Arthur R. Butz – The Hoax Of The Twentieth Century

Chapter 3: Washington and New York
ertheless.
Murderous things were said on both sides, and in my opinion and dim recollection
of the times, the rhetoric in the U.S. (especially in regard to the Japanese)
seems to me to have been more violent than anything that now seems to have been
current in Germany during the war, although such a comparison is difficult and
perhaps should not be attempted in regard to degree, on account of the very different
roles played by “public opinion” and by the statements of political leaders
in the two political systems involved.
On the Axis side, one should also note that Fascist Italy had various anti-
Jewish laws that were however very mild in application and certainly never approached
murder. Nevertheless, the anti-Jewish rhetoric in the Fascist press was at
least as violent as anything generated in Germany, and assuming the New York
Times (October 22, 1941) reported accurately, it even advocated that all Italian
Jews be “annihilated as a danger to the internal front,” because “this is the moment
to do away with half-way measures.”
(e) A final point is that one must use some common sense and a feeling for the
context in interpreting references to “extermination” and “annihilation” properly.
In the American Civil War, many wanted Lincoln to “annihilate” the South, and it
is not inaccurate English to say that Lincoln did just that, but it was understood,
then as now, that the killing of all Southerners was not contemplated.
Naturally, the same observation may be made in connection with public declarations
of Nazi leaders, but there is an additional point to be made in this connection.
Very often the Jews were referred to via the German word das Judentum,
one of whose correct translations is “Jewry,” but which can also mean “Judaism”
or even “Jewishness” or “the idea of Jewishness.” Thus, a Hitler reference to “die
Vernichtung des Judentums,” if lifted out of context and interpreted in a purely
literal way, can be interpreted as meaning the killing of all Jews, but it can also be
interpreted as meaning the destruction of Jewish influence and power, which is
what the politician Hitler actually meant by such a remark, although it is true that
he could have chosen his words more carefully. Alfred Rosenberg made specific
reference to this ambiguity in his IMT testimony, where he argued that “die Ausrottung
des Judentums,” a term he had used on occasion, was not a reference to
killing in the context in which Rosenberg had used it.
The lengthy digression made necessary by Goebbels’ “Ausrottung” remark being
concluded, we return to the survey of stories in The New York Times for 1942-
1943.
June 14, 1942, p. 1: “258 JEWS REPORTED SLAIN IN BERLIN FOR BOMB PLOT AT
ANTI-RED EXHIBIT
by George Axelsson – by telephone to the New York Times Stockholm,
Sweden, June 13. At the Gross Lichterfelde Barracks in the western suburbs of
Berlin 258 Jews were put to death by the SS on May 28, and their families deported,
in retaliation for an alleged Jewish plot to blow up the anti-Bolshevist
‘Soviet Paradise’ exhibition at the Lustgarten. […] If there were any bombs,
they evidently were discovered before they had time to explode. […] The SS
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