death is almost instantaneous. The bodies are loaded on to waggons and taken to a mass grave some distance from the' camp.

The question that all this raises is this: did the "eye-witness, Jan Karski," see "the gassings at Belzec," or did he see the opera tion of the "electrocuting station" at Belzec? Or did he, perhaps, see both? Gilbert sees no need to clear up the confusion he has created and moves on to other things. But, according to Karski's account of his experience at Belzec (Chapter 30, The Story of a Secret State, Houghton Mifflin, 19441, he saw neither! Karski, a Polish diplomat before the war, and a Lieutenant of the Mounted Artillery in 1939, was a member of the Polish underground. He engaged in some "black propaganda" operations, such as the printing and posting of fake German decrees, as well as serving as a courier for the underground. According to his book, Karski had a meeting with two leaders of the Jewish underground, one a Zionist and the other a member of the Bund, who, so he says, arranged for him to visit the Warsaw ghetto and then to infiltrate "the Jewish death camp" near Belzec disguised as an Estonian camp guard. Here is Walter Laqueur's synopsis of what Karski said he saw at Belzec (p231):
There he saw "bedlamu-the ground littered with weakened bodies, hundreds of Jews packed into railway cars covered with a layer of quicklime. The cars were closed and moved outside the camp: after some time they were opened, the corpses were burned and the cars returned to the camp to fetch new cargo.

Actually, Karski did not claim to have seen where the train went or what happened to the Jews inside the railway cars after they "As left the camp. In his book, he wrote (~350): I listened to the dwindling outcries from the train, I thought of the destination toward which it was speeding. My informants had minutely described the journey." His informants were the Jewish underground leaders who had arranged his visit to Belzec, in particular "the Bund leader." According to Karski (p339), "The Bund leader had never been in it [i.e., "the Jewish death camp" near Belzec] but he had the most detailed information in [sic] its operations." Thus, Karski was told by "the Bund leader" (it was Leon Feiner) that, after leaving Belzec,
The train would travel about eighty miles and finally come to a halt in an empty, barren field. Then nothing a t all would happen. The train would stand stock still, patiently waiting while death penetrated into every corner o its interior. This would take from f two to four days. (p350)

Book Reviews

Thus, what Karski saw at the Belzec "death camp" was Jews being herded into railroad cars which then left the "death camp." Nowhere in his book did Karski mention gassings or electrocution. So why does Gilbert say (p93) that Karski's report "described. . . the gassings at Belzec" and (p94) that it included "an account of the 'electrocution station' at Belzec camp. . "? It may be of interest to know that the "account of the 'electrocuting station' at Belzec camp," which Gilbert attributes to Karski, can be found on page 131 of the 1943 publication, The Black Book of Polish Jewry (JacobApenszlak, ed.), where it is quoted as part of a 15 November 1942 "report" of Dr. Ignacy Schwarzbart, a member of the Polish National Council in London. In fact, other parts of what Gilbert calls "Karski's report" can be found in The Black Book of Polish Jewry, all attributed to sources other than Karski. Ironically, The Black Book of the Polish Jewry also contains two descriptions of the Belzec camp, both of them obviously based on Karski's account, though each of them contradicts Karski's book regarding some details, as well as contradicting each other. (See pp135-138 and 329-332.) One of these accounts of Belzec, after "reporting" the killing of Jews by their being left in railway cars "from two to eight days," then asserts that, "Because there are not enough cars to kill the Jews in this relatively inexpensive manner many of them are taken to nearby Belzec where they are murdered by poison gasses or by the application of electric currents." It would be very interesting to know who actually wrote this statement. Was it Karski, who did not see fit to mention either gassing or electrocution in his own 1944 book? Or was it somebody else, who took Karski's report and, for propaganda purposes, interpolated these references to gassing and electrocution? In any case, Karski, now a Professor in the Department of Government at Georgetown University, has not answered my inquiries about these matters. Laqueur, unlike Gilbert, gives a fairly accurate account of Karski's observations at Belzec, observations which, at the very least, raise questions about the conventional wisdom that Jews were killed by gassing at Belzec. But Laqueur tries to save the day for conventional wisdom thusly:

..

Karski says that he learned only in later years that Belzec was not a transit but a death camp and that most of the victims were killed in gas chambers. He had not actually seen the gas chambers during his visit, apparently because these were walled in and could be approached only with a special permit. (p231)

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But if Karski "learned only in later years that Belzec was not a transit but a death camp and that most of the victims were killed in gas chambers," then why did he, in his 1944 book, refer to the camp as "the Jewish death camp" while saying nary a word about gassing? As I've already pointed out, Karski's story about the Jews who were shipped out of the Belzec camp being left in railway cars until they died was based on what he was told by Jewish Bund leader Leon Feiner, who supposedly "had the most detailed information" about the operations of the Belzec camp. But if Feiner "had the most detailed information" about Belzec and if "most of the victims were killed in gas chambers," then wouldn't Feiner have known about that? And, if so, then wouldn't he have told Karski about that too? In any case, Laqueur suggests that Karski "had not actually seen the gas chambers during his visit, apparently because these were walled in and could be approached only with a special permit." "Apparently" the gas chambers were walled in, eh? Apparently, Laqueur has conjured up a n ad hoc hypothesis, based on no actual evidence, in a n attempt to reconcile Karski's story with the conventional wisdom about gas chambers at Belzec. But one could read Karski's story and conclude that "apparently" Jews were not gassed at Belzec. Martin Gilbert laments (p170) that:
As 1943 came to an end, and 1944 began, the stories of German atrocities were still not fully believed. One of those concerned by this fact was a Hungarian Jewish refugee, Arthur Koestler, then working as a journalist and lecturer in Britain. "At present," he wrote in an article which was published in the New York Times Magazine in January 1944, "we have the mania of trying to tell you about the killing, by hot steam, mass-electrocution and live burial, of the total Jewish population of Europe." Koestler's own "emotion and bitterness" arose, he wrote, because he had in his desk in front of him photographs of the killings, photographs which had been smuggled out of Poland. "People died to smuggle them out,"he commented, and added caustically, "They thought it worth while."

But if Koestler had "photographs of the killings," then, pray tell, Mr. Gilbert, were they photographs of the killings by hot steam, or of the killings by mass-electrocution, or the killings by live burial? Hmmmmm? I think it is significant that what Koestler actually wrote was this: "I have photographs before me on the desk while I am writing this, and this accounts for my emotion and bitterness." (See "On Disbelieving Atrocities," reprinted in The Yogi and the Commissar, Macmillan, 1945, p89.) Koestler did not say that he had photographs "of the killings." He did not say what he had photographs of. He just said he had photographs. Quite possibly, Koestler wanted his readers to assume, as Gilbert

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h a s assumed, that he h a d photographs "of the killings," but, if that w a s the case, wouldn't he have made that point quite explicit in order to make his appeal for belief in German atrocities that much more persuasive? In any case, on the two pages preceding his account of Koestler's article (pp168169), Gilbert discusses "the second Soviet trial of German w a r criminals, at Kharkov," by means of which, h e s a y s , " [ f l u r t h e r e v i d e n c e of t h e scale of t h e s l a u g h t e r of " W a r s a w Jewry reached the Allies a n d western Jewry.

...

During the Kharkov trial a twenty-four-year-old SS Lieutentant, Hans Ritz, was questioned about the use of gas vans in Kharkov. On first hearing the words "gas van" mentioned in Kharkov, Ritz told the prosecutor, "I remember the vehicle from my stay in Warsaw, when I witnessed the evacuation in it of the unreliable sections of the Warsaw population." While in Warsaw, Ritz added, "I got to know that p a r t of the Warsaw population was evacuated by railway and another part were loaded into the 'gas vans' and exterminated." Hans Ritz also gave evidence of the mass shooting, in sand pits and stone quarries, of tens of thousands of people in the Soviet cities of Krasnodar, Vitebsk and Taganrog. During the shooting of some three hundred people at a village near Kharkov, Ritz recalled, a woman, trying to save her child, "covered it with her body. But this did not help her, because the bullet went through her and the child." Although Gilbert seems to take all of Ritz' "confessions" quite seriously, it is interesting to note that Ritz "confessed" to a crime that none of the other postwar exponents of the conventional wisdom have ever accused the Germans of, that is, the killing of W a r s a w residents in gas vans. Ironically, a likely explanation of Ritz' "confessions" is suggested by our old friend, Arthur Koestler, in this passage from "Soviet Myth a n d Reality," in The Yogi a n d the Commissar: The method of gross over-simplifications in Soviet home-propaganda led to the tradition that the accused in a political trial must confess lustily and voluntarily his alleged crimes; and once this tradition became established there was no going back. Hence the curious phenomenon that during the Kharkov trial of German war-criminals in December, 1943, the accused German officers were made to behave like characters from Dostoevand N . c . 0 . ' ~ sky. One of them a t the trail told o his own accord how during a f mass-execution of Russians he took a tommy gun from a soldier and shot a mother with a child in her arms. For the foreign observer the Kharkov trial (which was filmed and publicly shown in London) gave the same impression of unreality a s the Moscow trials, the accused reciting their parts in stilted phrases which they had obviously learned by heart, sometimes taking the wrong

