The Persecution of G

Germar Rudolf sentenced to 30 months prison
“Adelaide Institute”
www.adelaideinstitute.org
Friday, 16 Mar 2007

On 15 March 2007 the Mannheim District Court handed down a 30 months prison sentence to the world’s leading Revisionist and publisher - in stark contrast to the sentence a Mannheim court a month earlier imposed on veteran Revisionist Ernst Zündel who received the maximum of five years. Both men have made it their life’s work to set the record straight about that vile allegation leveled against Germans that during World War two they exterminated six million European Jews in homicidal gas chambers. Zündel has been at it for almost half a century and Rudolf since the late 1980s.

In today’s The Australian newspaper the feature article discusses the Palestinian plight. In “Israel’s secret Gaza servants‚” Martin Chulov speaks with two Hamas executioners who reveal to him “how they hunted down and killed Palestinians- as a warning to other traitors”. The usual lures ensnared individuals to become traitors to the Palestinian cause: sex and money. In their battle for supremacy over the Palestinians, the Israelis have begun to target individuals with such soft weapons - a far more effective attack on the Palestinians than brute force, which the world, via the Internet, can observe without hindrance.

So, what relevance has the above to Revisionists? It goes to the heart of character and values! I am reminded what Ernst Zündel advised me years ago, that if you are into historical Revisionism, then this is a war, and so it is advisable not to have moral failings, such as sexual, drug or any material addictions. Spending time in jail is to be expected and not to be feared, and a fact that needs to be considered when embarking on this intellectual adventure, as Robert Faurisson termed it. Interestingly, Art Butz’s The Hoax of the Twentieth Century, first published in 1977 still remains definitive. Although weathering all kinds of personal public attacks in the media Art Butz still retains his professorship at a Chicago university - and no-one to date has refuted his book’s basic premise: that the homicidal gas chambers never existed and that Germans never had an official extermination policy.

Udo Walendy published his Historische Tatsachen until ordered by a court to desist, and after spending some years in prison, which he did on account of his age - he celebrated his 80th birthday this year. Siegfried Verbeke continued to publish and disseminate Revisionist material and is currently locked up in a Belgium prison, i.e. after last year spending some months at Heidelberg prison. Günter Deckert spent close to five years in a German prison because he had invited Fred Leuchter to address his Weinheim group on the 1988 published The Leuchter Report. Deckert, it was alleged, smirked or sneered while translating, thereby disparaging the memory of the dead! Then from prison he wrote a letter to a Mr Mannheim, who was traveling around German schools talking about his escapes from Auschwitz, etc. In his letter Deckert asked Mr Mannheim 12 questions, and Mr Mannheim felt hurt by the letter’s contents and took it to the police. This writing of a letter and asking questions earned Deckert another three months. I took up this matter and sent my views on the Deckert case to a number of German judges and public prosecutors. It was the contents of this letter that earned me a ten-month sentence in Mannheim in 1999, and the Adelaide Institute website’s content was not taken into consideration. Justice Klaus Kern accepted the push-pull argument, i.e. that material via the Internet is NOT pushed into Germany, but rather that an individual must pull it down from the Internet. A subsequent appeal reversed this decision; thereby my case became a precedent-setting case: German law extended around the globe - much like the Israeli Holocaust law that enables the Zionist-racist state to demand extradition to Israel of anyone and anywhere in the world who refuses to believe in the “Holocaust‚”

The December 2006 Teheran Holocaust Conference that aimed to review the “Holocaust” has been the single most significant event within the last decade, and it followed closely on Germar Rudolf in 2000 beginning his publishing of the Holocaust Handbook series - about 21 published volumes and as many waiting to be published ˆ now waiting for Germar to return to the USA and continue his work there. Anyone who believes in the “Holocaust” now needs to wade through these volumes to be informed of the Revisionist argument.

It was sadly noted that only Michael Collins Piper from the USA made it to the Teheran Holocaust conference, Patrick McNally and Bradley Smith do not live in the USA. American Revisionists such as Michael Hoffmann, Paul Grubach, Michael Santomauro and Mark Weber, to name only a few, would not take the risk of traveling to Teheran for fear of being pursued by their own internal security forces for having traveled to a country that the US president labels “Axis of Evil”.

So, what will Germar do once released from prison? Will he continue the Revisionist enterprise and continue where he left off, and seek out Michael Santomauro who has taken over the distribution of his books in the USA, or will Germar continue to pursue his academic career and finally obtain that much-deserved doctorate in science, which the University of Stuttgart withheld from him on account of his having written that definitive Revisionist book: The Rudolf Report?

Well, the human factor has already kicked in because there are now some individuals within the Revisionist ranks who, for whatever reason, claim they have worked out why there is this discrepancy between the Zündel and Rudolf judgment.

Drawing on the early 20 December 2006 David Irving release, speculation is now rife that Germar Rudolf did a deal with the German prosecutors.

According to Dr Schaller, David Irving did a deal with his Austrian defense counsel in the hope of getting out of jail immediately after facing the judge, a week after his 11 November 2006 arrest. Before appearing in front of the judge and before being charged, Irving through his defense counsel, re-canted, i.e. that limited gassings occurred and that Auschwitz had gas chambers. This prior re-canting backfired and did not impress the judges who stooped so low during sentencing that one of them described Irving as a prostitute who had not seen the error of her ways. That such a statement came from a judge is shameful because it scapegoats without going any deeper into the problem of prostitution. I have noticed that men who have a special hatred for prostitutes are lacking a moral dimension where compassion has a home.

After settling down to prison life, so according to Wolfgang Fröhlich who was also spending his time in the Vienna jail, David Irving certainly saw the error of his ways by jettisoning his young defense counsel and reverting to the wise counsel of Dr Schaller for that appeal hearing on 20 December 2006.

Upon Irving’s release on 20 December 2007, something Dr Schaller predicted at the Teheran conference, one of the judges stated that his early release was justified because Irving had stated he now believes in the Holocaust. Of course, once back home in England, Irving stated that he does not now have to show any more remorse about what he has been doing for decades. For some Revisionists such a jumping about with one’s beliefs is tantamount to selling out.

Neither Ernst Zündel nor Germar Rudolf re-canted, and that is befitting of two Germans whose lives are inextricably linked to the odious and oppressive “Holocaust”‚ story, while for British historian, David Irving, the “Holocaust“ remains a symbol of British imperial decline. Since 12 March Irving is in Budapest stirring up the nationalists with his knowledge. After all, Irving’s knowledge as a military historian of World War Two remains unsurpassed and his 30-odd books can be ignored but cannot be dismissed as not having contributed anything to world knowledge.

