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	<title>Inconvenient History &#124; Revisionist Blog &#187; IMT Nuremberg</title>
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		<title>Lithuanian Historian Accused of &#8220;Denying the Holocaust&#8221;</title>
		<link>http://www.revblog.codoh.com/2010/11/lithuanian-historian-accused-of-denying-the-holocaust/</link>
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		<pubDate>Sat, 27 Nov 2010 13:06:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Thomas Kues</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Documentary Evidence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Genocide]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Holocaust]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Thomas Kues]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.revblog.codoh.com/?p=1377</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[By Thomas Kues On 25 November 2010 the AFP news bureau reported the following: &#8220;A Lithuanian historian quit his civil service job Thursday after seven ambassadors from fellow European nations accused him of denying the Holocaust. Lithuania&#8217;s interior ministry said that Petras Stankeras, an independent historian who also held a middle-ranking post in its planning [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>By Thomas Kues</strong></p>
<p>On 25 November 2010 the AFP news bureau reported the following:</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;<em>A Lithuanian historian quit his civil service job Thursday after seven ambassadors from fellow European nations accused him of denying the Holocaust. Lithuania&#8217;s interior ministry said that Petras Stankeras, an independent historian who also held a middle-ranking post in its planning department, had left at his own request. Interior Minister Raimundas Palaitis said Stankeras&#8217;s views were personal.</em></p>
<p><em>&#8216;Such interpretations have nothing in common with the position of the interior ministry with regard to the Jewish genocide,&#8217; Palaitis said in a statement.</em></p>
<p><em>The announcement came a day after the ambassadors of Britain, Estonia, Finland, France, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden slammed an article by Stankeras in the mainstream weekly Veidas on the Nuremberg trials, where the victorious Allies tried top Nazi German officials after World War II. Stankeras wrote that the trials &#8216;provided a legal basis to the legend about the six million purportedly murdered Jews&#8217;.<span id="more-1377"></span></em></p>
<p><em>The ambassadors blasted Stankeras in a letter to the interior ministry dated November 24 and obtained by the Baltic News Service on Thursday.</em><br />
<em><br />
&#8216;This amounts to denial of the Holocaust and merits the strongest condemnation,&#8217; they said.</em></p>
<p><em>They also chastised Lithuanian authorities for failing to react rapidly, and questioned Veidas&#8217;s publication of the article. But Gintaras Sarafinas, the magazine&#8217;s editor-in-chief, said neither Veidas nor Stankeras denied the Holocaust, and blamed a style error. &#8216;Our weekly does not deny the Holocaust, never did and never will. The author, who is a professional historian, only wanted to discuss the number of victims,&#8217; Sarafinas told AFP.</em><br />
<em><br />
&#8216;We admit that the sentence is wrong stylistically, as the word &#8216;purportedly&#8217; should have been elsewhere,&#8217; he added.</em></p>
<p><em>In a statement, Efraim Zuroff of the Jerusalem-based Simon Wiesenthal Center said Stankeras should be prosecuted under Lithuania&#8217;s Holocaust-denial law</em> .&#8221;[1]</p></blockquote>
<p>The original article in Lithuanian, &#8220;Niurnbergo karo nusikaltimų tribunolas – didžiausias juridinis farsas istorijoje&#8221; (The Nuremberg Military Court Tribunal: The Biggest Legal Farce in History), can be read in the online edition of the <em>Veidas </em>magazine.[2] It was printed in <em>Veidas</em> no. 45 from 8 November 2011. There is also an English translation available from a &#8220;Holocaust&#8221; website.[3] According to this translation, the passage &#8220;denying the Holocaust&#8221; reads as follows:</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;<em>It is also important that the Nuremberg process provided a legal basis to the legend about the six million supposedly murdered Jews </em>[įgavo legenda apie 6 mln. neva nužudytų žydų]<em>, although the court didn’t have even a single document signed by Hitler on the extermination of Jews (no one has found this document to this day, if it even exists, although a million dollar prize has been promised).</em>&#8220;</p></blockquote>