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cue from the State-Prosecutor and then coming back to the same part again. There is no doubt that the Germans committed bestialities in Russia which surpass the imagination of the Western mind; but that those perticular Germans committed those crimes was proved by no other evidence than their own confession. (p143)

That the official Churchill biographer should take the "confessions" of the Kharkov trial seriously merely demonstrates his gross credulity. No doubt he would also take seriously the "confession" referred to in the following:

. the last culprit burned at Paris for heresy suffered in 1663, when a certain Simon Morin, a native of Aumale in Normandy, was sent to the stake. Morin preached that he was Christ Incarnate, that to him all power had been given by God, and that his followers, those who possessed the true light, were incapable of sinning. These Illuminati practiced the most infamous debaucheries under the pretext of religious assemblies, and it was shown that Morin was insatiable in his lusts and corruptions. A wealthy widow, named Malherbe, who had joined the sect, confessed the usual catalogue of filth and folly. She had had sexual connexion with the Devil, had attended the Sabbat, banqueted dith demons, entertained imps and familiars. The Parliament ordered her to be branded with the fleurde-lys and banished from the city. (Montague Summers, The Geography of Witchcraft, Citadel, p430.)
The "confessions" of a Soviet show trail are about as credible as the "confessions" of a "witch" trail. That the official Churchill biographer takes such "confessions" seriously is further evidence of his incompetence as a historian. But, perhaps, he can find work with Walter Laqueur, as an assistant grave digger. Gilbert devotes much attention to the story of Auschwitz escapees Vrba and Wetzler, and their "report" on AuschwitzBirkenau. According to Gilbert (p236), "The Vrba-Wetzler Report, although based entirely on the power o two men's memf ories, was remarkably accurate in its details." But what were those details? Gilbert does not quote any substantial portion of the "report" itself, but he does quote (pp262-264) a good chunk of an 8-page summary of "the report" that reached the British Foreign Office on 4 July 1944. Here are the details concerning the crematoria of Birkenau:
At the end of February, 1943, four new crematoria were built, two large and two small, in the camp of Birkenau itself. The crematorium contains a large hall, a gas chamber and a furnace. People are assembled in the hall which holds 2,000 and gives the impression of a swimming-bath. They have to undress and are given a piece of soap and a towel as if they were going to the baths. Then they are crowded into the gas chamber which is hermetically sealed.

..

Book Reviews

Several SS men in gas-masks then pour into the gas chamber through three openings in the ceiling a preparation of the poison gas megacyklon, which is made in Hamburg. At the end of three minutes all the persons are dead. The dead bodies are then taken away in carts to the furnace to be burnt. The furnace has nine chambers, each of them with four openings. Each opening will take three bodies at once. They are completely burnt after 1 % hours. Thus each crematorium can burn 1,500 bodies daily.

The question that naturally arises (though, naturally, not in the mind of the official Churchill biographer) is: how did Vrba and Wetzler "know" all this? According to a deposition made by Vrba for submission at the Eichrnann trail, Vrba's souce of information was Filip Miiller, "who worked in the Gas Chamber Department." (See I Cannot Forgive, Rudolph Vrba and Alan Bestic, Bantam, 1964, p270.) In his own book, Eyewitness Auschwitz (Stein and Day, 1979), Filip M U e r expounds (expands?) upon his role as informant to Vrba and Wetzler (pp121-122). However, Miiller's "descriptions" of the Birkenau grematoria do not jibe very well with those Gilbert quotes from the summary of the Vrba-Wetzler "report." For one thing, the Vrba-Wetzler summary says the four new crematoria a t Birkenau were built at the end of February 1943, while Miiller (p51) says thet were ready "[bly mid-July 1943." According to the Vrba-Wetzler summary, several SS men would pour "a preparation of the poison gas" into the gas chamonly "two SS men took the ber. But, according to M i e r (~811, so-called disinfectants, several canisters of Zyklon B and poured their contents into the openings of the gas chamber." An apparently minor discrepancy is the Vrba-Wetzler summary's identification of the poison gas as "megacyklon," while Miller identifies it as Zyklon B. However, this discrepancy becomes more significant in the light of Miiller's claim (p122) that he gave Vrba and Wetzler "one of those labels which were stuck on the tins containing Zyklon B poison gas." If Miiller if telling the truth, how did Vrba and Wetzler manager to get the name wrong? In any case, another discrepancy is that the Vrba-Wetzler summary says, regarding the gassings, that at the end of three minutes everyone was dead, while Miiller says (p116) that it usually took more than ten minutes before everybody was dead. The Vrba-Wetler summary says the furnace of the crematorium had nine chambers, each with four openings, while Miiller (p59) says that one of the larger crematoria had only five ovens, each with only three combustion chambers. The Vrba-Wetzler summary says the bodies were "completely completely burnt after 1 % hours," while Miller (p17) says that corpses went into each oven "at intervals of twenty minutes." The Vrba-Wetler summary calculated that each crematorium could burn 1,500 bodies daily, while Miiller

says of one of the larger crematoria (p59) that "Its fifteen ovens, working non-stop, could cremate more than 3,000 corpes daily." Clearly, the "facts" about Auschwitz are rather malleable, somewhat like Silly Putty. But despite the fact that, on the crucial matter of the crematoria, most of the details of the Vrba-Wetzler "report" are contradicted by none other than Filip Miller, Vrba and Wetzlers' source of information about the crematoria, the official Churchill biographer calls the "report" of Vrba and Wetzler "remarkably accurate in its details," demonstrating thereby his own remarkable will-to-believe. In his introduction, Gilbert tells the reader that he has "set out the barest facts of the principal deportations, murders and gassings as they happened. . . . " To give one example out of many, Gilbert asserts (p169) that "On December 20 [1943]. . . a trainload of 849 Jews reached Auschwitz from Paris; more than five hundred were taken away to be gassed." Gilbert makes this sort of assertion again and again throughout the book. Apparently his source for the "the barest facts" (at least regarding Auschwitz) is Danuta Czech. In a footnote on page 264, he says that "The principal features of the Vrba-Wetzler report, the arrival of deportation trains at Auschwitz between March 1942 and April 1944, the gassing of the majority of the deportees, and the numbers gassed, a r e fully borne out by the facts and figures in Danuta Czech's, 'Kalendarium der Ereignisse im Konzentrationslager Auschwitz-Birkenau,' published in Hefte von Auschwitz. . . . " But how reliable are Danuta Czech's "facts and figures"? One indication of their reliability is given in this passage from Pierre Vidal-Naguet's "A Paper Eichmann?" in the April 1981 issue of
democracy: [Robert] Faurisson has triumphantly published a photograph of Simone Veil, the current president of the European Paraliamant, who, although she was reported to be gassed, is alive and well. The mechanism of this mistake is extremely simple, and the inmakes it easy to understand. formation that Faurisson gives According to the Polish historian Danuta Czech, the original camp calendar for April 1944 establishes the fact that convoy number 71, which came from Drancy, near Paris, on April 16 was handled in the following manner: 165 men were registered, and the rest of the convoy were gassed (Hefte von Auschwitz no.7, p.88). The camp archives, which were incomplete, no longer included the names of women who had been registered. This mistake was corrected by Serge Klarsfeld, in his [Le] Memorial [de la deportation des juifs de France]: "The Auschwitz calendar gives no names of women who were selected [for labor], but this is misleading, since 70 women survivors of this convoy were counted in 1945. There were also 35 male survivors." (p83)

...

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17 0

Was Danuta Czech's "mistake" about convoy 71 from France just a fluke? That it was not is suggested by the one case in which I have been able to compare Czech's "facts and figures," as parroted by Gilbert, with the testimony of a survivor of the convoy in question. According to Gilbert (p210):
On May 21 [I9441the railway sidings, gas chambers and crematoria at Birkenau were more active than they had ever been before. For on that day three trains arrived from Hungary, two From the three Hungarifrom Holland, and one from Belgium. an trains, only eleven men and six women were sent to the barracks, and more than 12,000gassed. This was the largest number to be gassed in a single day in the history of Auschwitz up to that moment. But it was a number that was now to be repeated day after day.