Interestingly, Georges Theil who also spent time in a French prison for Revisionist work, feels passionately for the German cause and has states as much in his book.

Why was defense counsel Sylvia Stolz removed on the final day of the hearing, and replaced by another lawyer from a Munich legal firm? Why was there this sudden closing of the case that had been set down for a number more days?

On 10 March 2007 I phoned Sylvia Stolz to find out what had happened because the unofficial court report on that day wasn’t privy to what had occurred behind the scene, and thus only offered speculations as to what had happened.

1. Germar Rudolf had said everything he wanted to say and that is why he did not make a final submission to the court and remained silent;

2. Rudolf did not recant in any way. Germar stands by the material he presented to court.

3. Stolz’s removal as a defense counsel from the case was a tactical matter because her task in any subsequent hearing was to contextualize the whole proceedings within an historical framework. It would have drawn parallels with Socrates‚ demise by drinking a cup of poison and with Giordano Bruno’s burning at the stake. This aspect of the Rudolf trial was dispensed with ˆ and instead the focus returned to Germar Rudolf, the scientist, the husband and father.

It is perhaps as a result of Sylvia Stolz from the very beginning of the proceedings adopting the Horst Mahler strategy that this somewhat light sentence came about. In the Zündel case there was no bargaining left at the very end, only more of the same. It is to be noted that Horst Mahler for his troubles is currently also resting in a prison for a total of nine months.

The fact that Germar has from his prison cell attempted to distance himself from overt political Revisionist figures can be seen as his way of retaining that pure scientific focus.

Yet, I am reminded of the Iranian maxim: everything is politics and everything is religion. The Iranian vision of the world ˆWeltanschauungˆ is of course far more all-embracing than our liberal western democratic fractured world where things are divided up and compartmentalized ˆ to the detriment of our holistic appreciation of life itself.

Is it little wonder then that when Western men cry, women generally regard this as a “macho” failing instead of viewing it as a source of strength for compassion and mercy. Islam has enabled men publicly to cry by adopting in its religious ritual observances such a public display of compassion. In the liberal democracies of the western world hat helps individuals to overcome the lack of a wholesome spiritual vacuum is alcohol, psychiatry and consumerism held together by the slave system of predatory capitalism.

As Germar, 42, he has spent much reflective time on himself, especially within the past 16 months. It is said that most men start to think only in their early 30s - and I think there is some truth in this observation. But whatever happens after Germar’s release from prison, I wish him well in his endeavour to re-establish contact with his family from which he was so brutally and unjustly ripped. Any talk about his person, and what he has done ˆ or did not do - for the Revisionist movement, is of secondary nature, though I hasten to add that on numerous occasions he has exclaimed to me that his first love is and always will be REVISIONISM. Whatever happens when he gets out of prison I sense we have not heard the last of Germar Rudolf, the POWERHOUSE of REVISIONISM.

As some hostile “Holocaust” believers advised Revisionists some time ago: get a life beyond REVISIONISM. To that I responded: any thinking person is a REVISIONIST.

So, let’s not diminish the REVISIONIST enterprise because I recall that someone in Sacramento in 2004 stated REVISIONISM IS DEAD. This was quite an accurate statement about that person’s own mental processes because when we stop being revisionists, then we stop to think, and when we stop to think, then we may as well terminate our life of our own free will. I don’t think the REVISIONISTS I know would even contemplate adopting such nihilistic thought patterns. For that we have too much work awaiting us, and so, quoting Germar, let’s get back to work!

From Inside the German Gulag — Political Prisoner Germar Rudolf

Mon, 20 Nov 2006
paul @paulfomm.com

Dear Free Speech Supporter:

Germar Rudolf is a German citizen, married to an American and father of a young daughter. He was deported to Germany and sits there a political prisoner, charged with the “crime” of modern heresy - criticizing Germany’s new state religion of “holocaust.” Rudolf is a talented scientist and gifted publisher and was trained at the Max Planck Institute. Mr. Rudolf has since been moved from Stuttgart to Mannheim prisoner where another political prisoner and fellow publisher Ernst Zundel is also detained.

Paul Fromm
Director
CANADIAN ASSOCIATION FOR FREE EXPRESSION

Germar Rudolf
Asperger Str 60
D-70439 Stuttgart, Germany
October 7, 2006

STUTTGART IS IN MANNHEIM, UNCERTAIN OF THE EXACT ADDRESS, BUT POSSIBLY LIKE ERNST’S:

Germar Rudolf, Prisoner
JVA Mannheim
Herzogenrieder Str 11
68169, Mannheim, Germany

Thanks a lot for your letter of August 30, which I received yesterday, after I had not received any mail for exactly 3 weeks. Such gaps have happened before and the only guess I have is that the person in charge of censoring my mail is on vacation rather frequently, so things pile up unprocessed for weeks in a row.

I assume that your questions relating to my daily routine are meant to extract some answers that you - or Paul - intend to post online or use otherwise, like spreading it to other distributors, which is perfectly fine with me.

Let me, therefore, give you a summary of my weekly life, after I have described to you my cell here, so people can imagine how I live. It includes a sink and a toilet right next to the door. My bed is 6-feet long, which is to say, it is 5 inches shorter than I am. But the mattress on it is 6 feet 6, so that works out. Pillow and blanket are the standard I am used to, and the mattress itself is fortunately harder than I have in the U.S. (They were all way too soft). The bed itself has a plywood board instead of spring box or other fancy bouncing mechanism, which is preferred as well since I like it hard.

Next, I have a locker – without lock though. A chair (of simple and tough design, since man prisoners seem to use it as a missile but it seems to be able to handle it pretty well, I have heard) and a small, rather old table. Next, there are 2 shelf boards. Then there is a neon lamp, a radiator keeping us properly warmed in cold times, and a window I can actually open, with a view out to the courtyard that has a nice lawn and the obligatory 30-feet high wall.

Since I am on the fourth floor, I can barely look over that wall and see some of the surroundings of this Stuttgart suburb. Since the prison is at the very verge of the developed area, I can see some fields and forests close by. I enjoy observing birds coming back to their seasonal life in spring, species I hadn’t seen in so many years, since the U.S. has a completely different fauna. I enjoyed meeting all of my old companions,. The window has, of course, the usual steel bars in front of it plus a steel screen to prevent prisoners from throwing stuff out the window and trading items with other inmates on other levels.

In the meantime, I have turned various cardboard boxes I obtained when buying food supplements to construct a series of additional shelves, in which I can store food, sanitary and medical supplies as well as stationery. Usually, the built-in wooden shelves serve, among other things, to carry a TV that every cell has. But because I would have to pay 14 Euros (some 17 dollars) per month for rent and electricity, I told them to keep it to themselves. So I have no TV. Since I never owned one to begin with, this is no change in my lifestyle.

