Arthur R. Butz – The Hoax Of The Twentieth Century

Arthur R. Butz, The Hoax of the Twentieth Century
ans seeking the truth about events.
An incidental matter is the claim that Kramer, as commandant at Natzweiler,
had had eighty people gassed there for purposes of medical experiments. These
people had supposedly been selected at Auschwitz by unknown criteria and then
transported to Natzweiler to be killed, because the bodies were needed fresh in
nearby Strassburg. Kramer affirmed this story in his second statement but, because
it is (implicitly, but unambiguously) denied in his first statement, I am inclined
to believe that it is untrue. However, it is quite possible that some people
were executed at Natzweiler when somebody else was commandant, and that the
bodies were then used at the anatomical institute in Strassburg (which certainly
possessed bodies for its research purposes). In any case, the matter is not relevant
to an extermination program.
Hermann Göring et al. at the IMT
The IMT trial is somewhat more complicated to consider, because of the great
number of defendants, each one having his own possibilities in regard to excusing
himself from any real or imaginary crimes. The trial transcript is not really adequate
to study the behavior of the IMT defendants, but the record kept by the
Nuremberg prison psychologist, Dr. G. M. Gilbert, and published by him as Nuremberg
Diary, supplements the transcript to an extent that is adequate for our
purposes. Gilbert’s book gives an account of the attitudes and reactions of the
IMT defendants, not only at the trial but also in the Nuremberg prison. One cannot
be absolutely confident in regard to the accuracy of Gilbert’s account. Most of
the material consists of summaries of conversations the defendants had in the
prison, either with each other or with Gilbert. However, Gilbert took no notes on
the spot and wrote everything down each day from memory. His manuscript was
critically examined by a former employee of the Office of War Information and
by the prosecutors Jackson and Taylor. Even with the best will and most impartial
disposition, Gilbert could not have captured everything with complete accuracy.
His book has a general accuracy, but one must be reserved about its details.
The IMT defendants were arrested shortly after the German capitulation in
May 1945, imprisoned separately, and interrogated and propagandized for six
months prior to the opening of the IMT trial in November, when they met each
other for the first time since the surrender (in some cases, for the first time ever).
There are four particularly important observations to make. First, not surprisingly,
all except Kaltenbrunner had developed essentially the same defense regarding concentration
camp atrocities and exterminations of Jews, whatever the extent to which
they might have actually believed such allegations; it was all the fault of Hitler and
Himmler’s SS. Kaltenbrunner, sitting as a defendant as a substitute for the dead
Himmler, was ill when the trial opened and did not join the other defendants until
the trial was a few weeks old. When he appeared, the other defendants shunned him,
and he said very little to the others during the course of the next ten months.
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