...

But, praise Yahweh, who should have been on one of the trains that arrived at Auschwitz from Hungary on 21 May 1944? None other than our litigious old friend, Me1 Mermelstein! (See Mermelstein's By Bread Alone, p276.) And, according to Mermelstein's account of his arrival at Auschwitz, "hundreds of men" (p115) from the train he arrived in, including himself, his father, his brother and four acquaintances named Lajos, Tibi, Bram and Joey, were selected for labor and sent to the barracks. (He says nothing about how many women were selected for labor, since, according to his account, the men and women were separated before the selections for labor were made.) Me1 Mermelstein says that hundreds of men were selected for labor from just one of the three Hungarian trains, yet Gilbert says that only eleven men from all three Hungarian trains were sent to the barracks and that all the rest were gassed. A bit of a discrepancy, eh, Mr. Gilbert? Perhaps, Pierre Vidal-Naquet will be so kind as to explain how Danuta Czech and, thereby, Martin Gilbert made this "mistake." In any case, in Gilberts usage, "the barest facts" turn out to mean something other than the naked truth. One might even suspect that Gilbert's "barest facts" are really the baldest fictions. The question of what was done, or not done, to save the lives of European Jews is a major theme o Auschwitz and the Allies. I'm f not going to discuss the matter in any detail. However, I want to make one observation. Apparently, none of the people who, in Gilbert's account, were so concerned about saving European Jews ever suggested that this end might have been achieved by trying to bring the war to a more rapid conclusion through a negotiated peace, as opposed to prolonging the war by insisting on Germany's "unconditional surrender." Apparently, saving the lives of European Jews was of less importance than destroying Nazi Germany. "Victory at all costs" was the ruling idea, and one

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of the costs, it so happened, was the death of many European Jews as a direct or indirect consequence of the war. The Terrible Secret and Auschwitz and the Allies, despite all their flaws, are each, to some extent, interesting and informative. Each contains some new material on the various rumors, "reports," etc. that were circulating during World War Two about the fate of European Jewry. They also contain some new information about the skepticism with which those rumors, "reports," etc. were received, at least initially, by various parties, including Jews. And there are tidbits o new information about other matf ters as well. But, each of these books, taken as a whole, is a mishmash of information and misinformation, of fact and fiction, of truth and falsehood. Readers of either book would be well advised to take its author's assertions about "the Final Solution" with not just a grain, but more like a pillar, of salt.
-L.A. Rollins
WITNESS TO THE HOLOCAUST, by Azriel Eisenberg, The Pilgrim Press, 649pp, $17.95, ISBN 0-8298-0432-3

Witness to the Holocaust is a collection of "eyewitness accounts of a brutal period in history," compiled and edited by Dr. Azriel Eisenberg, "a leading Jewish scholar," who has provided introductions to each of the 27 chapters and to many of the selections contained therein. As psychohistorian Howard Stein has written, "Between 1933 and 1945 some awesomely terrible things took place in Europe-to everyone. It is, however, another matter to view the entire sordid era through the eyes of a single group-the Jew-and to accept this interpretation as the only valid one." But that is pretty much what Witness to the Holocaust does; it views the entire Nazi era almost exclusively through the eyes o a single group-the Jews-and accepts this Judeocentric f interpretation as the only valid one. Eisenberg's Judeocentrism comes out, for example, in his dogmatic proclamation (p5) that "The Holocaust was unique." Of course, in a trivial sense, the Holocaust was unique, for, as Harry Elmer Barnes once wrote, "Every historical situation is essentially unique, never again to be repeated in its entirety." But Eisenberg's proclamation is supposed to be a significant truth. So in what significant sense was the Holocaust unique? According to Eisenberg (pZ), '\ . it was the Jews that were singled out for total destruction." But, as readers of this journal know, this assertion is, at best, debatable. And Eisenberg makes no attempt whatever to prove this at-best-debatable assertion. But even if the Jews were slated for total destruction by the Third Reich, that doesn't necessarily make the Holocaust unique. According to the

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Old Testament, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites were all marked out for total destruction by t h e Lord God of Israel. "And so Joshua defeated the whole land, the hill country and the Negeb, and the lowland and the slopes, and their kings. He left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, a s the Lord God of Israel commanded." (Joshua 10:40) Furthermore, Eisenberg himself contradicts his claim that the Jews were singled out for total destruction. In the very next paragraph after the one in which he makes that claim, he turns around and says: One people that shared the fate of the Jews were the Gypsies. They, too, had been persecuted through the ages, and like the Jews, the Gypsies were isolated and liquidated, country by country. . . . When the bloodbath was over, only pitiful remnants were left alive. . . . Except for the few survivors, a whole people, unique in its life-style, language, culture, and art, was wiped off the face of the earth. There are no memorials to their dead or commemorations of their tragedy. The death of the Gypsy nation was more than physical; it was total oblivion. (p2) Thus Eisenberg contradicts Eisenberg. The implication, of course, is that the Holocaust, the alleged extermination of the Jews, was not unique. Nevertheless, three pages later, Eisenberg is insisting, "The Holocaust was unique." Why the doublethink? Why this insistence on the uniqueness of the Holocaust? Well, a s Eric Hoffer observed in The Passionate State of Mind: Monotheism- the adherence to a one and only God, truth, cause, leader, nation and so on-is usually the end result of a search for pride. It was the craving to be a one and only people which impelled the ancient Hebrews to invent a one and only God whose one and only people they were to be. Whenever we proclaim the uniqueness of a religion, a truth, a leader, a nation, a race, a party or a holy cause [or a holocaustL.A.R.], we are also proclaiming our own uniqueness. Azriel Eisenberg and all the other Jews who proclaim the uniqueness of the Holocaust a r e also proclaiming their own uniqueness. What is the nature of this uniqueness? As Howard Stein puts it, "To Jews, the Holocaust. . . interweaves two elements of the doctrine of Choseness: (a) election a s moral superiority, and (b) election to suffer." In fact, we find both of these elements of the doctrine of Choseness explicitly affirmed in one of Eisenberg's selections. In "The Time Was Midnight," Zionist Rabbi Joachim Prinz reminisces about his life in Nazi Germany during the 1930s:
I told them from the pulpit, in every sermon, that to be a Jew is to be beautiful, great, noble, and that we had every right to feel

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superior. There are times when people who have been degraded and humiliated have to say that in reality they are "beautiful." Sometimes I exaggerated. But it was planned exaggeration. I spoke about the Jewish face, the beauty of the Jew a s a human being; I spoke about the Jewish contribution to civilization and that the world could not really exist without us, and that Christianity and Islam were indebted to us. All of this was designed not merely to reject the Nazi propaganda, but to replace it with a sense of superiority-moral, cultural, religious and human. I spoke about hammer and anvil, and the hammer had to be rejected and detested. It hurt to be the anvil, but it was morally superior. I often preached about "pity the prosecutor," and how superior are the people who are subjected to persecution, how much pride there is in suffering because we believe that in the end hammers and persecutors will be discarded while we shall continue to live. (pp92-93)

..

...

As Holocaustomania goes, Eisenberg's case is extreme. We are told that he "has devoted much of his life to a study of the Holocaust." And, apparently, he wants every other Jew to do likewise. He says (pl), " . we must study the Holocaust; the deaths of six million Jews have charged us to live, to learn, to remember, and to tell the world." And, he says (p4), "We should be furious with our peers who are apathetic and to whom this catastrophe is irrelevant to their daily lives." In other words, to be a good Jew, and to avoid Eisenberg's fury, one must be as obsessed with the Holocaust as he is. Now that's Holocaustc~ mania! Although Eisenberg wants Jews to study the Holocaust, he wants them to study it in approximately the manner in which Catholics study the catechism. He actually has the nerve to tell his readers (pp45), "This is not just another book on a heartrending chapter of modern history; it is a scroll of agony and heroism. As such, it must be studied with awe and reverence." And, he declares (p5), "The Shoah [a Hebrew term which is used interchangeably with "Holocaust"] cannot be intellectualized." In other words, Eisenberg is telling his readers: Don't think; don't question; don't criticize. Just feel and believe. I wonder if Eisenberg has ever read Ayn Rand's novel, The Fountainhead. Here is Ellsworth Toohey, the villain of the novel, explaining his methods of achieving power over others:

..

"If you get caught at some point and somebody tells you that your doctrine doesn't make sense-you're ready for him. You tell him that there's something above sense. That here he must not try to think, he must feel. He must believe. Suspend reason and you play it deuces wild. Anything goes in any manner you wish whenever you need it. You've got him. Can you rule a thinking man? We don't want any thinking men." (p638, Signet, 25th anniversary edition]

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When Eisenberg tells his readers the Holocaust cannot be intellectualized (viewed intellectually), that is his way to suspend reason and play it deuces wild. And play it deuces wild he does. I've already shown how he asserts the uniqueness of the Holocaust while making other claims contradicting this assertion. But when it comes to the fate of German Jews under Nazism, Eisenberg goes hog wild playing it deuces wild. According to Eisenberg (p70), "Between 1933 and 1938, 300,000 Jews emigrated [from Germany], 40,000 died, and 160,000 were murdered." This is ridiculous inasmuch as there were about 500,000 German Jews in 1933 so that Eisenberg's statistics imply the gross falsehood that there were no Jews left in Germany as of 1939. In fact, Eisenberg's ridiculous statistics are contradicted by those that were published in 1943 by the Institute of Jewish Affairs of the World Jewish Congress and which are reprinted by Eisenberg on page 115. The IJA cited a June 1933 census (not including the Saar) showing 499,682 German Jews and a May 1939 unpublished census showing 235,000 Jews remaining in Germany. These figures indicate a decline in the German Jewish population of almost 300,000, Eisenberg's figure for the number who had emigrated from Germany during roughly the same period. But while the IJA said 235,000 Jews remained in Germany in May 1939, Eisenberg says 200,000 had died or been murdered between 1933 and 1938. This is confusing enough, but Eisenberg achieves total confusion when, on page 605, he informs us that in the early 1950s the Bonn government agreed that "Germany must pay a billion dollars to cover the expenses of integrating the surviving half-million German Jews into Israeli society. . . " Come again? The surviving half-million German Jews? In other words, all the Jews o Gerf many survived both the Third Reich and the Second World War! Presumably, the 200,000 who died or were murdered between 1933 and 1938 had all been resurrected in time to collect reparations from the West German government beginning in the '50s. Quite a miracle! But, of course, in the magical, mystical kingdom of the Holocaust, "anything goes in any manner you wish whenever you need it." One of the reasons Eisenberg advances for studying the Holocaust is that "We must be prepared to challenge the prevarications and downright falsifications expressed in books, movies, and plays by dodgers of guilt." But what about the prevarications and downright falsifications expressed by mongers of guilt-for example, Eisenberg? On the page preceding his claptrap about challenging prevarications and falsifications, he himself expresses the following flaming falsehoods: "As the Nazi armies overran Europe, Jews were immediately hunted down, transported, and liquidated. The whole Nazi war machine, even when overtaxed and facing certain defeat, was bent on destroying

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them." (p2) But the "Nazi" armies invaded Western Poland in 1939 and Norway, Northern France and the Low Countries in 1940. Since the alleged extermination of Jews did not begin until mid-1941 (Eisenberg, for reasons known only to Eisenberg, says on page 134 that "the mass deportations to the death factories began . . . a t the end of 1942-1, the Jews of Western Poland, Norway, Northern France and the Low countries were not "immediately hunted down, transported, and liquidated." And, if "the whole Nazi war machine. was bent on destroying" the Jews, then who the hell was fighting against the Allied war machines? This is a "leading Jewish scholar?" This is a misleading Jewish scholar. On page 40, in an excerpt from Friedrich Percyval Reck-Malleczewen's Diary of a Man in Despair, there is this bit of gossip about Hitler from 1936: "[Hitler] has taken to spending his nights in his private projection room, where his poor projectionists have to show sex films for him, night after night." Aha! Hitler the voyeur! But if one consults the Collier Books edition of ReckMalleczewen's Diary, one finds this on page 26: " . . he has taken to spending his nights in his private projection room, where his poor projectionists have to show six films for him, night after night." So the actual gossip, itself almost certainly exaggerated, was that Hitler watched six films, not sex films, every night. Admittedly, this particular falsification might have occurred accidentally. Nevertheless, there it is waiting to mislead any devout Holocaustomaniac reading Eisenberg's book with the necessary "awe and reverence." Another falsification concerning Hitler can be found on page 33, where Eisenberg asserts: "Hitler glorified the 'big lie.' In his book, Mein Kampf, he wrote, 'The [people] more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie.' " (Bracketed insertion by Eisenberg.) That Hitler did not glorify the big lie can be seen quite clearly if one reads his remarks on the subject in their full context:

..

It required the whole bottomless falsehood of the Jews and their Marxist fighting organization to lay the blame for the collapse on that very man who alone, with superhuman energy and will power, tried to prevent the catastrophe he foresaw and save the nation from its time of deepest humiliation and disgrace. By branding Ludendorff as guilty for the loss of the World War, they took the weapon of moral right from the one dangerous accuser who could have risen against the traitors to the fatherland. In this they proceeded on t h e sound principle t h a t the magnitude of a lie always contains a certain factor of credibility, since the great masses of the people in the very bottom of their hearts tend to be corrupted rather than consciously and purposely evil, and that, therefore, in view of the primitive simplicity of their minds, they more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a little one, since they

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themselves lie in little things, but would be ashamed of lies that were too big. Such a falsehood will never enter their heads, and they will not be able to believe in the possibilty of such monstrous effrontery and infamous misrepresentation in others; yes, even when enlightened on the subject, they will long doubt and waver, and continue to accept a t least one of these causes a s true. Therefore, something of even the most insolent lie will always remain and stick- a fact which all the great lie-virtuosi and lying-clubs in this world know only too well and also make the most treacherous use of. The foremost connoisseurs of this truth regarding the possibilities in the use of falsehood and slander have always been the Jews; for after all, their whole existence is based on one single great lie, to wit, that they are a religious community while actually they are a race-and what a race! One of the greatest minds of humanity [Schopenhauer] has nailed them forever as such in an eternally correct phrase of fundamental truth: he called them "the great masters of the lie." And anyone who does not recognize this or does not want to believe it will never in this world be able to help the truth to victory. (Mein Kampf, Sentry edition, pp231-232.)

"Monstrous effrontery?" "Infamous misrepresentation?" Not exactly glorification of the big lie. The irony is positively exquisite. Hitler accused "the Jews" of being the foremost practitioners of the big lie. So how does Azriel Eisenberg respond? With a big lie, to wit, that Hitler "glorified" the big lie. How's that for chutzpah? (For the record, I want to point out that Hitler did not pretend to be a paragon of veracity; he did defend deception in political propaganda. See, for example, Mein Kampf, Sentry edition, p182.) On page 133, Eisenberg informs us:
The SS used the famine [in Warsaw] a s a fiendish t r a p to ensnare more Jews for extermination. Thus in Warsaw, in July 1942, they posted a notice that those "who will present themselves for selection for resettlement will recieve three kilograms of bread and one kilogram of marmalade." Hungry and desperate Jews flocked to the railroad station, where they were packed into deportation trains without food. Why feed people who were soon to die?

Ah, the "fiendish deviousness" o the Nazis! But wait. Here is f

how Warsaw ghetto survivor Vladka Meed describes the Nazis' "diabolic tactics," in On Both Sides of the Wall (p44): "Hunger drove famished Jews to the bread line, where each received his three kilograms of bread-before being pushed into the waiting railroad cars." And here is what Alexander Donat says, in The Death Camp Treblinka (p13): "Despite some initial apprehensions, most of the Jews of Warsaw really believed that this was no more than a bona fide resettlement. This belief was enhanced by the fact that at one point every Jew who volunteered for 'resettle-