Now to my daily and weekly routine.

First the every day events. On weekdays, an electronic tri-tone wakes us up at 5:45, which is pretty much around the time I was used to getting up while free as well, so no change, really. Weekends they give us an hour more, but I am up around 6 then as well. Can’t change my habits ). Breakfast is served roughly half an hour later, on which occasion, our doors are opened and food is handed to us. Unfortunately, the regular breakfast is rather poor. We can have bread - either wheat or mixed rye-wheat - and butter plus coffee. I can’t vouch for the coffee’s quality since I hate coffee and never drink it. The bread is always a few days old so people don’t eat too much well-tasting freshly baked bread. Then we receive, alternating each day, either half a liter of long-life milk or some 25 grams of some spread (jam, honey, nutella, the latter two only at weekends). Fridays they give us small 20-gram packs of spread cheese. So, if, say, you eat 2 slices of bread each morning you have to spread 25 grams over 4 slices, which is like giving it only a remote flavor of having anything on it. In the meantime, I was able to purchase some jam, honey and nutella, so my bread doesn’t stay dry half the time. Because of being notoriously underweight, the physician also prescribed three more packs of 1/2-liter of milk per week as well as half a pound of Quark every day (the American reader may ask himself what quark is. It’s not the subatomic particle, which bears the same name, but a mild product gained from the solid parts of sour milked, if I am not mistaken. It’s very rich in protein and fat.) A little of the quark I use to mix with jam and honey on my breakfast bread (I usually eat only one slice right now for lack of exercise, since I hurt my left wrist and had to stop doing upper body exercises).

Next, after breakfast is done, including washing the dishes and brushing teeth, I sweep my apartment and do some ABS and back muscle exercises, during which after each set, I read some philosophical book. At the moment, I am reading Karl R. Popper’s THE LOGIC OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY”, but I have already left some Aristotle’s, Hegel, Schopenhauer and more Popper behind me. I usually read only 2-3 pages between each set, so I don’t get more done than some 15-20 pages in the morning. Since I usually don’t get enough sleep during the night (see later for the reason), I frequently am rather tired after my philosophical workout and I sleep a little more, half and hour so, before we are let out to our daily one-hour courtyard walk at 9:15.

The yard is some 300 x 150 feet and has plenty of lawn. Right now, I am using the first 20 minutes to jog 4 km. Never having been a runner at all - I did some cycling and swimming as cardiovascular activity, but always hated running - I had to start slowly in winter, reaching 4 km only I June (after suffering 2 pulled muscle fibers in my right calf back in January and March during step aerobics on courtyard benches, which are way too high for such exercise).

By now, I have reduced my initial 4 K time from 24 minutes down to 20 minutes and strive to get it as low as 15 minutes in my prison athletic a career. The remaining time outside, I used to take a shower - (there are 6 cold water showers in the yard which nobody except me dares to use any more during that time of the year) and then to socialized with any inmate that can get a straight German sentence - or English, if there is such a chance out of their mouth that makes some sense. That is unfortunately not the rule in such a place, as the average IQ is well below average and the percentage of Germans is even lower. It boils down to rare encounters.

After we are locked up again in our cells, we get lunch roughly half an hour later (11:00 a.m.). During lunch (as well as dinner), I read the various issues of the magazines friendly supporters of mine have subscribed for me: SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, GREENPEACE MAGAZINE, AND three small German magazines in historical and political issues.

After lunch, I usually take a nap of half an hour or maybe even an hour, depending on my constitution. The rest of the day is usually divided into 3 sections: up to 3 p.m. when dinner is dished out, then up to the time I actually eat my dinner, depending on my stomach’s regimen, then up to bedtime. I occupy my time in the afternoon and evening with several activities: answering letters (like this one), translating documents for my upcoming trial, drawing pictures for my wife, the only gift I can make for her. (I bought color pencils for that purpose), listening to music (I was allowed to buy a CD player and have receive a large amount of music CDs from my generous supporters), writing down the lyrics of those I love best, and singing along, sometimes, when I know them well enough, even singing them without any music. I also was able to receive my mother’s mouth harmonica, on which I play some pieces once in a while (I even received a book of German folk songs with notes so I can learn more).

My relatives in the U.S. provide me with SUDOKU puzzles, which I am about to become an addict of, and of course, there is the abundance of books that I work myself through. Currently, I am reading Charles Dickens’ HARD TIMES, Emerson’s ESSENTIAL WRITINGS, and next on my list is Harper Lee’s TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD”. There is no shortage at that front (see www.GermarRudolf.com ).

The end of each day sees me sitting at the table writing a diary entry for my wife, for she receives letters from me ever so often, whenever three sheets of paper have been filled with my thoughts and sorrows of the days. For dinner, we get bread (wheat, wheat-rye, or whole grain), butter some German wurst, which I always despised and tea, of which I drink only fruit teas. Fortunately, they have a wurst exchange program for those not eating this disgusting processed meat, so I get cheese instead, which has always been my favorite, particularly if put on whole grain bread.

Every second day, however, I use the quark I received for breakfast to make myself a nice muesli. I can buy oats, muesli, and all other supplies needed (sugar, fruits, additional milk), so this is quite a bargain, since I was raised not on hamburgers and hot dogs, but on muesli all of my life I ate that at least once a day. Also while being in the U.S. Since we get some salad every third day of lunch, but I cannot eat it then (it would be too much), I make myself a real nice salad every other day for dinner by adding some cut-up cheese, feta (which I can buy), tomatoes (also bought), crouton (self-made by cutting up wheat bread and drying it on the radiator or in the sun on the windowsill, depending on weather and temperature) and a delicious vinegar-sunflower oil-orange juice dressing I crated myself because the vinegar/oil dressing we get with the salads is so boring (and often they add only a few drops leaving the salad rather dry) that in pure desperation, one day I poured some orange juice over that dry salad, only to discover that this was an ingenious invention!

During the summer, I actually managed to grow blue cheese on my cheese, meaning blue cheese fungi cultures, giving me some variety - as a lover of blue cheese, this was quite a pleasure!

Lung, which I forgot to describe, is typically German and of a fine average quality. That is to say: I didn’t have such good food so regularly and often since I left my mother’s home. So I won’t complain about that at all. It is sometimes a little short in calories, but for this I have my supplemental oats that fill the gap. We also eat a desert every day when not getting a salad, which is usually a fruit. That ends up in my muesli. Also, I figured out that there are always some prisoners that do not like to eat their salads or fruits, which I them am happy to bear the responsibility for. So, considering that this is not a four-star hotel, one cannot complain about the food at all, provided one can buy a few supplements that are definitely lacking for breakfast and dinner. And this, as described, is usually possible. I go to bed usually around 11 p.m., needing some 8 hours of sleep, this is one hour too late. But going to bed earlier is not a good idea, because many inmates are very noisy until around 11, when it quiets down considerably. I, therefore, gave up going to bed at a time when I used to go, and put in a few naps here and there during the day instead. That helps also to structure the day a little more, which is very important.

