Arthur R. Butz – The Hoax Of The Twentieth Century

Arthur R. Butz, The Hoax of the Twentieth Century
cidal interpretation on Crematoria II and III; according to this theory, the victims
would undress themselves in LK 2 and then be gassed in LK 1.
It seems hard to believe these were “slips,” because they were so frequently
committed. Jährling used this designation in a document of 6 March 1943, and
then Messing used it in three documents later in March. If these were “slips”, it
would seem that by this time the bosses would have told them to clean up their
language. They evidently didn’t, because Messing used the designation in two
more documents in April. 698
The truth about the undressing is much more prosaic. Pressac believes that,
when the Germans viewed Crematoria II and III as ordinary crematoria, then the
sequence of processing bodies was contemplated to be LK 3 to LK 2 to LK 1, but
that LK 3 was eventually eliminated from the regular sequence. 699 However that
may be, if the dead bodies were contemplated to start in LK 2, they would then be
undressed there. 700 They would be stored in LK 1 while awaiting cremation. Presumably,
LK 3 was only used when a body needed some sort of special processing,
e.g. dissection or the famous extraction of gold fillings from teeth.
I am struck by the humorous simplicity of the theory offered here.
In March 1997, Samuel Crowell also proposed an interpretation of LK 1 as a
gas shelter that goes far beyond, and in some respects departs on secondary levels
from, the interpretations proposed here. Crowell’s theory is to be found at the
Web site of CODOH (Committee for Open Debate of the Holocaust). 701 He went
beyond my theory in two principal respects. First, he attributed to Crematoria II
and III a broader role within the air raid/gas shelter paradigm. For example, showers
and undressing are interpreted by him in terms of “decontamination”, a feature
of that paradigm. Second, he interpreted features of Crematoria IV and V in terms
of air raid and gas shelters, matters on which he cites much contemporaneous
German literature. Crowell has bitten off a big piece, and evaluation of his theories
will take time. I believe he tends at points to over-hasty interpretation in terms
of air raid and gas shelters, without adequate consideration of alternative interpretations,
but my hunch is that he is mostly right.
698
699
700
701
448
Pressac (1989), pp. 431-435, 438f.
Pressac (1989) 284ff. Of course, revisionists hold that they always were ordinary crematoria.
Faurisson, op. cit., pp. 49f., advanced this interpretation but only tentatively, because he had not
been able to verify that the word “Auskleideraum” is used that way in the special terminology of
morgues (that seems to be what Faurisson meant). I do not think the question is important, because
there is no reason to assume that Jährling (a heating technician employed by the SS) and
Messing (a fitter employed by the Topf company that was providing the crematorium ovens)
cared very much about the special terminology of morgues. I have spent many years with engineers,
and I know they tend to express themselves without great concern for lexical standards,
especially outside their own fields. Jährling and Messing could never have suspected that their
hasty words would be subject to such contentious scrutiny half a century later!
www.codoh.com/incon/inconpressac.html