<p>That there exists no documentary proof for Hitler ordering the alleged extermination of the Jews has been admitted repeatedly by orthodox holocaust historians. Christopher Browning for example stated in 1985:</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;<em>There was no written order for the final solution, and we have no reference to an oral order except what Himmler told Heydrich when he said that he acted with the Führer’s approval.</em>&#8220;[4]</p></blockquote>
<p>Dr. Petras Stankeras is the author of the study <em>Lietuviu policija 1941-1944 metais </em>(&#8220;The Lithuanian Police 1941-1944&#8243;, Lietuvos gyventojų genocido ir rezistencijos tyrimo centras, Vilnius 1998), published by the state-sponsored Lithuanian Genocide Research Center.</p>
<hr />[1] &#8220;Lithuanian historian quits after Holocaust article&#8221;, online: <a href="http://ejpress.org/article/47477 ">http://ejpress.org/article/47477 </a><br />
[2] <a href="http://www.veidas.lt/visuomene/istorija/niurnbergo-karo-nusikaltimu-tribunolas-%E2%80%93-didziausias-juridinis-farsas-istorijoje">http://www.veidas.lt/visuomene/istorija/niurnbergo-karo-nusikaltimu-tribunolas-%E2%80%93-didziausias-juridinis-farsas-istorijoje</a><br />
[3] <a href="http://holocaustinthebaltics.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/2010Nov14NurembergFarceVeidas.pdf">http://holocaustinthebaltics.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/2010Nov14NurembergFarceVeidas.pdf</a><br />
[4] Colloque de l’École des Hautes Études en sciences socials, <em>L’Allemagne nazie et le génocide juif</em>, Gallimard, Paris 1985, p. 200. For more on the non-existance of the &#8220;<em>Führerbefehl</em>&#8221; and the problems regarding the mainstream historiography on the commencement of the alleged genocidal policy, cf. Jürgen Graf, Thomas Kues, Carlo Mattogno, <em>Sobibór: Holocaust Propaganda and Reality</em>, TBR Books, Washington DC 2010, pp. 219-236.</p>
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		<title>The Führerbefehl according to the WJC in 1945: &#8220;All Jews must die, but not before going through suffering and agony&#8221;</title>
		<link>http://www.revblog.codoh.com/2010/02/the-fuhrerbefehl-according-to-the-wjc-in-1945-all-jews-must-die-but-not-before-going-through-suffering-and-agony/</link>
		<comments>http://www.revblog.codoh.com/2010/02/the-fuhrerbefehl-according-to-the-wjc-in-1945-all-jews-must-die-but-not-before-going-through-suffering-and-agony/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 01 Feb 2010 13:46:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Thomas Kues</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Genocide]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Holocaust]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.revblog.codoh.com/?p=707</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[By Thomas Kues In 1945, the World Jewish Congress prepared a report on the &#8220;Criminal Conspiracy&#8221; against the Jews perpetrated by the Third Reich for the authorities in charge of bringing about the International Military Tribunal. Of this report, the chapter &#8220;Charge Eight: Mass Annihilation, part II&#8221; is of special interest. The document, which is [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>By Thomas Kues</p>
<p>In 1945, the World Jewish Congress prepared a report on the &#8220;Criminal Conspiracy&#8221; against the Jews perpetrated by the Third Reich for the authorities in charge of bringing about the International Military Tribunal. Of this report, the chapter &#8220;Charge Eight: Mass Annihilation, part II&#8221; is of special interest. The document, which is found among the records of the World Jewish Congress at the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, <a href="http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/nuremberg/documents/index.php?documentdate=1945-00-00&#038;documentid=C107-3-9&#038;studycollectionid=&#038;pagenumber=1">can be read online</a>, courtesy of the Harry S. Truman Library &#038; Museum website:</p>
<p>What did the World Jewish Congress want the &#8220;international justice&#8221; to believe about the supposed Nazi extermination conspiracy? In what way did they describe the origin and the implementation of it in form of the infamous &#8220;death camps? What were the sources behind the report?  <span id="more-707"></span></p>
<p>On p. 109 we read:</p>
<blockquote><p>
&#8220;In March 1942, Heinrich Himmler paid a visit to Poland. During his stay in Poland he issued an order to the effect that 50% of all Polish Jews had to be exterminated by the end of that year. In July 1942 Himmler came to Poland again. According to the Polish underground sources, he declared at a Nazi meeting in Warsaw that:</p>
<p>1) Hitler had personally told him that the Jews had commenced the war and should, for that reason, be punished.</p>
<p>2) the Jews are the scum of the earth and must be converted to dust.</p>