All right, this was the everyday routine. Now to weekly highlights, if you wish. There are the minor organizational events, which I mention only in passing, although they have a curious psychological effect by giving us the feeling of time actually passing, which is important for us desperately looking for the end of the tunnel.

Mondays our cells are cleaned (mopped), but I do not let them do it, since they (the inmate janitors) do a bad job. I insist on doing it myself. I have, by the way, a somewhat unique reputation here in prison for keeping my cell meticulously clean, for instance already by taking my shoes off before entering it, which was unheard of. Well, it’s where I am all day, so I might just as well make it as comfortable for me as I can. Anyway, Tuesdays once a fortnight they exchange our bed linen and sheets. Wednesdays, they change our clothes (I am obliged to wear prison ‘uniform’ , though most prisoners can wear private clothes. The ‘uniform’ consists of rather normal clothes, though: shirt, jeans jacket, jeans trousers, black leather shoes). On Thursdays between 5:30 and 7:00 p.m., the prison choir meets to learn and exercise songs to be performed during church services. I joined some 2 months ago and have already done a solo 2 weeks ago, resulting in “encore” shouts from the barbars in the audience. I used to sing in a young choir back in my early adulthood, but haven’t had any experience since. I love it very much - I always loved singing. So this is a real relief for me emotionally.

Mondays, Thursdays and Sundays between 12:00 and 2:30 p.m. we are allowed to visit other prisoners in their cell (up to 4 inmates allowed per cell). I do not take the opportunity of each of these occasions, simply because there are so few inmates that are to be preferred to spend up to 3 hours with as compared to a good book. For instance. I am in a part of the prison where they jail people who are in investigative custody, awaiting trial, so fluctuation is high. Most people stay only a few months and are never heard of again. After almost a year of that one loses interest in trying to invest into any social relationship, since they are torn apart shortly afterwards anyway. Apart from the fact that the clients here aren’t exactly my cup of tea. Just recently, I had to somehow fend off a guy who used to come to me without announcing it beforehand or asking. He is rather dull chap, I have no real common basis with, so what am I supposed to do with him during 3 hours, when his topics - sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll - are of no interest to me.

If the choir performs, I get to go to 4 church services with the choir during the weekend, otherwise, only to the 1 service assigned to me, or rather I am assigned to. I also just recently applied to partake at the English language “Jesus Group”, which is a religious discussion group for English language speakers, all of which are blacks from African countries, economic refugees. Their pigeon English isn’t exactly prone to improve my English, but it’s better than having no connection to the language of my home of choice at all. Permission to participate is pending, so I don’t know yet when that’ll be and if I am allowed to go to it, because originally, I had so may security measures imposed on me - allegedly for my protection - that I couldn’t do anything apart from going to the daily courtyard walk. But by now, I managed to melt some of the ice locking me into place. I forgot to mention that we can take showers under regular warm water shower showers twice a week (Monday and Thursday). Dermatologically seen taking a shower only twice a week is allegedly sufficiently enough, but my skin thinks otherwise, so after several weeks I started getting pimples all over the place, which I got under control only after exposing my skin to the sun starting in late spring and by taking my daily outdoors shower to clean me of the sweat I produce every day with my workout. But I expect those outside showers to be turned off in a few days or weeks at the latest, once frost threatens. Then we will see if my skin has adapted a little better to deal with its own emanations.

On an irregular basis, I do receive visits (maximum 120 minutes per month) mainly from my ex-wife with my 2 German kids and by all kinds of supporters and fans, organized by a friend who has taken responsibility to get this in shape and prevent chaos. During summer break in the U.S., my wife who is a teacher came with my baby daughter to see me as often as she could, back in June-August. Now I can call her once a month for 15 minutes. That’s not much, but an improvement compared to the first half year, when we corresponded only by letter. Finally, I have to go down to the “chamber” frequently to pick up books or CDs sent to me in the order of friends and supporters, which is always a nice feeling, like receiving a gift with the message: you are not forgotten and abandoned. The book and CT gift program is organized via the website dedicated to me at www.germarrudolf.com , in order to prevent double items and to distribute the gifts over a reasonable period of time with a moderate density (to prevent getting swamped around my birthday or for Easter/Christmas, but getting forgotten in between).

I guess that pretty much covers my life here. As to this typewriter: I bought it here, costing me 150 Euros. It is an electric machine, using carbon ribbon tapes costing 5 Euros each and lasting merely 16 pages! That’s a rip-off, but textile ribbons could be used to strangle somebody or to lower oneself down the window (after cutting the bars…). I am not quite sure what ridiculous reason they have for not giving us reasonable tapes, but some things just can’t be changed. In case I do not write with the machine, it’s because I ran out of tapes and could not organize new ones. That’s life. Of course, It would be absolutely superb if I could have a computer, but that is a dream yet to come true. But I’ll try to get that organized as well at some point.

As to the situation of my family in the U.S.: I just received a letter from my wife, finding her in the greatest alarm caused by the news from my immigration lawyer that the U.S. government seems to ignore the Federal Court ruling, which had forced the Board of Immigration Appeals to reopen my case and admit my application for adjustment of status to that of a lawful permanent resident due to my marriage with an American citizen. The government seems to give a f… about the law and do whatever pleases them. Not really new to us, is it? But that is only hearsay news from my wife who isn’t privy to the details of my case nor to any immigration matter for that sake, so she may have understood things wrongly. Anyway, one thing is for sure: the administration is at it again in one way or another.

My defense here in the Zionist-Occupied Zone of Europe is crumbling, because the defense lawyer I used to prepare my case with has vanished from my radar. I heard that his wife is dying of lung cancer, hence he has other issues to take care of. That puts me in a bad spot, and I have no clue how my case will take off. But matters are rigged already anyway, so what does it matter at the end of the day? Your taking the side of the Germans is nice, although in the meantime, I am well beyond that point. It’s not a German affair. Or the Palestinians or the Lebanese, for instance, or the Iraqis, and so on. I am not going there in this letter.

Not having a TV, which via cable, also has numerous radio channels, means that I cannot follow news. I also refused to subscribe to a daily newspaper: although, somebody subscribed a small weekly newspaper for me without my consent (as it happened with several periodicals). I simply do not wish to be bothered with the news about any sack of rice toppling over in China and about the insanities in politics and society. It simply drives me up the wall.

