Arthur R. Butz – The Hoax Of The Twentieth Century

Arthur R. Butz, The Hoax of the Twentieth Century
decision not to permit a statute of limitations to go into effect for “war crimes.” I
criticized Holocaust elsewhere, and I shall not waste words on it here. 489 I understand
that it is to be shown again soon.
In the summer of 1978, the Noontide Press edition of some of Rassinier’s writings
appeared. 490 A year later, Historical Review Press issued its English translation
of Rassinier’s Eichmann book. 491
Late 1978 brought a significant escalation of the controversy in all senses. In
October 1978, the German publisher Propyläen issued Prof. Hellmut Diwald’s
massive Geschichte der Deutschen (History of the Germans). Propyläen is an old
firm, now owned by Axel Springer, which specializes in publishing books written
by scholars but for an intelligent lay readership. On two pages, Diwald said some
things very much in harmony with things revisionists of the “Final Solution” have
said, and of course the clamor of the Establishment’s spokesmen was deafening.
Golo Mann wrote that “these two pages […] are the most monstrous that I have
had to read in a German book since 1945,” 492 and the publisher responded to the
clamor by stopping the sale of the first edition and substituting a new edition with
the two offending pages hastily rewritten – in a style I am assured is not Diwald’s
– in order to conform to the usual line. Axel Springer further promised publicly,
in words I cannot imagine coming from a U.S. publisher under any circumstances,
that this was only the beginning of the rewriting of the book and that by fall 1979
the book would be “not recognizable.” 493
The original two pages that Diwald had published were not particularly significant
in themselves; relatively little was said. There are, however, two points of
major significance to note. First, Diwald does not lack credentials as an historian.
He is a history professor at the Friedrich-Alexander University in Erlangen and
has been well known in the historical profession since taking his doctorate under
the German-Jewish historian Hans-Joachim Schoeps more than two decades ago.
Second, the fact of the panic rewriting of the two pages, as a result of public pressure,
definitively established points that should be made when people ask such
questions as “why do even the Germans concede the reality of the six million
murders” or “why do the historians concede them” The market in ideas in this
area is not a free one. Throughout the world, there are at least informal and unofficial
barriers to free expression and discussion.
In some countries, especially in Germany, there are also formal and legally enforced
barriers. That fact has already been noted here, but late 1978 saw the initiation
in Germany of a great new wave of repression. In that country there exists the
concept of “youth-menacing media” (jugendgefährdende Medien). It is something
like the “X rating” concept in the USA, except that its application is supervised by
the government and not almost entirely restricted to pornography. In theory, the
law is supposed to prevent only the availability of things to youth, but when non-
489
490
491
492
493
372
Spotlight (Washington), May 8, 1978.
Rassinier (1978).
Rassinier (1979).
Der Spiegel, December 4, 1978, p. 14f.
Der Spiegel, April 9, 1979, p. 232ff; National Zeitung (Munich), February 16, 1979, p. 6.