Arthur R. Butz – The Hoax Of The Twentieth Century

Arthur R. Butz, The Hoax of the Twentieth Century
the Red Cross delegate had been at the camp for two days, he had apparently been
too busy to learn of this train while at the camp and learned of it from the general.
With its mission thus defined, the column set off for the camp. On the way, the
delegate was able to ask a Major Every to communicate to the general the agreement
for the transfer of the camp, but apparently this attempt to communicate
with the general was not successful.
On arrival at the camp, they found that some Americans had already arrived,
the German guards in the towers had been replaced and all the Germans had surrendered.
The inmates were in great disorder and some were armed; shots were
fired at SS guards and this resulted in some killed on both sides. The delegate was
finally able to gain the attention of the general to present the plan for the transfer
of the camp. The general assented to the plan, but the German prisoners were not
allowed to leave anyway, and many of them suffered at the hands of inmates seeking
vengeance. As many of the inmates were disarmed as possible, but this did not
end the disorders. Some inmates embraced the American soldiers while others
tore down barbed wire fences and escaped. Some shots were fired by the Americans
over the heads of inmates, and an uneasy calm was finally reached by 10
p.m. There were, however, occasional shots fired during the following night. The
following day, April 30, it was possible to pass out adequate food and on the next
day, Tuesday May 1, some members of the ICRC legation arrived and, according
to the delegate, they visited not only piles of corpses but “equally the execution
chamber, the gas chamber, the crematory ovens, etc.” 80
The preceding is a summary of the report of the Red Cross delegate. It contains
no assertions similar to later assertions made independently by former inmates
Johann M. Lenz and Nerin E. Gun, both of whom claim that the Americans,
on arrival, started killing all SS guards in sight (unquestionably at least an exaggeration).
81 Gun claims that this policy even extended to the dogs in the kennels,
while Lenz claims that the general ordered a two hour bombardment of the defenseless
town of Dachau (he was eventually dissuaded from this) in retaliation
for the bodies which had been found lying around. 82 If there is any truth to these
claims, the ICRC delegate made a fairly significant omission in his report.
It is very important to recognize what the Red Cross delegate refers to as the
“gas chamber” in his report. The tone of the delegate’s report is tongue-in-cheek
and contemptuous at several points, for it was written in defensive awareness of
all the drivel that was being given mass circulation in the press. Thus, he remarks,
in connection with the bodies found on the train at Dachau, that “many of these
men had been killed while the others were probably dead of hunger.” Also, while
the delegate is happy to pass along the names of le lieutenant Wickert and le major
Every and others, he refuses to mention the name of the U.S. commander (apparently
either Linden or Patek), who is referred to only as “le general.”
80
81
82
Red Cross (1947), 144-146, 149-152.
Editor’s note: This massacre was photographed by the U.S. troops, see Fig. 21, bottom right.
Compare also Howard A. Buechner, Dachau; see also Dachauer Hefte, 1985, issue 1: “Die Befreiung”.
Lenz, 270; Gun, 63-64.
64