Apart, I cannot stand German new media in general. I cannot even stand the German language, and to say I developed a strong dislike against it while in the U.S. can’t help it. It’s the language of my persecutors and torturers. So I despise German radio and TV channels already for their language. I can understand Jews today why they hate the German language, for what it stands for in their minds. It stands for the same thing in my mind.

I had a few letters from Ernst and responded accordingly, but we never rally corresponded intensely at any time of our lives, since there is quite a gap between us in many regards, politically, intellectually. Hence, we have never been each others’ favorite discussion partners. I also assume that his correspondence is restricted, so it is fine with me if he reserves the letters he is allowed to write for those that matter to him and his cause. I hope these revelations don’t’ shock you. Your nostalgic preference for people speaking their own language, even after decades of residing in a foreign country, is an exception, and may I presume it is restricted to certain ethnic groups?

My wife keeps complaining that the Mexican immigrants to the U.S. refuse to speak English and adjust to the U.S. culture (whatever that is). People have their cultural and ethnic preferences and prejudices, no matter how much people claim they are free of them. Nobody is.

I am not writing any memoirs. I am a bit younger than David Irving and intend to wait a little longer before I start writing them. Apart, I already have a kind of biographical sketch out there, in the appendix of my expert report even in English. I have many more things in mind to do once I am out of here, so it would be wrong to start writing something, when the most exciting parts haven’t even been fathomed yet. If writing a dense diary to my wife counts as a memoir, then that is what I am doing. But it is very personal in parts, so it’s not suited for publication, at least not for years to come. New projects, I will aim at once my trial is over and I know how my prison rule will look like, depending greatly on the prison where I will end up. I’ll probably pick up my university studies again, going for another degree or trying to put the knowledge I assembled over the past 15 years to some use in this regard. I already collected lots of paperwork in this regard from various remote colleges, but unless my case is settled, there is no use in getting things going.

All right, I think that’ll do for your distribution. Please clean out my debris field of typos and other mistakes. This machine has no retype features, so once a button is pressed, it’s done and over with, no editing. But I am sure you can and will smooth out the rough spots for me.

Thanks a lot for helping me out staying connected to the world out there. With my best regards also to Paul,

Germar.
—–
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4. One bailiff, five armed uniformed policemen and 2 plainclothes political police (“staschus”);

6. Others: Around 50 spectators whose composition changed from time to time, including Dr. Rolf Kosiek of Grabert Publishing House. Nine schoolchildren were present at opening of morning session, six still present at lunch break, none after lunch.

Judge Schwab opened proceedings and allowed Germar Rudolf to continue speaking. Rudolf informed the Court that he was considering several motions that he wished to discuss with his attorneys, whereupon the Court

Attorney Stolz then objected that Germar had once again been placed in leg irons. Judge Schwab remarked that during the previous session he had ordered the leg irons removed while the prisoner was inside the courthouse. He said he would see to it that in future, Germar would not be transported from Heidelberg Prison in irons.

Germar then had his attorneys distribute to the Court and to Grossmann, photocopies of documents relevant to his Tuesday presentations and augmenting it in detail.

Among these photocopies were supporting statements by the Director of Prisons in the state of Missouri in the USA. Included was an introduction by Prof. Faurisson explaining that the engineer Fred A. Leuchter is the leading expert on homicidal gas chambers in the United States. (This statement was taken from an expert report presented during the trial of Ernst Zündel in Toronto.)

Other documents that Germar presented included plans and photographs of several buildings and parts of buildings of the Auschwitz concentration camp. Here Germar referred to his critically annotated edition of the various Leuchter expert reports.

This publication is available in English under the title Fred A. Leuchter, Robert Faurisson. Germar Rudolf. The Leuchter Reports: Critical Edition. Chicago, USA, 2005. It is dedicated to Ernst Zündel (“For Ernst”) and available at www.vho.org/GB/Books/tlr/

Germar then continued with a chronological account of his life history and accomplishments in establishing a foothold in the USA. This account, which was also presented during proceedings of the first trial day (14 November), is found in his publication Kardinalfragen an Deutschlands Politiker – Aufforderung zur Wiederherstellung der Menschenrechte in Deutschland (Cardinal Questions About Contemporary History) available online at www.vho.org/GB/Books/tlr.

Then came revelations that were completely new (and not just to me!) concerning Germar’s collaborations with Peter Stahl, a nephew of “Gestapo Müller”. Stahl is a citizen of the US and the son of a relative of Müller who immigrated to the US.

Germar wrote these revelations in collaboration with Bob Crowley, a former high ranking member of the FBI who wrote an independent account of the Kennedy assassination.

Crowley’s account inspired Germar to edit and publish a book entitled “Regicide” that thus far has appeared only in English.

GR ascribed his deportation from the USA as being in large part a consequence of publishing this book.

Germar then related that the initial phase of his residence in the US was interrupted by a short stay in Mexico near the residence of Bradley Smith. Smith is the founder of CODOH (Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust) a pioneering organization in support of unfettered historical research and scientific investigation of what Prof. Norman Finkelstein calls the “Holocaust Industry.” Despite advanced age, Smith continues to be very active in the field of historical revisionism.

Germar Rudolf also carried on extensive correspondence with Fritjof Mayer, an editor of Spiegel magazine, who recently published a controversial article on the probable number of Auschwitz deaths in the magazine Südosteuropa.

Germar then described the books he published in 2005, in particular a series on the subject of Auschwitz. The author of these books is the Italian revisionist researcher Carlo Mattagno, whom Germar described as the most knowledgeable researcher of the concentration camps in eastern Europe.

At 12:42 Judge Schwab adjourned the Court for the midday meal, with re-adjournment at 2:00 pm.

At the afternoon session only a single bailiff and two uniformed policemen were present, in addition to the two “staschu” agents.

After describing his scientific and publishing activities, Germar addressed six fundamental issues concerning basic human rights in a free and democratic society.

a) The Scientific Attitude: Germar explained the vital importance of the scientific attitude in human affairs, referring to several prominent authorities cited by the prosecution, who stressed the importance of the “human compulsion to know the truth.” He described himself as an “eternally curious researcher with a compulsion to know, and incapable of submitting to the compulsion to believe, or accept on faith.”