<p>3) All Jews must die, but not before going through suffering and agony.</p>
<p>A special &#8220;Vernichtungskommission&#8221; was organized, with Commissar Fey as Chairman and a large office in Warsaw. This commission had to supervise the work of Jewish extermination in Poland; its members continuously visited different parts of the country and directed the mass slaughter of the Jewish population. Chairman Fey was directly responsible to Himmler.&#8221;
</p></blockquote>
<p>While the first of the three statements ascribed to Hitler is clearly based on speeches made by the Führer at the outbreak of the war, the other two statements are typical <em>Greuelpropaganda</em> fantasies casting Hitler as the Devil incarnate. It is all to easy to picture Adolf having a tantrum in front of a sycophantic Reichsführer-SS while giving the infamous, never-proven Führerbefehl (unaware that a member of the Polish resistance, posing as a Sachertorte-carrying waiter, is taking mental notes).</p>
<p>Also, if the supposed mass exterminations were part of a &#8220;conspiracy&#8221;, would it make much sense to have a &#8220;Vernichtungskommission&#8221; (Extermination Committee) housed in a &#8220;large office in Warsaw&#8221;? What happened to the alleged code language? And who was &#8220;Commissar Fey&#8221;? Is this an error for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Ley">Robert Ley</a>, the head of the Deutsche Arbeitsfront (DAF)? (No &#8220;Fey&#8221; appears on the <a href="http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/nuremberg/documents/index.php?documentdate=1945-00-00&#038;documentid=C106-18-6&#038;studycollectionid=&#038;pagenumber=1">&#8220;Preliminary List of War Criminals&#8221;</a> drawn up by the WJC the same year &#8211; Ley does, though).</p>
<p>The biblical undertone of the report appears most clearly on p.111:</p>
<blockquote><p>
&#8220;The fleeing Germans [after Stalingrad] surpassed even themselves and reached such depths of cruelty and destructive fury that they beggar any description and any imagination. The Jews should never be able to enjoy the defeat of their worst enemies, or, as Hitler put it, the Jews should never celebrate another Purim (Jewish festival commemorating defeat of Haman&#8217;s plot) in his memory.&#8221;
</p></blockquote>
<p>As for the Hitler quote, what the Führer actually said in this speech (according to <em>The New York Times</em> January 31, 1944) was that, unless Germany was victorious, &#8220;Jewry could then celebrate the destruction of Europe by a second triumphant Purim&#8221;. Thus Hitler&#8217;s words were not a threat of physical extermination, but a warning about the consequences of a German defeat.</p>
<p>The &#8220;report&#8221; gets into high gear when it reaches the description of the &#8220;death factories&#8221;. Here follows the discription of the supposed mass killings at Belzec (pp. 115-116):</p>
<blockquote><p>
&#8220;The Jews were crammed into special chambers with metal bars on the floor and walls; then the chambers were filled with water and a powerful electric current sent through these bars. Besides, there was in Belzec a special building with several gas chambers, and the German scientists zealously experienced there on Jews with all kinds of poisoning gases they invented or improved. The children, if healthy, were used as involuntary blood donors for the German Army. Mostly these children were bled white to such a degree that they died shortly afterwards. Special factories produced in Belzec soap and shoes, out of Jewish fat; yet, this business was never really profitable, probably because of the Jews being in the third year of an acute starvation period and there was not much fat left on their bodies. [...]<br />
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The weak point of Belzec was the way the bodies were disposed of&#8230; They, or their remains, were loaded on railway cars and transported to a spot where a group of Jews already prepared a grave, whereupon this whole group was instantly executed. After a few months of operating in high gear, all the fields along the railway were filled with mass graves. Lumps of gored blood and decomposed remains of human bodies were spread everywhere around the graves, and the stench became so intensive, that the peasants of nearby villages deserted their farms and land, and the whole population of Belsec left this sinister town.&#8221;
</p></blockquote>
<p>Here the WJC authors tries to include every ludicrous atrocity story spread about Belzec during the war: electrocution chambers, gas chambers (utlizing various unnamed poison gases), children emptied of their blood, human soap, trains of death (the story of Jan Karski sans quicklime killings)&#8230; The idea that shoes were also produced out of the victims seems to be a new addition. No wonder, by the way, that the Belzec soap &#038; shoes business &#8220;was never really profitable&#8221; &#8211; how good would shoes made out of human fat be? Needless to say, there are no indications whatsoever that the town of Belzec was emptied of its population &#8211; but apparently the spies of the underground resistance did not bother to verify this claim, although the town was and is easily accessible by train or car.</p>
<p>Next Sobibór is briefly described (p. 116):</p>
<blockquote><p>
&#8220;In the death camp of Sobibur the process of killing was still more perfected. A special brick building was constructed there, and as soon as about 800 people passed into this building, the heavy doors were locked and an electric engine in an adjoining ving pumped poison gas into it. As a rule, in fifteen minutes all the people were dead; then the floor in the building slid apart automatically and the bodies fell into the basement, from where they were taken in special carts to woods and buried there.&#8221;
</p></blockquote>
<p>This description is almost certainly a summary of a testimony left on August 10, 1944 by the former Sobibór inmate Ber (Dov) Freiberg, which was later included in Vassili Grossman and Ilya Ehrenburg&#8217;s <em>Black Book</em> (Holocaust Library, New York 1981, p. 439). The bizarre claim of the collapsible gas chamber floor appears in a number of early Sobibór testimonies.</p>
<p>Regarding the third Aktion Reinhardt &#8220;death camp&#8221; the report concludes that</p>
<blockquote><p>
&#8220;Tremblinka [sic] had a much greater &#8220;productive capacity&#8221; than Belsec or Sobibur. It had first three gas chambers, then two were added, and it was able to cope with as many as 20,000 people a day.&#8221; (p. 117)
</p></blockquote>
<p>Here we run into a paradox apparent also in the Höss &#8220;confession&#8221;, namely that Auschwitz had a smaller &#8220;killing capacity&#8221; than Treblinka, despite the former being constructed as more &#8220;efficient&#8221; than the latter. On pp. 118-119 we read:</p>
<blockquote><p>
&#8220;In July 1942 Heinrich Himmler paid a visit to the camp and laid down plans how to make Oswiecim the largest death factory the Germans ever established. Four new large crematoriums, each connected with a gas-chamber, were built, able to cremate 500 people in an hour, 12,000 in a continuous work of 24 hours. And still, despite this amazing productivity, so many people were killed on some days in Oswiecim, that huge pyres of corpses had to be kindled there. Not less than 4,000,000 people perished in Oswiecim, not less than 1,800,000 of them were Jews.&#8221;
</p></blockquote>
<p>It is worth noting that the <em>only</em> victim figure of an &#8220;extermination camp&#8221; presented is that of Auschwitz.</p>
<p>Finally we note the following statement regarding Majdanek, found on p. 118:</p>
<blockquote><p>
&#8220;On November 3rd, 1943, Majdanek had a great day: 18,400 people were killed in this single day. In the official report sent on this day to Berlin, the camp authorities wrote: &#8220;The difference between the number of prisoners confined in the camp in the morning and in the evening, is the result of a special annihilation of 18,000 persons.&#8221;
</p></blockquote>
<p>This refers to the alleged so-called &#8220;Operation Harvest Festival&#8221; (Aktion Erntefest). As far as I have been able to determine, the quote from an &#8220;official report&#8221; concerning the &#8220;special annihilation&#8221; (no <em>Tarnsprache</em> used there!) is a complete fabrication either on part of the WJC or (perhaps more likely) Soviet propagandists. </p>
<p>The WJC report on the &#8220;Mass Annihilation&#8221; lack any reference to sources, but it is apparent that its authors have simply lifted their &#8220;information&#8221; from various Polish and Soviet &#8220;reports&#8221; on alleged German war crimes. Its primary value consists in the insight it provides into the dissemination of the &#8220;Holocaust&#8221; propaganda. It begs disbelief that a major international organization such as the WJC produced &#8211; at the end of the war &#8211; an unsourced &#8220;report&#8221; teeming with blatant absudities and internal contradictions, if in fact the alleged mass extermination really had taken place. It is even more astounding that WJC officials deemed this report worthy of being submitted to international judicial authorities. This in turn shows that the men behind the &#8220;Holocaust&#8221; propaganda often did not make the effort to produce authentic-sounding or even realistic descriptions of the alleged crime &#8211; such effort was not generally necessary, since the claims were not actually tried by the &#8220;International Military Tribunal&#8221;, but rather regarded as their own evidence, as far as they were found in some report submitted by the Soviet prosecution.   </p>
