onsdag 14 december 2011

The Genius of Scientific Revisionism

On his Blog, dated Dec. 1, 2011, Professor Faurisson hails Arthur Butz in these words:

"I am in the habit of calling Arthur Robert Butz "Doctor Genius". For me he is the Number One scientific revisionist of "the Holocaust".

Butz is the author of a "masterful" book, The Hoax of the Twentieth Century, we are told. The prominent French revisionist asserts:

"In 35 years (1976-2011) not a single historian, academic or researcher has been able to make a rebuttal to it or refute it."

This claim is typical Chutzpah. The truth is that the fundamental claims of Butz´s "Hoax" have been refuted again and again by many scholars. The fundamental claims of Faurisson´s "Doctor Genius" include:

1. The Jews were not exterminated, for after the end of the war they were still there. - A lie.

2. The Nazi euthanasia program, with its gassings, had nothing to do with alleged gassings in the camps. - A lie.

3. Leichenkeller I in Krema 2 was not a Vergasungskeller or a Gaskeller - even though the Germans said so. - A lie.

4. The "Ereignismeldungen UdSSR" were "manufactured by Moscow". - Also a lie.

The genius of the scientific revisionist is twist speak for the genius it takes to ignore reality.

Faurisson and Butz maintain that the Nazis only intended a territorial solution of the Jewish question. There was no attempt, no plan etc. to murder the Jews.

The Einsatzgruppen were not to kill the Jews, said Faurissson in 2006. The Ereignismeldungen (EM) wrote Butz in 1976, were "amateur essays", a "forgery"(Butz . p. 200).

Now, in 2011, the reports (EM) of the Einsatzgruppen (EG) have become available in print, edited by Mallmann/Angrick/Matthäus/Cüppers under the title Die " Ereignismeldungen UdSSR" 1941. Dokumente der Einsatzgruppen in der Sowjetunion, Darmstadt (Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft). This is a truly monumental work, the first of four volumes. It is a critical edition of EM 2 (June 23, 1941) to EM 149 (Dec. 22, 1941).

The reader will soon see that the EM contain an enormous amount of authentic information about events, persons and places etc. that cannot possibly be "forgeries" that were "manufactured by Moscow". There are vivid descriptions of NKWD atrocities and Communist crimes - the last thing that would have been "manufactured by Moscow". Very typical German, all of it.

And Faurisson´s claim that it was not the task of the EG "to kill people" is contradicted on almost each page. For instance, on p. 144, EM 27 casually reports that, "Die Liquidierungen laufen täglich weiter". The murders continue as usual.

The authenticity of the EM was never disputed by any of the Germans who prepared or read the EM that were written, not in Moscow, but in Berlin. On the other hand this does not mean that all details are correct. Comparing the EM with the available reports of Böhme, Jäger, Stahlecker etc., there are certain inconsistencies, but, as said, this certainly does not allow us to reject the EM as a whole (as some of the "scientific revisionists" have sometime done).

It is impossible to summarize the contents of the 897 pages of introduction, text and notes. There is absolutely nothing here that can honestly be described as "amateur essays". EM 106 is our main (but not our only) source for the Babij Jar massacre of Sept. 29 & 30, 1941. Dryly, the report states (p. 642):

"In Zusammenarbeit mit dem Gruppenstabe und 2 Kommandos des Polizeiregiments Süd hat das Sonderkommando 4a am 29. und 30. 33771 Juden exekutiert."

The execution is explicitly described as an "Umsiedlungsmassnahme" (ibid.)! And the report goes on:

"Dass die Juden tatsächlich liquidiert wurden, ist bisher kaum bekanntgeworden...".

Here we also have some of the photographs taken by Johannes Hähle, showing some of the Jewish victims.


On the way to Babij Jar
...after the executions

Nevertheless, some of the "scientific revisionists" still claim that Babij Jar "never took place".

The unique importance of the EM as a historical source has been recognized by many scholars for long. One of the first scholarly books to make extensive use of these sources was Die Truppe des Weltanschauungskrieges. Die Einsatzgruppen der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD 1938-1942, Stuttgart 1981, by H. Krausnick and H.-H. Wilhelm.

Faurisson mentioned this book in 1990, told us that it contained 688 pages but no order or plan for the physical extermination of the Jews, thus leaving his reader with the utterly mistaken impression that it was not the task of the EG to kill the Jews.

To sum up: The genius of the "scientific revisionist" mainly consists in the bad habit of ignoring or distorting historical reality in various ways. Should you fail to pay your respect to this sort of doctored genius, you may soon see your name defamed by some of the most rabid supporters of these prominent masters of Chutzpah.

The EM contain such an enormous amount of rare information about cultural, economical, administrative, educational, religious, sociological, nosological, demographic, military and other affairs, that no serious scholar can afford to ignore them. They tell us a lot about German efficiency - and about Nazi terror and brutality.

Dr. Christian Lindtner

Inga kommentarer: