Arthur R. Butz – The Hoax Of The Twentieth Century

Arthur R. Butz, The Hoax of the Twentieth Century
gest a summary verdict. The court had examined every single declaration of
each of the witnesses with great care and all earnestness and consequently is
unable to arrive at verdicts of guilty on a whole list of charges, since secure
grounds could not be found for such verdicts. The possibilities of verifying the
witness declarations were very limited. All traces of deeds were destroyed.
Documents which could have given the court important assistance had been
burned. […]”
Although these admissions on the part of the Frankfurt court should be conclusive
in forming one’s opinion of such trials, we must add that the court understated
the facts of the situation. The great majority of the witnesses were citizens
of Soviet bloc countries, with all that such a fact implies regarding their testimonies.
The court complained that “this witness testimony was not so accurate and
precise as is desirable,” but one should observe that it was certainly attempted to
organize the memories of the witnesses suitably, for the “Comité International
d’Auschwitz“ had set up its headquarters in Frankfurt and from there had issued
“information sheets” on the terrible things that had happened at Auschwitz. These
“information sheets” had been made available to, and had been read by, the witnesses
before they testified. There was also a “Comité des Camps” in circulation,
and other persons, e.g. the mayor of Frankfurt, made suggestions to the witnesses
of varying degrees of directness and subtlety. 331
The farce extended also into the matters that the court considered in the course
of the long trial and the sentences that were imposed. Mulka, found guilty of being
second man in the administration of the great extermination camp, of having
ordered the Zyklon B on at least one occasion, of having been in charge of the
motor pool, which transported the condemned, of having handled some of the paperwork
dealing with transports, and of having been involved in the construction
of the crematories, was sentenced to 14 years at hard labor, but was released less
than four months later on grounds of ill health. Defendant Franz Hofmann, ex-SS
Captain who had been in charge of Auschwitz I, received a life sentence for the
simple reason that, although found guilty in connection with exterminations, he
had really been tried on a charge of having thrown a bottle at a prisoner, who later
died from the head injury received. This incident evidently had a greater impact
on the court than mass exterminations, which is not surprising, because the bottle
episode could clearly be recognized as the sort of thing that happens in penal institutions.
Hofmann was sentenced to life imprisonment, but shortly later released
anyway on the grounds of his previous detention. 332
Precedents for the Trials
In searching the history books for proceedings comparable to the “war crimes
trials,” it is not suitable to fasten on prior politically-motivated trials for prece-
331
332
232
Laternser, 85-94.
Naumann, 412-413, 418-419, 422-423. Reitlinger, 551, 561.