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		<title>Documentary Evidence</title>
		<link>http://www.revblog.codoh.com/2009/05/documentary-evidence/</link>
		<comments>http://www.revblog.codoh.com/2009/05/documentary-evidence/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 21 May 2009 20:43:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Wilfried Heink</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Documentary Evidence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[IMT Nuremberg]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Wilfried Heink]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.revblog.codoh.com/?p=240</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[At the end of WWII, the Allies decided to try the German leadership for alleged war crimes. The background to this decision was spelled out in some detail in the &#8220;Moscow Declaration&#8221; of October 30, 1943. The Russians (I know that it is politically correct to call them &#8220;Soviets&#8221;, but just like the &#8220;Nazis&#8221; were [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p class="MsoNormal">At the end of WWII, the Allies decided to try the German leadership for alleged war crimes. The background to this decision was spelled out in some detail in the &#8220;Moscow Declaration&#8221; of October 30, 1943. The Russians (I know that it is politically correct to call them &#8220;Soviets&#8221;, but just like the &#8220;Nazis&#8221; were Germans, so were the “Soviets” Russians) were ahead of this, as they already in November 1942 had created the: <em>&#8220;Extraordinary State Commission for Ascertaining and Investigating Crimes Perpetrated by the German-Fascist Invaders and their Accomplices&#8221;.</em> <span id="more-240"></span>The aim of this Commission was, as quoted from <em>&#8220;The Role of the Soviet Union in the International Tribunal at Nuremberg and Impacts in its Legacy&#8221;</em>, by Michael J. Bazyler, pp. 3-4:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amnestyusa.org/events/western/pdf/AmnestyConference_BazylerMichaelCLE.pdf">http://www.amnestyusa.org/events/western/pdf/AmnestyConference_BazylerMichaelCLE.pdf</a></p>
<p><em>&#8220;…[to] keep complete records of the vile crimes perpetrated by the Germans and their accomplices and the damage inflicted by them on Soviet citizens and the socialist state; establish wherever possible the identity of the German-Fascist criminals guilty of the organization or execution of the crimes in occupied Soviet territories, so that they might be handed over to the courts for severe punishment; [and] unify and coordinate the work already performed by Soviet state organs in this area.&#8221;</em> (George Ginsburgs, &#8220;Moscow’s Road to Nuremberg&#8221;, New York: Kluwer Law International, 1996, pp.37-8)</p>
<p>The work of said commission left much to be desired, its biggest fault being that not one impartial party was invited to participate in the investigations or shown any of the alleged sites in order to independently verify the findings. All the Russians did, at the IMT, was to make claims, some of them totally bogus, and present documents &#8211; I will get into more details about those later. That the proceedings, the IMT, were a sham becomes clear when reading the following (Bazyler, p.1):</p>
<p><em>&#8220;[…]Nikitchenko publicly pronounced his view that all of the defendants were guilty even prior to the start of the IMT proceedings:<br />
&#8220;We are dealing here with the chief war criminals who have already been convicted and whose conviction has been already announced by both the Moscow and Crimea [referring to Yalta] declarations by the heads of the governments…. The whole idea is to secure quick and just punishment for the crime.&#8221;<br />
</em>He then famously added:<em> &#8220;If… the judge is supposed to be impartial [at Nuremberg], it would only lead to unnecessary delays.&#8221;</em></p>
<p>As the accused was declared guilty before the trial even started, there was, to sum up the Russian attitude, no reason to bother with any feigned impartiality. The Russians were also successful in having the following added, so as to being able to submit anything as evidence without having to prove the veracity of it (Bazyler, p.2):</p>
<p><em>&#8220;[…]Moreover, the Soviets directed that the tribunal take judicial notice of facts of common knowledge instead of requiring their proof.&#8221;</em></p>
<p>The western Allies had to wait before they could assemble what they deemed to be evidence, since D-Day did not happen until June 6. 1944 and it took them awhile to get to Germany. Nevertheless, they were successful in obtaining hundreds of tons of documents, 485 tons of foreign office documents alone. The document they looked for most diligently was that ordering the killing of the Jews (Prof. Dr. Franz Seidler, <em>&#8220;Das Recht in Siegerhand&#8221;,</em> p.104). This document has not been found to this day.</p>