(At this point, Female Judge Number Two dedicated her full attention to massaging her eyes)

b) Forensic Investigations: Germar remarked that the forensic aspects of “Holocaust,” that is, technical examination of the “homicidal gas chamber as murder weapon,” has been completely ignored by established authority for over 40 years.

c) Human Dignity and the Instinct to Learn the Truth: Everyone, including Germar, has the human right to question official veracity. That is simply the right to criticism. In accordance with this inalienable right, Germar is resisting oppression by the State as well as well as official intervention in free and unhindered investigation and research: Kant’s Sapere Aude - Dare to know.)

d) The Nature of the Present German Government: Germar’s position is that the present Federal Republic / Reich / “OMF” (Prof. Carlo Schmid’s “Organizational Form of a Modality of Foreign Rule”) is not a sovereign institution. See www.adelaideinstitute.org/Dissenters1/Mahler/Hennig_engl.htm Furthermore, it subscribes to and enforces mystical taboos. It is neither a democracy nor a nation of laws, but rather a pseudo-democratic dictatorship.

e) The Nature of Science: Scientific validity depends on constant questioning and verification. The Federal Republic / Reich / OMF / is hostile to and intolerant of real science, since it treats all criticism of the Holocaust and Auschwitz taboos as a crime and punishes empirical investigation of them with heavy prison sentences (Deckert: up to 5 years:).

f) The Process of Learning: Mankind learns by the progression from mythos (mythology) to theory, to observation and to the fact. This is the course of human knowledge and understanding; and questioning and criticism are fundamental prerequisites for the advancement of science and knowledge.

Judge Schwab, who had appeared increasingly restless since 3:15 pm, was obviously looking for a point at which to end the day’s session. He adjourned court at 15:35, when Germar arrived at the end of a paragraph. Germar’s trial will be continued on 30 November 2006

A friendly request: whoever reads and circulates this report, which is not a newspaper article written for the “Establishment” media, please be so kind as to mention my name in conjunction with it. Thanks, G.D.

Eröffnung durch den Kammervorsitzenden, der Germar Rudolf (GR) das Wort erteilt. Dieser teilt mit, er habe sich einige Anträge überlegt, die er mit den Verteidigern besprechen möchte. – Die Sitzung wird um 9.07Uhr unterbrochen und um 9.27Uhr fortgesetzt.

RAin Stolz rügt, daß GR erneut mit Fußfesseln vorgeführt worden ist. Vors. Richter Schwab erklärt, er habe bereits das letzte Mal verfügt, daß dies im Gerichtsgebäude zu unterlassen ist. Er werde dafür sorgen, daß künftig keine Vorführung ab Gefängnis Heidelberg in Fußfesseln erfolgt.

GR läßt durch die Anwälte Ablichtungen von Dokumenten***, die Teil, seiner Ausführungen vom Dienstag sind, an das Gericht wie StA Grossmann verteilen und erläutert diese ausführlich.

*** Darunter Empfehlungsschreiben des Gefängnisdirektors des Missouri-Gefängnisses, der Prof. Faurisson Fred A. Leuchter als den führenden Gaskammerfachmann der USA empfohlen hatte – Anmerkung: Es ging um die Erstellung eines Gutachtens für den Prozeß gegen Ernst Zündel (EZ) in Toronto. Weiterhin Pläne und Fotos von wichtigen Gebäuden bzw. Gebäudeteilen des KL Auschwitz/Oczwiecim. – GR verweist in diesem Zusammenhang auf seine kritisch kommentierte Ausgabe sämtlicher Leuchter-Gutachen, leider nur auf Englisch, mit dem Titel „Fred A. Leuchter, Robert Faurisson, Germar Rudolf: The Leuchter Reports – Critical Edition Chicago,2005², USA (.....: Die Leuchter-Berichte – eine kritische Ausgabe..). Die Abhandlung ist wohl Ernst Zündel gewidmet („For Ernst“).

GR fährt mit der zeitlichen Anfolge seines Lebenslaufes und seines Schaffens fort und schildert seine Versuche des Fußfassens in den USA.

Dies wie auch das bereits am ersten Tag, am 14.11., Ausgeführte ist in der GR-Veröffentlichung „Kardinalfragen an Deutschlands Politiker – Aufforderung zur Wiederherstellung der Menschenrechte in Deutschland“ nachzulesen: Castle Hill Publishers (CHP) – Deutsche Bücher / Books in English – POBox 243, GB Uckfield/West Sussex – TN 22 9AW, England (chporder@vho.org / www.vho.org/store/UK, Katalog 2006.

Neu, wohl nicht nur für mich, waren Ausführungen über die Zusammenarbeit mit einem Peter Stahl, einem Neffen von „Gestapo-Müller“ (1), Sohn eines ausgewanderten Müller-Verwandten und damit US-Bürger, der GR mit einem ehemaligen hochrangigen FBI-Mann (Bob Crowley) zusammenbrachte, der eine andere Darstellung der Kennedy-Ermordung lieferte. Dies veranlaßte GR zur Herausgabe eines bislang nur im Englischen erschienenen Buches mit dem Titel „Regiscide“ (Königsmord). Auch hierauf führte er ua. seine Abschiebung aus den USA zurück. – Während dieser ersten Phase des US-Aufenthaltes, unterbrochen durch einen kurzen Aufenthalt in Mexiko in der Nähe von Bradley SMITH (CODOAH), einem trotz seines Alters noch immer sehr rührigen US-Revisionisten, hat auch ein gewisser Fridjof Meyer (Spiegel); Verfasser des berüchtigten Kuraufsatzes in der Zs. Südosteuropa mit ihm Verbindung aufgenommen.

Um 10.50Uhr verfügt der Kammervorsitzende eine „Verschnaufpause“; Wiederbeginn um 11.24Uhr

GR stellt dann die verlegten Bücher des Jahres 2005 vor, vor allem die Reihe zum Thema „AU.....“; Ver-fasser ist der italienische Revisionist Carlo Mattagno, den er als den derzeit besten KL-Kenner im Osten Europas bezeichnete, der mit dem Baseler Jürgen Graf nach der Wende im Osten die wichtigsten Archive im ehemaligen Einflußbereich der UdSSR bereist und „bearbeitet“ hat.

Zu Beginn der Nachmittagsverhandlung sind nur noch ein Gerichtsdiener sowie zwei uniformierte Polizisten neben den beiden „staschu“-Leuten anwesend.

