Arthur R. Butz – The Hoax Of The Twentieth Century

Chapter 3: Washington and New York
is not entirely without justification either. One must assume that much of the material
in the report is true. As will be elaborated below, there is no question of the
competence of the authors of the report. However, one must be careful in this regard,
obviously, and accept only that, which seems corroborated by either common
sense or independent evidence. Given the protagonistic and propagandistic
role of the report, but recalling that a well organized hoax necessarily contains
much valid fact, this is perfectly reasonable.
One can be rather specific about the routes, by which information flowed out
of the camps. In cases where there was significant industrial activity, the inmates
inevitably came into contact with many people who were not camp inmates (company
employees, railroad employees, etc.), and these contacts were the basis for
an extensive system of clandestine channels of communication. Auschwitz, of
course, furnished numerous and excellent opportunities for such contacts, and on
account of the communist organization, there were very effective channels to outside
underground centers, especially in nearby Cracow. Information about the
camp, including, it is claimed, copies of orders received from Berlin or Oranienburg,
flowed constantly out of Auschwitz. These channels were also used to send
such things as money, medicine and forged papers into the camp. In addition, as
discussed in another connection on page 143, the Communists in all of the camps
were highly organized for illegal radio listening. If they had receivers, they no
doubt also had transmitters. There has been witness testimony to possession of radio
transmitters by camp inmates, and Reitlinger believes that Auschwitz inmates
had transmitters. 155
In order to grasp completely the nature of the information and propaganda
channels that existed, one should take special note of the War Refugee Board and
the OSS. The WRB maintained constant contact with events in Hungary even after
the German occupation in March 1944. For example, it had its agent, Raoul
Wallenberg, in the Swedish diplomatic corps, and there were other links through
Jewish organizations. Jewish leaders in Budapest were in constant contact with
those in Slovakia, and the Slovakian Jewish leadership was in contact with Polish
Jewry, particularly in Cracow. 156
Possibly more important than the WRB, although its role in the hoax is not
nearly as obvious, was the Office of Strategic Services, OSS, the predecessor of
the CIA. The OSS was set up early in World War II under the leadership of General
William Donovan. Its mission was intelligence of a political nature and related
matters (e.g. sabotage, propaganda, guerilla warfare) as distinct from the
more conventional forms of military intelligence, to which its operations were related
somewhat as the operations of the German SD were related to those of the
Abwehr, although high-placed Washington observers complained that the OSS
seemed to enjoy unlimited funds and knew no bounds on its authority.
With only a few exceptions, the OSS was not staffed by military people but by
155
156
NMT, vol. 5, 820; Reitlinger, 466; Borwicz, 66-76.
US-WRB (1945), 24-33. For contacts of Slovakian Jews with Poland, especially Cracow, and
with Budapest, see Neumann’s book and also the testimony of Freudiger: Eichmann, session 51,
Ww1-Eee1; session 52, A1-Bb1. Wallenberg discussed in Poliakov and Wulf (1955), 416-420.
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