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ment' received three kilograms of bread and one kilogram of marmalade." Eisenberg asks, "Why feed people who were soon to die?" But, since the Nazis did feed the volunteers for resettlement (according to Meed, Donat and others), Eisenberg's question actually suggests the possibility that those people were not soon to die. What do you have to say about that, Dr. Eisenberg? In any case, Eisenberg's distorted account of Auschwitz includes the following (p216): "It is estimated that the ovens ' p r e cessed' as many as seven million people." Oh, really? Seven million? But, pray tell, Dr. Eisenberg, estimated by whom? Even the official Soviet estimate, the largest that I recall seeing previously, was "only" four million. I suspect that what Eisenberg has done is to calculate 10,000 killed and cremated daily for almost two years, from early 1943 to late 1944, the period during which the four large crematoria of Birkenau were in use. The figure of 10,000 killed and cremated daily is commonly given as the peak figure for Auschwitz, supposedly reached during the period of the Hungarian deportations in the spring and summer of 1944. But apparently Eisenberg has taken this peak figure and turned it into the norm for the entire period during which the crematoria were operating. Thereby he exaggerates the alreadyexaggerated death toll for Auschwitz. Good work, Dr. Eisenberg. But why settle for seven million victims a t Auschwitz? Why not estimate eight million, nine million, ten million, or even 100 million? After all, those who read your book with the appropriate awe and reverence will surely swallow everything you serve up.* But perhaps Eisenberg does think there are limits to what his readers will swallow. Perhaps that is why his edited version of the Gerstein statement omits Gerstein's claim that 25 million people were killed by gassing. (While Eisenberg normally indicates his editorial omissions with the customary ellipses, he does not indicate this particular omission from the Gerstein statement with an ellipsis.) In any case, it is interesting to note that Gerstein's purported eyewitness account of the gassing of Jews at Belzec is the only such eyewitness account of the gassing of Jews to be found in Eisenberg's 649-page tome. So how reliable is this account? Paul Rassinier wrote (Debunking the Genocide Myth, pp269-270): "If it is not true that the gas chambers a t Belzec, Treblinka, and Sobibor could asphyxiate between 15,000 and 25,000 persons a day; if it is not true that a gas chamber 25 meters square could hold 700 to 800 persons; if it is not true that a train with 45 cars could transport 6,700 persons: and if it is not true that Hitler was at Belzec on 15 August 1942, I ask what does it contain that is true since it contains nothing else?" Before conclnding that it contains

* On cremators, see Reinhard Buchner, "The Problem of Cremator Hours and Incineration Time," Journal of Historical Review 11, No. 3 (Fall 1981): pp219-48.

Book Reviews

nothing that is true, revisionists should consider the deposition of Dr. Wilhelm Pfannenstiel who, according to both the Gerstein statement and his own deposition, accompanied Gerstein on his fateful visit to Belzec. In his deposition of 6 June 1950, Pfannenstiel claims to have witnessed a gassing of Jews at Belzec. Here is his description of it:

. . . a shipment of Jews-men, women, and some children-arrived. . . They were ordered to strip completely and to hand over their possessions. They were informed that they were to be incorporated into a working process and must be deloused to prevent epidemics. They would also have to inhale something. After the women's hair had been cut off, the whole shipment of people was taken to a building containing six rooms. On that occasion, to my knowledge, only four were used. After these pew ple had been shut up in the rooms, the exhaust gas from the engine was piped in. Gerstein stated that it took about eighteen minutes before quiet was restored inside. While the Jews were being taken in, the rooms were lit up with electric light and everything passed off peacefully. But when the lights were turned off, loud cries burst out inside, which then gradually died away. As soon as everything was quiet again, the doors in the outside walls were opened, the corpses were brought out, and, after being searched for gold teeth, they were stacked in a trench. Here, too, the work was done by Jews. No doctor was present. I noticed nothing special about the corpses, except that some of them showed a bluish puffiness about the face. But this is not surprising since they had died of asphyxiation. (See Saul Friedlander, Kurt Gerstein: The Ambiguity of Good, pp117-118.)
Interestingly enough, Pfannenstiel went on to comment on the Gerstein statement. "I know that Dr. Gerstein gives an entirely different description of this gassing scene. That version is false. It is full of exaggerations." (The reader is referred to Friedlander's book, pages 119-120, for Pfannenstiel's entire criticism of the Gerstein statement.) Thus, Pfannenstiel pretty much agreed with the revisionists about the Gerstein statement, but, nevertheless, claimed to have witnessed a gassing of Jews at Belzec. Thus far, revisionists have been content to attack the extremely dubious Gerstein statement, and have not seen fit to even mention the Pfannenstiel deposition, which appears to be somewhat more credible. (I presume that Arthur Butz, for example, knows about the Pfannenstiel deposition, since his bibliography in The Hoax of the Twentieth Century includes Friedlander's book on Gerstein.) For his own rather different reasons, Eisenberg includes a lengthy excerpt from the Gerstein statement in his book, but not a single syllable from the Pfannenstiel deposition. This despite his pious asseveration that he has "endeavored to include the latest significant data which appeared before this book went to press."

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The Pfannenstiel deposition was made over 30 years ago, and the well-known Friedlander book, which quotes it, was published in 1969, but apparently Eisenberg still doesn't know about it. That's what I call keeping up with the latest developments. (The question of the reality of gassing at Belzec is complicated by the testimony of another self-proclaimed eyewitness, Jan Karski, a wartime member of the Polish resistance who claimed to have infiltrated Belzec, disquised a s a camp guard, in early October of 1942, not quite two months after the supposed visit by Gerstein and Pfannenstiel. Although Karski's supposed infiltration of Belzec was supposedly organized by leaders of Jewish resistance groups precisely in order for Karski to observe and then bear witness to the supposed extermination of the Jews, Karski did not report seeing any gas chambers or gassings of Jews. Karski said he saw Jews being herded into railroad cars which then left Belzec. Karski claimed that the Jews were killed by leaving them in the railroad cars until they died of suffocation, starvation or whatever, but he did not claim to have seen this. And what he did claim to have seen is consistent with the revisionist claim that Belzec was a transit camp for Jews being sent "to the East," not an extermination camp. Eisenberg includes an excerpt from Karski's 1944 book, The Story of a Secret State, but it is Karski's description of the Warsaw ghetto, not his account of Belzec.) In a chapter entitled, "Grim End and Judgment Day," Eisenberg tries to paint a pretty picture of various "war crimes" trials. Regarding the Eichmann trial, he tells us (p575):

. Argentina complained that Israel had violated its sovereignty by abducting Eichmann from Buenos Aries. Others challenged Isreal's right to try Eichmann. The trial, however, was meticulously fair. Elchmann was represented by the defense counsel of his choice, all the normal judicial procedures were maintained, and the world press was constantly in attendance.
So the Eichmann trial "was meticulously fair." But here's a second opinion on the Eichmann trial, from Lenny Bruce:
Eichmann really figured, you know, "The Jews-most liberal people in the world-they'll give me a fair shake." Fair? Certainly. "Rabbi" means lawyer. He'll get the best trial in the world, Eichmann. Ha! they were shaving his legs while he was giving his appeal! That's the last bit or insanity, man. (The Essential Lenny Bruce, Ballatine, p35.)

..

In a more serious vein, consider some or Hannah Arendt's revelations in Eichmann in Jerusalem. On page 3 (Viking Compass edition), she says, " . . . it is among the minor mysteries of the new State of Israel that, with its high percentage of German-born

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people, it was unable to find a n adequate translator into the only language the accused and his counsel could understand." On page 7, Arendt reports that in Israel "rabbinical law rules the personal status of Jewish citizens, with the result that no Jew can marry a non-Jew. " Then she goes on to comment:

...

Whatever the reason, there was something breathtaking in the naivete with which the prosecution denounced the infamous Nuremberg Laws of 1935, which had prohibited intermarriage and sexual intercourse between the Jews and Germans. The better informed among the correspondents were well aware o the irony, f but they did not mention it in their reports. This, they figured, was not the time to tell the Jews what was wrong with the laws and institutions of their own country. (pp7-8) So, even if, a s Eisenberg says, "the world press was constantly in attendance" a t the trial, it may have done nothing to guarantee fairness for Eichmann. In any case, according to Arendt (p8), "The journalists remained faithful for not much more than two weeks, after which the audience changed drastically." On page 220, Arendt reports: The story [of the Final Solution] was confirmed by sworn and unsworn statements usually given by witnesses and defendants in previous trials and frequently by persons who were no longer alive. (All this, as well as a certain amount o hearsay testimony, f was admitted as evidence . . . . ) So much for Eisenberg's claim that "all the normal judicial procedures were maintained." On page 221, Arendt says, It quickly turned out that Israel was the only country in the world where defense witnesses could not be heard [since they were threatened with prosecutioin under the Nazis and Nazi Collaborators Law], and where certain witnesses for the prosecution, those who had given affadavits in previous trials, could not be cross-examined by the defense. And this was all the more serious as the accused and his lawyer were indeed not "in a position to obtain their own defense documents." Despite all this, Eisenberg has the gall to assert that the Eichmann trial "was meticulously fair." As Lenny Bruce said, "Ha!" Eisenberg's tedious tome does contain a few tidbits of interesting information. For example, there is a n account (pp551-553) of a Purim celebration in a Displaced Persons camp in 1946. This account mentions a poster which announced: (" 'At 6:30 p.m. a public burning of Mein Karnpf will take place in the Square." Eisenberg does not denounce this book-burning a s "a medieval spectacle," his characterization of the Nazis' public burning of books written by "Jews, Christian liberials, and humanitarians"

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on 10 May 1933. As he says on page 628, "We must guard the freedom of the press and must protect the basic rights of all: at the same time, we must make sure that freedom is not turned to license and used against us." Another interesting tidbit, necessitating a revision of revisionism, is an excerpt from S.alo W. Baron's 1961 book, A Historian's Notebook: European Jewry Before and After Hitler (pp4913-500). What is of interest is Baron's statement (p498) that "According to the survey prepared by the Central Jewish Committee in Poland on August 15,1945, there were altogether 73,955 Jews left in that country including some 13,000 serving in the Polish army and 5,446 recorded in 10 camps in Germany and Austria." This is of interest because it tends to confirm something I was told by a correspondent some years back, to wit, that Paul Rassinier was wrong in asserting that " . . . Mr. Shalom [sic] Baron, brandishing his title of Professor of Jewish History at Columbia University, claimed on April 4, 1961, before the Jerusalem Tribunal, that 700,000 of them [Polish Jews] were still living in 1945 when the country was liberated by Russian troops. . " (Debunking the Genocide Myth, p219.) Since Rassinier, on the supposed authority of Baron, employs this figure of 700,000Jews in postwar Poland in his demographic study in "The Drama of the European Jews," that demographic study must be revised. If this 700,000 figure is discarded as spurious, then the highest Jewish estimate, mentioned by Rassinier, of Jews surviving in Poland is the estimate of 500,000 which Rassinier attributed to the World Center o Conf temporary Jewish Documentation. (In his demographic study, Rassinier restricted himself to using statistics from Jewish sources.) Therefore, Rassinier's calculations of the total number of Jewish survivors must be revised downward by 200,000. And his calculations of the total number of Jewish deaths must be revised upward by the same amount. Because o space limitations, there are a number o aspects o f f f Witness to the Holocaust, such as its strong pro-Zionist bias and its anti-assimilationist conclusion, which I shall not discuss. Over 2,000 years ago, Cicero insisted that, "The first law is that the historian shall never dare to set down what is false; the second, that he shall never dare to conceal the truth; the third that there shall be no suspicion in his work of either favoritism or prejudice." If Cicero's "laws" for the writing of history were enforced by my enemy, the State, then Azriel Eisenberg, misleading Jewish educator, would be in jeopardy of the maximum penalty. Witness to the Holocaust is, in several senses, including the literal one, a heavy book. As a work of history, however, it makes a good doorstop.

..

-L.A. Rollins

Book Reviews

FAILURE AT NUREMBERG: AN ANALYSIS OF THE TRIAL, EVIDENCE AND VERDICT, Institute for Historical Review (pb reprint) 42pp, $2.50, ISBN 0-939484-04-8. RUDOLF HESS: PRISONER OF PEACE, by Ilse Hess and Rudolf Hess, translated from the German by Meyrick Booth, PkD. and edited by George Pile with a Foreword by Air-Commodore G.S. Oddie, D.F.C., A.F.C. (Royal Air Force). Institute for Historical Review (pb reprint) 151pp, $5.00, ISBN 0-939484-02-1.

The republication in inexpensive editions of these two books is a fine contribution to the dawning understanding of the monstrous perversion of law and justice that the victors of World War I1 inflicted upon their defeated enemies. More specifically, one should say: upon the Germans and, to a very much smaller degree, upon the Japanese. As for the Italians, despite the seizure of Ethiopia a n d Albania a n d the attack upon a n already collapsing France (recalling Rossevelt's "the hand that held the daggah has struck it into the back of its neighbah") there were for them no analogous "trials." Eugene Davidson (The Trial of the Germans) explains this anomaly with what must be the understatement of all time. "The kind of war the Italians fought," he writes, "left the Allied nations with a sense of security in regard to future Italian military power." Failure at Nuremberg and Rudolf Hess: Prisoner of Peace were both originally published in England shortly after the war. The former appeared in 1947 and was published by the British Peuple's Party; the latter was published in hardback in London in 1954 by the Briton's Publishing Company. Both books had become rare collector's items until their republication currently by the IHR. The title of the smaller book, Failure, a s well a s the most graphic and evocative cover-illustration by Mark S. Winn, defines the contents well enough. The message of Prisoner is perhaps not so immediately obvious. It is the translation of a book which the gallant and loyal Frau Ilse Hess compiled from the letters written to her by her husband, Rudolf Hess, during the years of his imprisonment in England following his epochal peacemaking mission, from the prison at Nuremberg and from Spandau prison up to 1951 -a period comprising the first ten years of his, now, 42 years of incarceration. There are 23 photographs (eleven pages) in the Hess book, many of which a r e exclusive to this edition. Some are formal photographs of historical moments but others reveal, a s do many of Hess' letters, a warm-hearted, loving family man a n d a devoted husband a n d father. These latter qualities have never been denied in him even by his most virulent enemies. Nor have I been able to detect in the correspondence

any signs or symptoms of the alleged mental instability we have heard so much about. There are also letters from Frau Hess to her husband which are, as might be any letters from a wife with the ability to express her feelings, compounded of news of personal matters, expressions of love and anxious concern, and during the proceedings at Nuremberg and the immediately subsequent period, with practical matters of Hess' defense and his attorney's wish to appeal against the sentence. As to that, Hess strenuously objected to any appeal and to his wife he wrote:
I have just sent the following letter to Dr. Seidl (Hess' attorney): "The commandant has informed me that you have sent in a petition for mercy on my behalf to the International Control Committee. Hereby I put it on record that this took place without my knowledge and against my desire. I regard the handing in of such a petition as an act devoid of dignity." (Nuremberg: 13 October 1946).

To this Frau Hess replied:

Your clear and unmistakeable reply to Dr. Seidl has really troubled us! It is true that we, too, were more than horrified about the version published in the Press of his petition for mercy on your behalf, which did not appear to fit in with the pattern of your conduct. In fact these petitions in general-as was obvious from the beginning-were quite pointless since they had no chance of success and they have been unfavorably regarded.

Frau Hess goes on to explain that in fact what Dr. Seidl had submitted was not a petition for mercy but a statement of evidence to the effect that the penalty (of life imprisonment) on the two out of four charges upon which Hess had been condemned was excessive beyond all reason and itself "constituted a flagrant and grievous breach of the law." With this reply, Hess indicated he was satisfied and that Seidl had acted properly. The interchange is somewhat difficult to understand today when it has become so obvious to all but the willfully blind that no "law" or legal precedent was anywhere within a thousand miles of the kangaroo courts of victors' vengeance at Nuremberg and elsewhere. Even that enigma, Winston Churchill, his sense of honor and integrity long since buried under the corpulent accretion of boundless egotism and ruthless ambition, seems to have felt a twinge of shame at the fate of Rudolf Hess. Perhaps war-mongering Winnie who worked so hard to get the war he knew would be his only possible road back to power and who, while proclaiming his commitment to the preservation of the British empire, did more than any other human being recklessly to destroy it, perhaps, I say, he will get a day's remission each century from Hell for this: "Reflecting upon the whole of this story, I am glad not to

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be responsible for the way in which Hess has been and is being treated. . . He came to us of his own free will, and so, without authority, had something of the quality of an envoy." It is my guess that Churchill really meant what he wrote. It is a lot less certain that the pious protests-or proposals-made in recent years by the British, French and American authorities that this man-now 89 years old-should be released from Spandau where he is the lone prisoner remaining and which have been vetoed by the Soviets-are sincere. Honor and humanity would seem to outweigh any breach of diplomatic agreements made in an era of fanatical vengefulness, yet when I personally suggested to one of foreign departments of the three Western powers that Hess should be simply released willy-nilly the next time the guards at Spandau were theirs, I was told that this was impossible because it would constitute a violation of international agreements. Crocodile tears cost nothing. Apparently honor and mercy are too expensive, however. Sheer barbarism aside, it is a lot easier to understand why the Soviet Union is determined that Hess die, silent and confined. Rudolf Hess was born in Alexandria, Egypt on 26 April 1894 where his father was in business. Alexandria was already a great seat of British naval power and Hess, as a child, developed a life-long affection and admiration for the British, whom he regarded as a kindred Germanic people. That particular sentiment is one which has been shared by many Germans, and at one time, before they became the victims of an irresponsible Press, not a few British. The only three German emperors during the life of the Second Reich felt that kinship and affection as well as, sometimes, frustration and incomprehension that it was so largely unrequited after 1870. This was true of Hitler and to some extent of Bismarck. For a study o the one-sided love affair and f the disaster which British unresponsiveness finally made inevitable, I refer the reader to Dr. Peter Peel's excellent book, British Public Opinion and the Wars of German Unification, which is available from the IHR. The point is that Hess viewed with horror the prospect, and the eventual realization, of a fratricidal bloodbath between the two great Germanic nations. Hitler shared these views although the impression persists that with Hitler Realpolitik considerations predominated over Gefuhlpolitik-or sentimental-considerations whereas with Hess the balance was probably in the other direction. Hess attended a German school in Alexandria from the ages of six to twelve. Thereafter, he was sent to a Lutheran school in Bad Godesberg. In World War I, he served in the same regiment as Hitler-the 16th Bavarian-although the two never met until after the war. Later in the war, Hess transferred to the Imperial Air Force as an officer pilot. After demobilization, he attended