Nach den Ausführungen zur eigenen wissenschaftlichen sowie verlegerischen Arbeit wendet sich GR grundsätzlichen Fragen zu:

a) Frage der WISSENSCHAFTLICHKEIT – Er benennt einige geistige Kronzeugen von Rang und Namen, die alle den „menschlichen Drang zur Wahrheit“ betont hätten. Er stellt sich als der „ewig Neugierige dar, der WISSEN will, statt GLAUBEN ZU MÜSSEN“!

b) Die forensische Seite, d.h. die technische Überprüfung der „Mordwaffe Gaskammer“, sei seit

c) Wahrheitstrieb und Menschenwürde - Jeder Mensch, auch er, habe das Menschenrecht auf Zweifel, auf Kritik. Insofern wehre er sich gegen die staatliche Unterdrückung sowie gegen die Eingriffe in die freie und ungehinderte Forschung – Kant: „Wage zu wissen!“ (Sapere aude)

d) Die heutige brd(dr) sei eine geschlossene Gesellschaft, die an magische Tabus glaube. Sie sei weder eine Demokratie noch ein Rechtsstaat, sondern eine „demokratische Diktatur“

e) Wissenschaft bedeute ständiges Fragen und Hinterfragen. Der brddr-Staat sei wissenschaftsfeindlich, da er jede Kritik an diesem TABU, gemeint „Holo.... / Au.....“, als Verbrechen, als Straftat einstufe und unter Strafe stelle (bis zu 5 Jahre / der Berichterstatter)

f) Von der Mythologie (Mythos) zur Theorie über die Beobachtung zur Tatsache! Das sei der richtige Weg. Insofern seien Zweifel, in Frage stellen wie Kritik ein Grundanliegen, eine Grundanforderung der bzw. an die Wissenschaft.

Richter Schwab, der ab 15.15Uhr bereits „unruhig wirkt“, such nach einem Grund für die Beendigung Da GR zu einem Abschnitt kommt, schließt er um 15.35Uhr die Sitzung.

Danger in Denying Holocaust?

A revisionist is accusing a prominent critic of the movement of libel. Scholars and survivors say the evidence is irrefutable, but those who question extent of horrors say they pay a price.

By KIM MURPHY, Times Staff Writer


Rudolf, a doctoral candidate at Stuttgart University, concluded that large numbers of Jews may have died of typhoid, starvation and murder at Europe's most famous World War II death camp, but none of them died in a gas chamber.

A young German chemist named Germar Rudolf took crumbling bits of plaster from the walls of Auschwitz in 1993 and sent them to a lab for analysis. There were plenty of traces of cyanide gas in the delousing chambers where Nazi camp commanders had had blankets and clothing fumigated. There was up to a thousand times less in the rooms described as human gas chambers.

Rudolf, a doctoral candidate at Stuttgart University, concluded that large numbers of Jews may have died of typhoid, starvation and murder at Europe's most famous World War II death camp, but none of them died in a gas chamber.

When a report on his findings--commissioned by a former Third Reich general--got out, Rudolf lost his job at the respected Max Planck Institute and his doctoral degree was put on hold. He was sentenced to 14 months in prison under a 1985 German law making it a crime to incite racial hatred, his landlord kicked him out, he fled into exile and his wife filed for divorce.

There are many who say Rudolf got exactly what he deserved. But to the increasingly vocal movement of Holocaust deniers and revisionists, Rudolf stands as a crucial figure because of what he represents: a highly trained chemist who purports--despite a wide variety of scientific evidence to the contrary--to have physical proof that the gas chambers at Auschwitz did not exist.

Over the last decade, supporters of such theories have scrutinized hundreds of thousands of pages of Third Reich documents and diaries made available after the collapse of the Soviet Union. They have analyzed gas chamber construction. They have pinpointed contradictions and hard-to-believe details in stories told by camp survivors and, amid nearly universal scorn from the academic establishment, won testimonials for some of their work from academics at respected institutions, such as Northwestern University and the University of Lyon.

The revisionists, whose theories will be at the center of a high-profile libel trial scheduled to begin Tuesday in London, are not operating in a vacuum. A 1993 poll by the Roper Organization found that 22% of Americans thought it possible that the Holocaust never happened.

The theorists contend that far fewer than 6 million Jews died in Europe during World War II--and that most of those who died did so through starvation, disease and ad hoc executions carried out by lower-level Nazi officers.

That scenario has been almost universally dismissed as a flawed misreading of history, cooked up out of deep-seated anti-Semitism. Indeed, at least two dozen people have been prosecuted in Germany, France, Spain, Austria, Poland and Canada since 1990 under various laws prohibiting racial hatred and the defaming of the memory of those who died in Nazi death camps for even questioning what has become one of the defining horrors of the modern age.

Now one of the leading deniers of the Holocaust, British historian David Irving, is striking back, suing the most prominent critic of the movement, Emory University professor Deborah Lipstadt, for libel. The trial is likely to feature many of the world's premier WWII historians weighing in on the mechanics, logistics, chain of command and blueprints for the extermination of millions of European Jews.

In her book, "Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory," Lipstadt accuses Irving of skewing documents and misrepresenting data. The book quotes analysts who describe his work as "closer to theology or mythology than to history." As a British citizen, Irving can take advantage of British libel law, which places much of the burden on Lipstadt to prove her book did not libel the historian. Irving says his lawsuit will prove Lipstadt's book is part of an international Jewish campaign to discredit him.

Irving, author of biographies of Adolf Hitler and his propaganda chief, Joseph Goebbels, has argued that Hitler has never been found to have ordered a massive extermination of the Jews and, in fact, tried to stop some of the killings. He has described Auschwitz as "a very brutal slave labor camp, where probably 100,000 Jews died." And not unlike U.S. Reform Party presidential candidate Patrick J. Buchanan, he asserts the world would have been better served if Winston Churchill had accepted Hitler's peace overtures in 1940 and allowed Hitler to fight it out with Josef Stalin in Russia.

Confronting Deniers' Arguments Head-On

Lipstadt was among the first in the American Jewish community to abandon the long-standing practice of ignoring the Holocaust deniers, choosing instead to confront their arguments head-on. Her book accuses Irving of misreading documents and distorting facts.

Historians she quotes have said Irving ignores the fact that the Nazis deliberately avoided a paper trail and that it is quite plausible that Hitler would never personally have affixed his signature to the Final Solution.

She cites accusations by prominent British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper that Irving "seizes on a small and dubious particle of 'evidence' " and allegedly uses it "to dismiss far more substantial evidence that may not support his thesis."

"There are more people in the United States who believe that Elvis Presley is alive than who believe the Holocaust didn't happen. As an American, that's a demi-consolation," Lipstadt said in an interview. "But I see it as a clear and future danger. The future danger is when there are no people left who can say in the first-person singular, 'This is what happened to me,' it's going to be much easier to deny it."

For Irving, who is regarded in some mainstream quarters as one of the premier documentarians of the Third Reich, it is an issue of professional vindication. It is no accident, he says, that he has been banned from even entering Canada, Italy, Germany and Austria because of Holocaust denial laws in those countries. "They regard me as dangerous, and the word 'dangerous' puzzles me," he said. "I don't go around punching people in the face ... 'Dangerous' can only mean dangerous to their interests, either in the long term or the short term.

