Arthur R. Butz – The Hoax Of The Twentieth Century

Arthur R. Butz, The Hoax of the Twentieth Century
could be prosecuted for any perjury committed in a retrial of Soblen. Hirschfeld
nevertheless declined to appear in Soblen’s defense. 427
Brandt eventually became Chancellor of West Germany and won the Nobel
Peace Prize for 1971 for his efforts to build friendlier relations with the eastern
bloc, his “Ostpolitik.” Brandt seemed to be riding high, but by 1974, various
Brandt policies had brought his Social Democratic Party to a new low in popular
esteem, and even SPD politicians in long term SPD strongholds expressed the belief
that they were going to lose their next elections. Fortuitously for the SPD, the
Günter Guillaume scandal erupted in late April with Guillaume’s arrest as an East
German espionage agent. Although it had been known that Guillaume had been a
member of an East Berlin espionage organization, he had been cleared by the
Brandt government for a high post in the inner circle of Brandt’s associates and
advisers. The scandal brought Willy Brandt’s downfall with his resignation on
May 7, 1974. Brandt was succeeded by Helmut Schmidt, whose leadership terminated
the decline of the SPD. 428
Clearly, a career such as Brandt’s postwar career is possible only in a country
in which treason has become a normal part of political life, so it is not in the least
surprising that the Bonn government is a defender of the hoax.
An interesting objection is the claim that nobody would dare invent such a tale
as the six million legend; nobody had the extraordinary imagination required, and
even if he did, the obvious risks in telling such gigantic lies should dissuade him.
The argument amounts to the claim that the mere existence of the legend implies
the truth of its essentials, so I suppose we can classify it as the hoaxers’ ontological
argument.
What is interesting about this objection is its superficially logical quality. Indeed,
I imagine that this calculation accounts in good measure for the widespread
acceptance of the legend; people assume that nobody would be so brazen as to invent
such lies. Nevertheless, the logic is not sound, for history affords us numerous
examples of popular acceptance of gigantic lies, and in this connection we can
again cite witchcraft hysteria as precedent for the psychological essentials of the
six million hoax.
The Talmud
It is ironic that Hitler anticipated the psychology of the “big lie” in his remarks
on the subject in Chapter X of Mein Kampf. It is also ironic that the most mindboggling
invented accounts of exterminations appear in the Jewish Talmudic literature
in connection with the last two of the three great Jewish revolts against the
Roman empire, the Diaspora revolt of 115-117 AD and the Palestine revolt of
132-135 AD. In connection with the Palestine revolt of 66-70 AD, the Talmudic
427
428
294
New York Times (Oct. 6, 1961), 10; (Oct. 14, 1961), 10; (Oct. 17, 1961), 35; (Nov. 4, 1961), 11;
R. H. Smith, 237n.
New York Times (May 8, 1974), 16.