London in May of this year, quoted Irving as saying, "I hope
      the court will fight a battle for the German people and put an
      end to the blood lie of the Holocaust which has been told
      against this country for 50 years."
      Irving first entered the headlines in 1970.
      * Incorrect. Ever since 1963 my books have been
      the subject of wide comment and much praise in
      the British media.
      In July of that year, he was forced to apologize in the High
      Court of London for "making a wholly untrue and highly
      damaging statement about a woman writer."--not an
      auspicious start for someone who claims to be in pursuit of the
      truth.
      * Correct. A Sunday Express journalist, Jill -----,
      stated that Rolf Hochhuth, the German playwright
      and one of my closest friends had granted her an
      exclusive interview. Hochhuth assured me he had
      not even spoken to her. I mentioned this in a letter
      to the newspaper's editor. She sued. As I was
      fighting the hideously costly PQ.17 Libel Action at
      the time, I had no alternative but to settle out of
      court-- "shortening the front," is what military
      commanders call such action. Make of that what
      you will. Nothing has been heard of that
      "journalist" since.
      Later that year, Irving was back in the headlines, concerning
      publication of his book, "The Destruction of Convoy PQ17".
      Ostensibly an expose of an ill-fated 1942 Arctic convoy
      headed for the Soviet Union during World War II, it eventually
      resulted in Irving being fined 40,000 British pounds for libel.
      * Incorrect. In actions for Libel--a tort--the defendant
      is not fined, but can be required to pay damages.
      The book was published by Simon Schuster and
      other leading pubishers around the world. Not bad
      for an "historian", eh?
      Irving's book faulted Captain John Broome, commander of the
      convoy at the time, saying he was guilty of "downright
      disobedience" and "downright desertion of the convoy."
      * Incorrect. No such allegations or quotations are
      contained within the book.
      Broome brought suit against Irving for false statements, and
      won a judgment in August of 1970. Irving's lawyers appealed,
      and lost in March, 1971.
      * Correct. We then appealed to the House of Lords,
      twice, and lost 4-to-3,which is a pretty close call.
      Needless to say the insurers of Cassell Co Ltd,
      the British publishers, would not have authorised
      such defence actions had their counsel not studied
      all the documents available and concluded that we
      had a powerful defence, based on the Admiralty
      records; this they in fact did, and wrote Opinions to
      that effect. Libel actions in Britain are tried by jury.
      Make of that what you will.
      The case is revealing because of what it says about Irving's
      abilities as a historian and his motives as an author.
      According to The Times of London, Irving showed a copy of
      the manuscript to Broome before publication.
      * Correct. I showed the late Captain Broome the
      mansucript in 1966, and he agreed to read it and
      make comment (as did a score of other officers
      involved); breaking his undertaking, he alone
      decided not to co-operate, but to wait for
      publication and then sue for profit. So be it.
      Broome objected to the accuracy of some thirty passages in
      the book, and threatened to sue for libel if Irving did not make
      changes.
      * Incorrect. He objected in reality to six words
      ("Captain Broome was a broken man"), and after
      these words were expunged, years later, his
      lawyers permitted the book's republication by
      William Kimber Ltd.
      At that point, William Kimbers Ltd., Irving's publisher, notified
      him that they would not publish the book as it was then
      written.
      * Incorrect. I was in dispute with William Kimber
      after they paid me only J67 instead of the agreed
      fee of J200 for translating the book, The Memoirs
      or Field-Marshal Wilhelm Keitel. This being so, I
      removed the PQ17 manuscript physically from
      their offices; Kimber's secretary came running
      down the street after me, pleading for me to return
      it. I keep a very detailed diary of events. In court,
      Kimber, already probably suffering from the
      Parkinsonism from which he later died, gave a
      totally different version, namely yours; he later
      apologised to me, which did not assist me much of
      course. Unfortunately, our counsel elected to call
      no witnesses in the case but to rest securely on the
      Admiralty documents.
      Later, Irving published the book with another publisher.
      The court found that Irving "was warned from most
      responsible quarters that his book contained libels on Captain
      Broome ... To make [the book] a success he was ready to risk
      libel actions ... Documentary evidence .... showed that [Irving]
      had deliberately set out to attack Captain Broome and in spite
      of the most explicit warnings persisted in his attack because it
      would help sell the book." The court labeled Irving's conduct
      as "outrageous and shocking."
      Irving's misrepresentations did not end with the publication of
      his book. According to Cesarani, in 1979 a German publisher
      had to pay compensation to the father of Anne Frank after
      printing the German edition of Irving's book, Hitler's War. Irving
      had claimed that Anne Frank's diary was a forgery.
      * Correct as written. Without consulting me, the
      Ullstein Verlag publishing firm, part of the
      pro-Israeli Axel Springer Group) made some
      unspecified payment to Otto Frank at his demand. I
      had already halted production and publication of
      the book for other reasons (tampering by Ullstein
      with my text). The German Bundeskriminalamt
      found that parts of the diary had been written in
      (post-war) ballpoint ink-paste, which made its
      authenticity problematic. My opinion on it now is
      ambivalent: it is unimportant, not a historical
      document of any value.
      Irving claims that according to his "research", the Holocaust is
      greatly exaggerated.
      * Correct. I think the figures have been magnified
      by an Order of Magnitude. Events in Auschwitz
      alone suggest that I am right:: here the figure has
      been effortlessly brought down from 4 million to 1
      million, and now to even less.
      (He was recently quoted in the K-W Record as saying that the
      number of Jews who died in concentration camps was "of the
      order of 100,000 or more.")
      * Incorrect. Do you really believe all the
      newspapers say? I may have said "killed", not
      "died".
      But during the 1988 trial of pro-Nazi publisher Ernst Zundel,
      he was forced to admit under cross-examination that he hadn't
      even read all of Eichmann's 1960 trial testimony. (In this
      testimony, Eichmann admitted that Nazi leaders discussed
      the so-called "Final Solution to the Jewish
      problem"--extermination, in 1942.)
      * Incorrect. I have Eichmann's manuscript
      memoirs, given to me in Buenos Aires in
      November 1991. He states that to him Final
      Solution always meant the Madagascar Solution.
      Anyway, do you really want to base your case on
      the utterances of a Nazi war criminal?
      In November 1991, a reporter from The Independent showed
      that Irving omitted crucial lines from a translation of Goebbels'
      diaries--lines that would have contradicted his theory that
      Hitler knew nothing about the extermination of the Jews.
      * Incorrect. Which "crucial lines" am I supposed to
      have omitted?
      Irving's record is clear: he is not an historian, and he has
      made false statements and been forced to apologize for them.
      As Andrew Cohen, reporter for the Financial Post, has said,
      "David Irving should be denied credibility."
      * Well, that really wants to make me hang up my
      shingle: namely, that a shyster from a money-rag
      doesn't believe me. What a waste of kilobytes,
      when there are megabytes of reputable historians
      saying precisely the opposite about me.
      Yours sincerely,
      David Irving
      Focal Point Publications
      Professor Jeffrey Shallit
      Associate Professor
      Computer Science Department
      University of Waterloo,
      Waterloo, Ontario
      Canada
      The following is the full text of the article by Mr. Shallit that Mr.
      Irving quotes in the preceding letter.
      &&&&& LIES OF OUR TIMES
      by Jeffrey Shallit
      How the Words of the Holocaust Deniers and Their Allies
      Show Them For What They Are
      1. Background
      Canada has a long tradition of tolerance and multiculturalism.
      That's why many residents of the K-W area were shocked and
      saddened to learn that a stereo store on King Street in
      Kitchener was displaying posters advertising a talk by David
      Irving, a self-described historian who says that the estimates
      of six million Jews killed by the Nazis during World War II are
      greatly exaggerated. Inside the store, according to the K-W
      Record, one can find for sale a book by Fred Leuchter that
      claims that the gas chambers at Auschwitz were never used
      for mass killing. After local protests, the store owner retaliated
      by putting up posters about the banking system based on the
      writings of anti-Semite Eustace Mullins. Subsequently, these
      posters were taken down by the store owner, but one explicitly
      anti-Semitic flyer still remains. The Kitchener-Waterloo
      Record recently carried a letter to the editor by Paul Fromm,
      director of "Canadian Association for Free Expression, Inc.".
      This letter defended neo-Nazi publisher Ernst Zundel, saying,
      "Zundel was dragged through the courts for nine years ...
      MERELY for his UNPOPULAR views." [emphasis mine]
      Who are Michael Rothe, David Irving, Fred Leuchter, Eustace
      Mullins, and Paul Fromm, and what do they stand for?
      2. Michael Rothe
      Michael Rothe is the owner of European Sound Imports, at
      109 King Street W. in Kitchener. According to the K-W Record,
      he is a native of southern Germany, who came to Canada
      eight years ago. His stereo store might appear harmless on
      the outside, but on the inside, one can obtain anti-Semitic
      propaganda from a variety of sources. According to the
      Record, in addition to the book by Fred Leuchter mentioned
      above, one can also purchase a booklet on the court battles of
      pro-Nazi publisher Ernst Zundel. Rothe also believes that the
      Holocaust has been greatly exaggerated, and that there is a
      world-wide Jewish conspiracy behind it. "They want money.
      When they have money they have power," he has been
      quoted as saying. Although Rothe has claimed, "I have not
      seen a neo-Nazi before," according to the Record, he attended
      a recent "victory party" for Ernst Zundel, and Zundel was
      recently sighted at his store. When I asked Rothe if he knew
      what Irving would speak on, he claimed, "Irving comes to
      speak on Germany ... only Germany." When I pointed out that
      this was false, that Irving actually spends a significant portion
      of his speeches discussing how the Holocaust is a hoax, he
      repeated, "No, that is wrong -- Irving only speaks about
      Germany." However, the posters Rothe himself has put up
      belie this claim--they list the Holocaust as a topic of Irving's
      speech.
      3. David Irving
      David John Cawdell Irving is a British "historian", born in
      1938.
      According to David Cesarani of the Wiener Library in London,
      England, he attended Imperial College at the University of
      London, but never graduated. He holds no academic degree
      and no academic position at any university or college.
      He calls himself a "moderate fascist", and claims, among
      other things that the gas chambers at Auschwitz (in which an
      estimated 2-3 million people died) were "built by the Poles
      after the war as a tourist attraction." (For this remark, he was
      fined DM 10,000 by a Munich court in May 1992.
      The judge was quoted as saying that the gas chambers of
      Auschwitz were "an historically certain fact.")
      Irving denies being a "Holocaust denier" or "Hitler apologist",
      and seems willing to resort to legal action if necessary.
      In a recent fax printed in the K-W Record, he is reported as
      saying, "I have warned 22 British newspapers that I shall not
      hesitate to commence libel action if they use smear phrases
      such like 'Hitler apologist' or 'Holocaust denier' to embellish
      their writings." But Bernard Levin, writing in The Times of
      London in May of this year, quoted Irving as saying, "I hope
      the court will fight a battle for the German people and put an
      end to the blood lie of the Holocaust which has been told
      against this country for 50 years." Irving first entered the
      headlines in 1970.
      In July of that year, he was forced to apologize in the High
      Court of London for "making a wholly untrue and highly
      damaging statement about a woman writer."--not an
      auspicious start for someone who claims to be in pursuit of the
      truth.
      Later that year, Irving was back in the headlines, concerning
      publication of his book, "The Destruction of Convoy PQ17".
      Ostensibly an expose of an ill-fated 1942 Arctic convoy
      headed for the Soviet Union during World War II, it eventually
      resulted in Irving being fined 40,000 British pounds for libel.
      Irving's book faulted Captain John Broome, commander of the
      convoy at the time, saying he was guilty of "downright
      disobedience" and "downright desertion of the convoy."
      Broome brought suit against Irving for false statements, and
      won a judgment in August of 1970.
      Irving's lawyers appealed, and lost in March, 1971.
      The case is revealing because of what it says about Irving's
      abilities as a historian and his motives as an author.
