Arthur R. Butz – The Hoax Of The Twentieth Century

Chapter 6: Et Cetera
defense. That the specific story presented was unbelievable was not very important
from this point of view; the manner, in which facts have been treated in connection
with these matters, has been endless nonsense anyway. The case of Speer
shows that a nonsensical story not only had a chance of being accepted by the
IMT, but also by general opinion much later, when there should have been adequate
opportunity to see matters clearly.
The ordinary person, and even the informed critic, can easily fail to understand
the significance of such things as the Kaltenbrunner testimony, because he fails to
grasp the perspective of the defendants, who did not have the historical interests
in these trials that we have. Their necks were at stake, and they regarded the trials,
quite correctly, as a manifestation of hysteria. Attempting to save their necks
meant devising trial strategies to suit the prevailing conditions, and no optimum
trial strategy seeks to move the court on matters on which the court is immovable.
This also happens in ordinary legal proceedings. Once something had been decided,
it had been decided, and the lawyers organize their cases accordingly.
Of course, it is deplorable that Nazis or anyone else should lie in order to promote
their personal interests. I have seen scholars tell lies almost as big just to
pick up an extra bit of summer salary, and that too is deplorable.
Oswald Pohl at Nuremberg
At Kramer’s trial and at the IMT, the courts were effectively committed a priori
to the conclusion that Nazi Germany had had a program of exterminating
Jews. At the later NMT trials, the courts were committed a priori as a formal matter,
on account of the legal constraint previously noted (page 43), that statements
made in the IMT judgment constituted “proof of the facts stated.” The IMT judgment
said that millions had been exterminated in German concentration camps,
particularly at Auschwitz, which was “set aside for this main purpose”; specifically,
400,000 Hungarian Jews were said to have been murdered there. 321 Thus,
defendants and witnesses at the NMT faced a situation similar to that faced by
earlier defendants and witnesses, except that it was formalized. Prosecutors were
known to redirect the attentions of judges to this legal constraint, when there
seemed a chance of its being overlooked. 322
Here we will take special note of only two cases. Defendant Pohl, of course,
did not deny the extermination program; in denying personal involvement in the
exterminations, he took advantage of the fact that the Allied charges had naturally
been directed at the Gestapo and the SD functions of the SS, which were not in
Pohl’s domain as head of the WVHA. 323 Even the Höss affidavit and testimony
explicitly support him in this position. After all, who ever heard of the Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt
Nevertheless, Pohl was hanged.
321
322
323
IMT, vol. 22, 494-496.
Case 6 transcript, 197.
NMT, vol. 5, 664-676.
225