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the University of Munich where he became a close friend of the Famous Dr. Karl Haushofer whose lectures on geopolitics he attended. He remained friends with the Haushofer family for many years, even after "Nuremberg." Hess, like Haushofer, was convinced that a healthy Germany needed "Lebensraurn" which could only be gained to the East. That "wicked" word may be more tolerable to Americans if I point out that it is only "Manifest Destiny," German-style. In any case, France has subscribed to the same sentiment, continuously ingesting German lands to her east since 1552. It is the prime imperative of all healthy organisms to expand their breeding grounds and this is always necessarily at the expense of some other organisms. Otiose and satiated powers attempt to sit pat on agreed limits-and soon find only that that is the beginning of degeneration and contraction. Hess was a participant in the attempted Putsch in November, 1923. He had joined the Nationalist Socialist German Workers Party in June, 1920 as its 16th member [Hitler was its seventh). Hess escaped arrest when Hitler was seized but voluntarily returned to serve eighteen months in Landsberg prison where he became Hitler's unofficial private secretary and assisted in the first commitment to paper of Mein Karnpf. In 1933 Hitler, now Fuehrer and Reichskanzler, made Hess Stellvertreter, or Deputy Fuehrer, and Minister Without Portfolio. It is probably fair enough to say that Hess worshipped the Fuehrer-as did untold myriads of lesser men-and Hitler certainly regarded Hess with great trust and affection, customarily addressing him, as with only a very few others, a s "Du." No one who has seen Leni Riefenstahl's great film Triumph des Willens will ever forget the segment in which Hess introduces Hitler to the exuberant audience with these words: "Der Partei ist Hitler. Hitler, aber, ist Deutschland wie Deutschland Hitler ist! Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!" At Nuremberg, Hess was convicted of conspiracy to wage war and of crimes against peace. Even in the madness of those days there was no way in which he could have been found guilty of the other charges-war crimes and crimes against humanity. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. Nevertheless, the Russian member of the judicial tribunal, General Nikitchenko, dissented and instead demanded the death penalty for Hess. On 5 May 1941,Stalin made two speeches at a Kremlin banquet given for a large graduating class of staff officers. Apparently the party soon evolved into a rather wild, drunken orgy and some very indiscreet remarks were bandied about including those by Stalin himself. Most of the important members of the Politburo were present as well as several high-ranking service officers. What was said was passed on to Germany by agents and was known in the Wilhelmstrasse within hours. The details were

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further confirmed at a later date during the interrogation of two Russian generals and a major who were questioned separately when captured by the Germans and whose reports were' almost identical as to the facts. Stalin had boasted that the non-aggression pact he had made with Ribbentrop in August 1939 was "just camouflage." Now that Russia had acquired all the territory possible by diplomatic means (by which he would have meant the eastern half of Poland, Finno-Karelia, Bessarabia, Ruthenia and Northern Bukovina, as well as the three Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania), it was time to ready the Russian people for aggressive war. Only by war could more territory be gained. Russian armament production was so satisfactory that a war against Germany could begin any time within the next two months. Hess flew to Britain on 10 May-five days after the Kremlin bash. Until historians have open access to British papers concerning the epic flight to Scotland and what actually passed between Hess and his interlocutors in Britain, we cannot prove that Hess came to Britain to expose these Russian plans or to attempt to effect an active alliance of the sort Hitler had always wanted between Germany and the British Empire. Some of the peace proposals a r e now public knowledge but much is still "classified." In such circumstances, intelligent speculation is not only admissable but desirable. At all events, as we know all too well today and to the loss of the whole White world, Hess' mission failed and his proposals were never seriously entertained. Years of propaganda had successfully incensed the British public against National Socialist Germany and it was far too late to reverse the course-or so it seemed. Besides, such a reversal would have ended the vainglorious career of Winston Churchill, whose insatiable ambition it was to be a great war-leader and whose mistaken conviction it was that he was a gifted strategian. And so the last chance was muffed. The sun has set forever on the British empire. Half of Europe is under the heel of the USSR. The United States and every country of northern and western Europe is being swamped with the brown, black and yellow masses of the Third World. What is left of the once proud Aryans is a race of guilt-ridden, apologetic, spineless helots of Israel lacking the will not only to expand and increase its breeding grounds, but even to defend its own national borders against aggressive alien invaders. Rudolf Hess: Prisoner of Peace is thus important a s a record of its eponymous hero's thoughts and feelings and as an affirmation against his slanderers that his ideas were sane-saner than almost anyone else's in the context of the European civil war. As a footnote, it is interesting to note that Air Commodore Oddie who wrote the foreword was one of those hundreds of

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gallant servicemen who had fought with great distinction in World War I and received many decorations but who, only because they opposed the war with Germany, not because of any crime they had committed, were imprisoned without charge or trial under the infamous "Regulation 18b" throughout most of the Second World War. Admiral Sir Barry Domvile was another such, and Sir Oswald Mosley a n d his wife. Another was the ex-Coldstream Guards officer and member of parliament, Captain A.H.M. Ramsay. There were nearly two thousand less well known. The powers that made and wanted World War 11-not only men like Churchill and Roosevelt but those far more ancient, sinister and powerful forces behind them-were determined to allow not the least expression of opposition to their malevolent plans. Something remains to be said about Failure at Nuremberg. It is a very small, very lucid and readable book-a mere 42 pages. It is therefore the ideal introduction to a new understanding of the true nature of recent history for the hitherto innocent and uninitiated. As such, I recommend that those who can afford to do so buy a number of copies for distribution to those whose tenebrous condition should be illuminated. Publishing Failure in Britain in 1947 was undoubtedly an act of courage and a gesture of honora beau geste, in fact. Beyond that, I cannot praise too highly the succinct form in which it explains and condemns the whole chicanery and hypocritical cant of "Nuremberg." Finally, one should always remember that there were a few gallant souls who, often at the cost of their careers, openly condemned the Nuremberg "trials" (sometimes referred to as "Trial by Jewry"). Outstanding among those sturdy figures who defied the sadistic zeitgeist were men such a s Senator Robert Taft in the United States and in England the Dean of St. Pauls, the Very Reverend William Inge. And I cannot do better than conclude this review by quoting some words of noted authoress Taylor Caldwell which appear on the back cover of Failure:
I have been boiling mad for years over the "war crimes trials," which I think were despicable and contemptible and smack more of ancient Rome's barbarism than of a secalled civilized country. Our country's hands are not free of blood and crime, in spite of our vaunted "democracy" and "noble aspirations," etc., etc., ad nauseurn. . . . It is outrageous that a man serving his country in all honesty and patriotism should be considered a "criminal" by a country which has its own share of criminals, and not honest and patriotic ones, either. . .

-Wayland D. Smith, Ph.D

Book Reviews

FEUERZEICHEN: DIE "REICHSKRASTALLNACHT ANSTIFTER UND BRANDSTIFTER-OPFER UND NUTZNIESSER (FIRE SIGN: "REICH CRYSTAL NIGHT," INCITERS AND INCENDIARIES, VICTIMS AND BENEFICIARIES), by Ingrid Weckert, Grabert Verlag, Tuebingen, 1981, 281pp with appendix, a ~ o t a t e d bibliography, index, clothbound, 29.80 DM, ISBN 3-87847-052-5.

