Arthur R. Butz – The Hoax Of The Twentieth Century

Arthur R. Butz, The Hoax of the Twentieth Century
lowed at Auschwitz, and found that he was consequently obliged to reject important
details in the accounts of two star “witnesses”: Commandant Rudolf Höss,
who was supposedly in charge of the whole operation, and Dr. Nyiszli. 570 In the
course of his exposition, he notes additional problems with the standard testimonies.
I am reminded of one of those old cartoons showing a man sawing off the
tree branch he’s sitting on. As we shall see, even on the basis of the concerns he
raised in his book, Pressac should have come down much harder on the alleged
eyewitnesses.
In summary, what Pressac offers is (a) an admission that the gassings at
Auschwitz cannot be proven by forensic means, (b) admissions that the usual alleged
witnesses to exterminations are at least unreliable, and (c) a collection of
German documents, ambiguous when taken out of context, that provide what he
calls “criminal traces” of exterminations. These three points have been the foci of
the earlier critiques of Pressac’s book.
Pressac’s book is entirely dedicated to supporting his claim that the wartime
German authorities at Auschwitz constructed and operated homicidal gas chambers
there. He cannot, and does not even try, to connect such operations to any
policy emanating from Berlin. Nor does he try to show that there existed a threeyear
program employing trains continuously crossing Europe and carrying Jews to
their deaths, unobserved by Allied intelligence agencies, by German military intelligence,
by the Red Cross, by the Vatican, by the Jews facing transport under
German policies, or even by the Jewish leaders outside occupied Europe who
were publicly wailing about “extermination.” 571 Such major historical bounds
having long been established, an opus such as Pressac’s, with its strict focus on
local questions, is the only kind of anti-revisionist essay possible.
Such an author is in the position of a man who would prove that there was a
recent war between Illinois and Indiana by scouring the countryside for spent firearms
casings. It is not necessary to play his game of dropping all historical context
in order to focus on a purely local matter, but a review of his book can do naught
else. Nevertheless, I shall show that the objection that Pressac has dropped context
holds even if we agree to play his game. That is, given the restriction of his
view to Auschwitz, Pressac still focuses on local matters out of context, this time
of the concentration camp in its full dimensions.
The Crematories
In my view, page 184 of Pressac’s book is crucial. Here we are told: 572
1. Mass gassings of Jews in “Bunker 1” (located near the newly built Birkenau
section of the Auschwitz camp), commenced in 1942, possibly in January
but certainly by mid-May.
2. On February 27, 1942 it was decided that the new 15-muffle Crematory II
would be built at Birkenau rather than at the Stammlager (main or original
570
571
572
410
Pressac, pp. 16, 53.
See Supplement 2 here.
Pressac, p. 132.