Arthur R. Butz – The Hoax Of The Twentieth Century

Chapter 4: Auschwitz
could be simpler
No reasonable considerations can make these gas chambers materialize. The
claim that the shower baths, which are said to have been housed in the same
buildings as some of the crematory ovens, were really gas chambers is just as unfounded
as was the identical claim concerning the Dachau shower bath, which existed
in the crematory building at that camp.
There is, incidentally, a small amount of doubt whether the shower baths were,
indeed, in the same buildings as Crematories IV and V, because the camp plan
given in the WRB report has the baths in a separate building. However, the point
is of no importance.
This completes the analysis of the points raised in paragraph 7 of the Höss affidavit.
Why in English
Final paragraph
This is a minor point. It seems strange that the Höss affidavit is in English. We
are not aware of any evidence that Höss knew the English language but, in common
with many Germans, he might have known something about it.
However, a prudent German, signing a document of this importance “voluntarily
and without compulsion,” would not be satisfied with an ordinary foreign language
ability; he would either have considered himself expert at English or he
would have insisted upon a German translation to sign (a request that would necessarily
have been honored). Höss was evidently not in a spirit to insist on anything.
There is no doubt that Höss hoped to buy his life by cooperating with the IMT
prosecution, and it is most probable that a specific offer was made in this connection.
However, Höss’ reward for his services was to be packed off to Poland about
a month after his IMT testimony. In Poland he dutifully wrote out an “autobiography”
for his captors, wherein he explained that he was just following orders in the
exterminations. His reward on this occasion was final; he was “tried” and killed in
April 1947. The “autobiography” was published in Polish translation in 1951 and
in German and English in 1959.
The Role of Birkenau
Birkenau, of course, performed the normal functions of a German concentration
camp; it quartered inmates for the principal or ultimate aim of exploiting their
labor. Thus, when we refer to the “role” of Birkenau, we are referring to a theory
that Birkenau was the site of certain very special functions that bear particularly
strongly on the matters we have been considering.
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