      According to the Times of London, Irving showed a copy of the
      manuscript to Broome before publication. Broome objected to
      the accuracy of some thirty passages in the book, and
      threatened to sue for libel if Irving did not make changes.
      At that point, William Kimbers Ltd., Irving's publisher, notified
      him that they would not publish the book as it was then
      written. Later, Irving published the book with another
      publisher.
      The court found that Irving "was warned from most
      responsible quarters that his book contained libels on Captain
      Broome ... To make [the book] a success he was ready to risk
      libel actions ... Documentary evidence .... showed that [Irving]
      had deliberately set out to attack Captain Broome and in spite
      of the most explicit warnings persisted in his attack because it
      would help sell the book." The court labeled Irving's conduct
      as "outrageous and shocking."
      Irving's misrepresentations did not end with the publication of
      his book.
      According to Cesarani, in 1979, a German publisher had to
      pay compensation to the father of Anne Frank after printing the
      German edition of Irving's book, Hitler's War.
      Irving had claimed that Anne Frank's diary was a forgery.
      Irving claims that according to his "research", the Holocaust is
      greatly exaggerated.
      (He was recently quoted in the K-W Record as saying that the
      number of Jews who died in concentration camps was "of the
      order of 100,000 or more.") But during the 1988 trial of
      pro-Nazi publisher Ernst Zundel, he was forced to admit under
      cross-examination that he hadn't even read all of Eichmann's
      1960 trial testimony.
      (In this testimony, Eichmann admitted that Nazi leaders
      discussed the so-called "Final Solution to the Jewish
      problem''-- extermination, in 1942.) In November 1991, a
      reporter from the Independent showed that Irving omitted
      crucial lines from a translation of Goebbels' diaries -- lines that
      would have contradicted his theory that Hitler knew nothing
      about the extermination of the Jews.
      Irving's record is clear: he is not an historian, and he has
      made false statements and been forced to apologize for them.
      As Andrew Cohen, reporter for the Financial Post, has said,
      "David Irving should be denied credibility."
      4. Eustace Mullins
      According to analyst Chip Berlet of Political Research
      Associates, Mullins is quite simply, "the most vicious
      anti-Semite on the face of the planet." Eustace Clarence
      Mullins, born in 1923, is the author of a biography of Ezra
      Pound (a copy exists in the University of Waterloo library). But
      he is also the author of numerous truly bizarre tracts published
      by small Christian publishers. Some of these, like the excerpt
      recently posted and then removed by Kitchener store owner
      Rothe, are critiques of the banking system. Berlet says,
      "Mullins masks his anti-Semitism with a critique of the [U.S.]
      Federal Reserve System." In a 1952 book, Mullins wrote a
      book blaming Paul Warburg, Bernard Baruch, and other U.S.
      Jews for drowning Americans in debt.
      According to Mullins, The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 put the
      nation's banking reserves in the hands of the "Jewish
      International Bankers" for the purpose of carrying out a plan
      for world dictatorship. In a 1955 article entitled, "Jews mass
      poison American children", Mullins claimed that the polio
      vaccine, invented by Jonas Salk, was a poison because it
      contains live polio germs. Other books depict Jews as
      parasites, living off their gentile hosts. In what has to be one of
      the most bizarre of Mullins' beliefs, it has been reported by L.
      J. Davis that Mullins has claimed that the phrase "Have a nice
      day" is a code for Jews to begin killing Christians. Mullins'
      writings have been adopted wholesale by violent extremists in
      the US, such as the Posse Comitatus. Should we not be more
      than a little worried to see those writings appearing in the
      window of a store in Kitchener?
      5. Fred Leuchter
      Rothe sells the "Leuchter report" in his store, a book
      purporting to be an engineer's refutation of the existence of
      gas chambers in Poland. (David Irving also uses Leuchter's
      report to support his claims.) What Rothe will not tell you,
      however, is that Fred Leuchter is not an engineer. Rothe also
      won't tell you that, according to the Boston Globe, Leuchter
      admitted to illegally collecting 20 pounds of building and soil
      samples in Poland, and that Leuchter's ``analysis'' has been
      thoroughly rebutted in a report by French pharmacist
      Jean-Claude Pressac. Pressac "noted that Leuchter never
      looked at documents in the Auschwitz Museum, and failed to
      study German blueprints of the gas chambers." Leuchter is a
      self-described expert in the construction of execution
      machines. With his false credentials, he convinced authorities
      in several states in the U.S. to let him construct execution
      machinery for their prisons. But in 1990, according to the New
      York Times, his misrepresentations began to unravel. The
      Attorney General of Alabama questioned his expertise. Illinois
      terminated his contract after determining that his machine for
      injecting cyanide would cause prisoners unnecessary pain.