No single event so drastically changed relations between Germans and Jews in modern times than the so-called "Night of Broken Glass" or Reichskristallnacht. On the night of 9-10 November 1938, Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues across Germany were attacked by inflamed mobs. Fire consumed many buildings. Several dozen Jews (the exact number is still unclear) lost their lives in the tumult. Ever since, countless films, books, articles and so forth have sought to impress the horror of the "Crystal Night" into the minds of millions. It is cited ad nauseum as a major milestone in the German program to exterminate the Jews of Europe. In Feuerzeichen (Fire Sign),Ingrid Weckert tackles this crucial chapter o contemporary history with sobriety, critical objectivf ity, and careful attention to detail. Her analysis is a welcome relief from the usually maudlin and highly tendentious treatments all too common in books dealing with modern Jewish history. Furthermore, this fascinating book never fails to keep the reader's attention. It is easy to understand why the first printing sold out within a few months. A few days before the Crystal Night, a young Polish Jew named Herschel Grynszpan visited the German embassy in Paris, pulled out a pistol, and shot a Legation Secretary named Ernst vomRath. Doctors were unable to save the mortally wounded young official. His death on the afternoon of 9 November 1938 could not have come on a more fateful day. All Germany was observing the "Memorial Day for the Fallen of the Movement," probably the most auspicious National Socialist anniversary. (On that day in 1923, 14 followers of the fledging movement fell before the fire of government soldiers during an ill-fated attempt to overthrow the Weimar regime by force.) What happened next is unclear. And despite all the words in recent dscades, the most important question about the Crystal Night remains unanswered: Who was responsible? The standard story is that Joseph Goebbels, the Reich Propaganda Minister, incited or ordered the assembled party leaders in Munich to organize a pogrom-like campaign of violence and destruction against the Jews in revenge for Grynszpan's murder of vom Rath. Anyway, that's the story. Some facts about the Crystal Night are beyond dispute. It is clear, for example, that some party leaders and stormtroopers

THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW

did take part in the mob action. It is likewise a fact that when Hitler learned about the outbreak of violence, he immediately ordered an end to the lawlessness. An urgent telex message to all party district leaders was followed by a letter repeating the directive. Frau Weckert shows that, contrary to the standard version, Dr. Goebbels could not have initiated or incited the Crystal Night. He in any case lacked the authority to secretly "order" a pogrom. When he learned the next morning about the extent of the lawlessness, Dr. Gobbels was outraged. He quickly issued a strongly worded official statement which called upon the population to immediately refrain from further actions or demonstrations of any kind against the Jews. Who benefited from the Crystal Night? Certainly not the National Socialist government or the German nation. Hitler complained bitterly in private: "It is terrible. They have destroyed everything for me like elephants in a china shop-and much worse. I had the great hope that I was about to come to an understanding with France. And now that!" The exclusive beneficiaries were those powerful Jewish organizations headquartered in New York, Paris and London which had proclaimed a state of war between Germany and international Jewry shortly after Hitler assumed power in early 1933. The Crystal Night brought a worldwide wave of intense anti-German atrocity propaganda, much of it completely untrue or wildly exagerrated. At one stroke, German prestige was dealt a crippling blow. The damage to relations with America was especially severe. President Roosevelt recalled the U.S. Ambassador from Berlin and left only a Charge d'Affaires at the post. At a time when Jewish leaders were loudly calling for a "holy war" of destruction against Germany, Hitler's government was working for the peaceful emigration of the Jews from the Reich. Consistent with the Zionist view that the Jews of the world constitute a distinct nation all their own, the National Socialist government actively aided the Zionist movement. In fact, the Jewish Agency for Palestine (the "shadow government" of the future Zionist state) had a treaty with Germany known as the Haavara Agreement to expedite the settlement of Jews to Palestine. This little-known treaty remained in force from 1933until the outbreak of war in 1939. Frau Weckert's greatest achieviment is probably her careful but devastating analysis of what passes today for "history writing." She exposes the superficiality, sloppiness and plain dishonesty of various prominent contemporary writers who have made names for themselves as specialists in modern Jewish history. She demonstrates that several key Crystal Night "documents" pre-

Book Reviews

sented at the Nuremburg trial by the Allies to incriminate the German leaders are undoubtedly forgeries. This charge, with its staggering implications, dare not be made lightly. Frau Weckert has opened the door on a subject that deserves much more detailed attention. My own research at the National Archives confirms her observation that the originals o many widely citedNuremberg f trial "documents" are now "unavailable" and seem to have d i s appeared completely-if they ever existed at all. This book is not and cannot yet be the final word about the Crystal Night. Many questions unavoidably remain unanswered. Frau Weckert herself never fully answers the most important question of all: Who organized the Crystal Night? But the evidence she presents points to the shadowy but important role played by the Paris-based "International League Against Anti-Semitism" (SICA) in the events leading up to the fateful night. A word about the author: Ingrid Weckert was a teenager in war-ravished Berlin when the Second World War came to an end. She left the occupied German capital to study Catholic theology in Switzerland. Living and working in Israel for a time enabled her to deepen her understanding of the character and nature of the Jewish people. She speaks Hebrew and English fluently. A librarian by profession, she now lives in Munich. This book is a valuable contribution to contemporary historiography. I hope that an English-language version will become available soon and that Frau Weckert will be producing other works as good as this one. Feuerzeichen is essential reading for anyone interested in this particular subject. But more than that, it deserves careful consideration by anyone who wants to understand the true origins of the world we have inherited.
-Mark Weber

About the Contributors

JAMES B. WHISKER holds a Ph.D. in government and politics from the University of Maryland. He is currently an Associate Professor of Political Science at West Virginia University. He is the author of Essays in Political Scie.nce (with H.N. Kim), The Social, Political, and Religious Thought of Alfred Rosenberg, and National Socialist Ideology: Concepts and Ideas. L.A. ROLLINS received his B.A. in Philosophy from California State College a t Los Angeles in 1970. He is a free-lance writer a n d has contributed to such publications as Reason, New Libertarian, Critique, Outlook, The Personalist, and Grump. He has been researching the "Holocaust" and related matters for several years. SAM1 HADAWI is a prize-winning lecturer and writer on Middle Eastern politics and history. From 1920 to 1948 he served in the Palestine Government. Since then he has served in various informational and advisory capacities on behalf of Arab states, including a stint as a Land Specialist at the United Nations, 1952-1955. He is the cwauthor, with Robert John, of Palestine Diary, and the author of Bitter Harvest: Palestine 1914-3979, which will soon be issued in a new edition by the IHR. FRANK H. HANKINS (1877-1970) received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1909, thereupon embarking on a long and distinguished career as a professional sociologist, historian, and demographer. He was Professor of Sociology at Smith College from 1922 to 1946, with many visiting professorships during a n d after t h a t time. He was a president of the American Sociological Society (1938) and editor of the American Sociological Review (1936-1937). JAMES J. MARTIN received his M.A. (1945) and Ph.D. (1949) degrees in History from the University of Michigan. For over 25 years he taught History and the History of Ideas at educational institutions from coast to coast, including Southern Illinois State University, Deep Springs College, and Rampart College. He has authored over 200 articles, reviews, and notes in about 40 papers and journals, as well as several books, including the twwvolume classic of American intellectual history, American Liberalism and World Politics, 1931-1941. Currently he serves as the director of Ralph Myles Publishers, and a s general editor of its "Libertarian Broadsides" series. WAYLAND D. SMITH is the pseudonym of a well-known science fiction writer who, after service a s a n officer in the Korean W a r , obtained his Ph.D. in History from an Ivy League university. He has written extensively under this name on historical and political themes. MARK WEBER was born and raised in Portland, Oregon, where he graduated from Jesuit High School. He studied a t the University of Illinois (Chicago Circle), the University of Munich (Germany) and Portland State University, where he received his B.A. with high honors in 1976. He received his M.A. in modern European history from Indiana University in 1977. He now works in Washington, D.C. a s a writer. researcher and translator.

British ~ i s t o z a nAuthor of The War ~ath,Hitler's , War, The Destruction of Dresden and Uprising!

DR. S~ecialist Texts and Documents, Author of ROBERT FAURISSON French in

Three Books add Numerous Articles on "Holocaust" Revisionism

Heof Doenitz at Nurember~:A R e - A ~ ~ r a i s a l KEITH THOMPSON Editor

on The Doenitz Case: The succession E o v e r n m ~ ~ t , Nuremberg

II
I

DR. British "War Crimes" Trial ofLINDSEY WILLIAM B. Dr. Bruno Tesch on the
B In Light of What is Known Aboutthe Properties of ~ y k l o n

4nd Several Other Prominent Revisionist Scholars will Speak at

THE FIFTH INTERNATIONAL REVISIONIST CONFERENCE September 3-5(Labor Day weekend) '83
HOSTED BY THE

INSTITUTE FOR HISTORICAL REVIEW

Reserve these dates on your calendar now. Hear and meet the men who are in the forehont of the new history. Spend an event-filled weekend with revisionists from around the world. This year in the Los Angeles area. Fwd, lodging and local transportation all to be arranged by the IHR. Write for details and attendance fees. Reservations limited to space available. INSTITUTE FOR HISTORICAL REVIEW POST OFFICE BOX 1306 TORRANCE, CALIFORNIA 90505 U.S .A.

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