"In the end, it isn't really a question of whether it's 6 million or only 1 million" Jews who died. "I think the figures have been inflated, and the significance of the inflation is that the Jewish community is trying to make out that their suffering is unique in its grandeur and the methods applied to achieve it. And it wasn't. It was just one of the many barbarisms committed under the cloak of war."

Some revisions in Holocaust history have been generally accepted. Stories that Jewish remains were manufactured into soap and lampshades have been dismissed as myth. There were, most historians now agree, no human gasings at Dachau. Deaths at Auschwitz, once estimated, based on the testimony of Nazi commanders, at up to 3 million have been scaled back to about 1.1 million. Even the widely accepted figure of 6 million Jewish dead all over Europe has been questioned in recent years by some of the world's most prominent Holocaust scholars.

Raul Hilberg and Robert Jan van Pelt, two of the leading authorities, now believe the figure is probably closer to 5.1 million.

Still, scholars say, the evidence of a massive extermination campaign that resulted in the deaths of millions of Jews is so exhaustive that it is irrefutable.

It includes detailed stories from camp survivors, confessions and memoirs from Nazi commandants (including Auschwitz commander Rudolf Hoess), testimony of Jewish prisoners who removed bodies from the gas chambers, blueprints uncovered from newly opened archives in Moscow that document construction of the gas chambers, records from the contractors who built the gas chambers and orders for large quantities of hydrogen cyanide gas, far more than would have been needed for fumigation, according to Van Pelt and others.

There is the sheer number of Jews who arrived at the camps and never left, far more than could have fallen victim to disease or starvation, most historians believe.

Since when, Lipstadt wants to know, does anyone in the name of academic inquiry have the right to claim there is "another side" to the Holocaust debate? And why is there even a debate?

To this, Rudolf, who could be called as a witness at the trial, says that no issue of history should be exempt from reexamination--even if it pains the victims.

In convicting him, Rudolf says, the court took no notice of prominent German military historian Joachim Hoffman, who credited the quality of Rudolf's research and said that to suppress it would "work a powerful hindrance to legitimate striving for scientific understanding." The court apparently was moved, however, by a preface by the former Third Reich general who had commissioned Rudolf to do the research, Otto Ernst Remer, who in 1992 himself was sentenced to prison for incitement to racial hatred.

Could a report commissioned by a man like Remer--who once joked while sniffing a cigarette lighter that he was mimicking "a Jew nostalgic for Auschwitz"--ever be a justifiable contribution to scientific literature?

More to the point, says Irving, should there be political limits on academic inquiry?

"I think, by the end of this case, the word 'scholarship' will come to stink," Irving predicts. "Scholars tend to award that accolade to each other. And their scholarship usually consists of sitting in libraries reading each others' books."

"I think, by the end of this case, the word 'scholarship' will come to stink," Irving predicts. "Scholars tend to award that accolade to each other. And their scholarship usually consists of sitting in libraries reading each others' books."

Irving prides himself on relying on primary sources for his biographies: interviews or diaries of the principals, radio transmission intercepts, memorandums. In the case of his book "Hitler's War," Irving interviewed in detail most of the surviving members of Hitler's staff and only used documents that would have crossed Hitler's desk.

In the process, Irving said he did not come across a single document or interview that indicated Hitler had ordered a campaign to exterminate the Jews.

"Others who have come across with something have looser criteria than I do, like the Nuremberg trials ... I won't accept that. Not standing by itself," he said.

Irving's numerous critics say he fails to address the fact that the extermination campaign was carried out in deliberate secrecy, without written orders. SS chief Heinrich Himmler "explicitly forbade all discussion of it, and if it had to be mentioned, it was always disguised as 'resettlement' or 'transport to the east,' " Trevor-Roper pointed out in a review of Irving's book.

St. Martin's Press abruptly dropped plans to publish Irving's controversial biography of Goebbels in 1996 in the wake of a storm of criticism from reviewers, the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith and even, according to some employees, telephone death threats against the book's editor. Thomas McCormack, chairman of the publishing house, said he read the book and found it "repellent [and] effectively anti-Semitic." When the Doubleday Military Book Club backed out as well, Irving self-published the book, calling the whole affair "the most extraordinary treatment of a historian since what the Iranians did to Salman Rushdie."

Yet Irving has his admirers as well. Christopher Hitchens, writing of Irving's work in Vanity Fair, called him "not just a Fascist historian, [but] ... also a great historian of Fascism." Gordon A. Craig, considered the dean of German historians, acknowledged that Irving has been an "annoyance" but said: "The fact is that he knows more about national socialism than most professional scholars in his field." His book on Hitler, Craig said, "remains the best study we have of the German side of the Second World War."

On the advice of her lawyers, Lipstadt won't discuss Irving or the upcoming trial. But she did say there is a danger in allowing what she calls Holocaust deniers to wear the mantle of legitimate revisionists -- those who look at accepted history and raise new and often enlightening questions.

Political Agenda Cited by Lipstadt

"There's a definite political agenda," she said. "This is not just Looney Tunes history. These are people who want to make national socialism respectable again. And how do you make a thoroughly discredited movement respectable?

"First of all, you deal with moral equivalencies. You say, 'Oh yes, the Germans bombed London, but the Allies bombed Dresden. There were Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz, but the Americans had camps for the Americans of Japanese descent.' But there's no moral equivalency for them to bring up about the Holocaust. So instead, they are left denying the Holocaust. And denying it in such a way that you almost hear them saying, 'It didn't happen, but it should have.' "

Van Pelt, who is considered one of the world's leading authorities on Auschwitz, prepared an 800-page report on the death camp for the trial. "The whole idea of trying to prove the Holocaust is, for me, a kind of ridiculous exercise. But in some ways, it forces historians to show what they can do. I think the case has forced me ... to look at things I preferred not to look at in the past," he said.

Van Pelt now can tell you how the gas chambers operated, how the capsules of Zyklon B were dropped in the ceiling vents, how the bodies were hauled out, and how long it took human beings to die at what concentrations of gas (about 35 minutes, in most cases).

Van Pelt's new report has not yet been made public, and Rudolf has not responded to it. "I can deal with Himmler. I can deal with Hoess. There's a certain kind of naive honesty in what they do, however evil it is," Van Pelt said. "But the contortions and complete fabrications of these deniers is obscene.

"What they do is take all kinds of very straightforward evidence and basically turn it upside down. And it's an incredible effort to simply sit there and take every sentence they write and compare it to the record. . . . It doesn't help you to understand anything except the contortions of their minds. And their minds are not very interesting."