      Then, in October 1990, Leuchter was charged with fraud in
      Massachusetts. It was revealed that he had only a bachelor's
      degree in history, and was not licensed to practice
      engineering in Massachusetts. In June 1991, to avoid a trial in
      which he would surely have been convicted, Leuchter
      admitted that, "I am not and have never been registered as a
      professional engineer", and that he had falsely represented
      himself as one. Under the consent agreement, Leuchter
      agreed to stop "using in any manner whatsoever the title
      'engineer'", and to stop distribution of the Leuchter report.
      Despite the agreement, one can still obtain copies of the
      report from Rothe's store in Kitchener. According to the Boston
      Globe, Leuchter was deported from Britain in 1991. Leonard
      Zakim, a spokesperson for the Anti-Defamation League of
      B'nai Brith, said, "Leuchter's admissions of lying to promote
      his business in violation of Massachusetts law should serve to
      discredit Leuchter wherever he travels." **[See comments on
      Leuchter after this article]
      6. Paul Fromm
      Paul Fromm claims to be the director of a group called
      "Canadian Association of Free Expression". While the name
      sounds innocuous, the truth is darker. According to
      investigative journalist Russ Bellant, Fromm helped found the
      Canadian neo-Nazi organization Western Guard. In a 1983
      interview with a Toronto Star reporter, Fromm was caught
      dissembling. He said he "never had any connection" with the
      Western Guard, but the Star account revealed that Fromm
      himself had had a letter published in the Star in February
      1973 that stated "... in May, 1972, many members, myself
      included, left the Western Guard...". Asked to explain the
      discrepancy, Fromm said in a Star interview that it was "a
      matter of semantics". In Julian Sher's 1983 account of the Ku
      Klux Klan, Fromm is reported as saying that belief of a
      supreme race "is a good idea." Remarks like this caused him
      to be kicked out of the federal Progressive Conservative Party.
      In September 1991, the Star reported that Fromm was ejected
      from a Toronto meeting on race relations after he blurted out,
      "Scalp them," while a native Canadian was speaking. In April
      1992, the Star reported on Fromm's 1990 speech before the
      Heritage Front, a neo-Nazi organization advocating white
      supremacy. According to the Star, Fromm told the neo-Nazi
      group, "We're all on the same side." Fromm later claimed in a
      Star article that he hadn't known about the Heritage Front's
      neo-Nazi views. But Bernie Farber of the Canadian Jewish
      Congress disputes this. "He had to know," Farber said. "There
      was a Nazi flag with swastikas, about 10 feet long and 5 feet
      tall, just to his right. Furthermore, just a few months after the
      Star article came out, Fromm spoke again before the same
      group."
      7. Conclusions
      Although the holocaust "revisionists" and their defenders
      claim to be in pursuit of the truth, the record says otherwise.
      Although some claim to be advocates of free speech, their real
      goal is a regime that would deny free speech, and more, to
      Jews and other minorities. It is easy to dismiss Rothe, Irving,
      Leuchter, Mullins, and Fromm as kooks. But according to
      statistics compiled by the League for Human Rights of B'nai
      Brith, anti-Semitism in Canada is at its highest level in a
      decade. There were 251 reported incidents of harassment and
      vandalism against Jews in Canada in 1991, up 42% from two
      years earlier. The reader may feel that anti-Semitism is only a
      distant threat. But consider this: many of the sources I sought
      in preparing this article are listed as ``missing'' in our
      University library. Some articles had been ripped out of
      magazines. Others books, though still on the shelves, I found
      to contain anti-Semitic or pro-Nazi graffiti. To repeat a saying
      attributed to Edmund Burke, "The only thing necessary for evil
      to triumph is for good men to do nothing." For Further
      Reading: Julian Sher, "White Hoods: Canada's Ku Klux Klan",
      New Star Books, Vancouver, 1983. James Ridgeway, "Blood
      in the Face", Thunder's Mouth Press, New York, 1991. Russ
      Bellant, "Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party",
      South End Press, Boston, 1991. Steve Mertl and John Ward,
      "Keegstra: The Trial, The Issues, and The Consequences",
      Western Producer Prairie Books, Saskatoon, 1985. James
      Coates, "Armed and Dangerous: The Rise of the Survivalist
      Right," Hill and Wang, New York, 1987.
      About the author.
      Jeffrey Shallit, who is not Jewish, is associate professor in the
      computer science department at the University of Waterloo.
      CODOH comments on Shallit's comments about
      Leuchter:
      Rothe sells the "Leuchter report" in his store, a book
      purporting to be an engineer's refutation of the
      existence of gas chambers in Poland. (David Irving
      also uses Leuchter's report to support his claims.)
      What Rothe will not tell you, however, is that Fred
      Leuchter is not an engineer.
      Fred Leuchter is self-trained in the extremely arcane field of
      execution equipment, and before smears such as Mr. Shallit's
      had their effect he worked for numerous state prison systems
      in the United States on the repair, upgrading, and replacement
      of said equipment. He has done work on gallows, electric
      chairs, gas chambers, and in fact is the inventor and builder of
      not only the automatic equipment used for lethal injection but
      also determined the type and sequence of the four drugs used
      to insure maximum comfort and a certain, painless death
      when physicians refused to offer any assistance in this area.
      At the second Zuendel trial in Canada, the judge recognized
      his expertise, and ruled that he was an engineer by virtue of
      experience and demonstrated ability, and therefore he would
      be allowed to testify as an expert witness regarding gas
      chambers. In some other areas, such as crematories, he was
      not allowed to testify.
      Rothe also won't tell you that, according to the
      Boston Globe, Leuchter admitted to illegally collecting
      20 pounds of building and soil samples in Poland, and
      that Leuchter's "analysis'' has been thoroughly
      rebutted in a report by French pharmacist
      Jean-Claude Pressac. Pressac "noted that Leuchter
      never looked at documents in the Auschwitz Museum,
      and failed to study German blueprints of the gas
      chambers."
      The legality of the collection process has nothing to do with
      the validity of the analyses of same. This is but another
      example of the attempts to heap all possible negatives
      because of the damage his investigations have done to the
      accepted myths regarding non-existent gas chambers. His
      sample analyses have, in fact, been independently verified by
      the later work of both a Polish government commission,
      Austrian engineer Walter Leuftl, and the inarguably qualified
      German chemist, Germar Rudolf.
      Shallit does not indicate if Pressac indicates what relevance
      the "documents in the Auschwitz Museum" might have on the
      matter. Given that much of what is on display at Auschwitz are
      reproductions with obvious liberties taken to closer match
      wartime accounts, a fact only admitted in the last few years,
      one would have to be wary of whatever they purport to claim is
      documentation. And the plain fact is that no "German
      blueprints of the gas chambers" exist. What does exist are
      blueprints of the various Krema (crematoria) which supporters
      of gas chambers claim were "code worded" to hide the actual
      use to which they would be put. These blueprints do exist, and
      nothing on them supports the gas chamber theory--none of the
      special provisions one would expect, such as sealing, gas
      introduction equipment, forced air circulation of the closed
      room(s) or adequate ventilation are indicated.
      After a particularly traumatic cross-examination by the attorney
      for Prof. Robert Faurisson, during which Pressac became
      incoherent to the point of tears on the stand, he has retreated
      from any active defense of his extremely flawed work, and it is
      no longer cited by top-level historians. His alleged refutation of
      challenges to the existence of gas chambers is a huge
      embarrassment of a book now trotted out only by lay people
      such as Mr. Shallit, and professional promoters of the gas
      chamber myths.
      With his false credentials, he convinced authorities in