<p>The search for documents was undertaken only by the prosecution, which is problematic from a legal point of view. The defense was never allowed to search freely for acquitting documentary evidence, had to state what documents they intended to obtain, needed travel permits which were not always granted, etc., etc., Dr. August von Knieriem provides details in his <em>&#8220;The Nuremberg Trials&#8221;</em>. Also, the defense lawyers were picked by the Allies, meaning that if a lawyer was a (former) member of the National Socialist Party (NSdAP), or sympathetic to National Socialism, he was not considered, thus eliminating all lawyers who were active during the years of National Socialism (Seidler, pp.101/02). National Socialism was a movement of the working class, and many of the so-called intellectuals had shunned it, while some, if not many, had joined the resistance. By calling them to defend former NS dignitaries, one left the door wide open for lawyers who had an axe to grind. Some lawyers refused to participate for fear of repercussions, as the press had unleashed a hate campaign against anything “Nazi”(Seidler, p.102). Thus, the accused were defended by people not free of fear or bias. In fact, when reading through the transcripts it becomes clear that most of the defense lawyers believed what was presented by the prosecution, and just tried to deflect guild from their clients onto others.</p>
<p>A little about the gathering of documents, from Vol.II , pp.156 ff. (online: <a href="http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/11-22-45.asp">http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/11-22-45.asp</a> : )</p>
<p><em>&#8220;The Germans kept accurate and voluminous records[…] Many times the records were so voluminous that they were hauled by fleets of Army trucks to document centers […] Beginning last June (1945), Mr. Justice Jackson requested me to direct the assembling of documentary evidence on the continent for the United States case. Field teams from our office were organized under the direction of Major William H. Coogan, who established United States liaison officers at theory document centers. Such officers were directed to screen and analyze the mass of captured documents, and select those having evidentiary value for our case. Literally hundreds of tons of enemy documents and records were screened and examined and those selected were forwarded to Nuremberg for processing […] Finally, more than 2,500 documents were selected and filed here in this Court House. At least several hundred will be offered in evidence[…]&#8220;</em></p>
<p>Documents &#8220;…having evidentiary value for our case&#8221; were selected, with only the prosecution present and deciding what was of value and what was not. The last part is also telling: from the &#8220;…hundreds of tons of enemy documents and records&#8221;, only 2 500 were selected and out of those &#8220;several hundred&#8221; were submitted.</p>
<p>A further aspect of interest: On October 22, 1945, a report was issued titled <em>&#8220;Report, German Document Conference&#8221;</em>, referring to a conference held prior to the date shown. This report reads, in part:</p>
<p><em>&#8220;It is also necessary for this conference to consider the overall problem of the denial of certain archives, records and papers to the Germans. Serious consideration must be given to plans for the organized destruction of papers which possess no value for the Allies and must be denied to the Germans. We must be cognizant at all times of the final disposition of documents required for study in Germany which must not be permitted to fall into German hands after the departure of occupation<br />
forces […] The question was then coordinated with the War Department and they were asked to prepare a draft of State, War, Navy Coordinating Committee views on documents which should be destroyed, or to which the Germans were to be denied access[…]&#8220;</em></p>
<p>The stamp on the document reads: &#8220;Declassified, Authority: NWh 968018, By: P Y, NARA Date: 08 + 206&#8243; (Georg, Friedrich <em>“Verrat in der Normandie”</em>, S.17).</p>
<p>Many researchers have also complained that archives are still locked or inaccessible, among them John Costello and Oleg Tsarev, the latter a former KGB officer (<em>Deadly Illusions</em>), Valentin Falin (<em>Zweite Front. Die Interessenkonflikte in der Anti-Hitler-Koalition</em>), Franz Seidler (<em>Das Recht in Siegerhand</em>), Victor Suvorov (<em>Stalins verhinderter Erstschlag</em>) and many more.</p>
<p>The foreign office (AA) documents were only released starting in 1956, following their perusal by a American-English-French Commission (Bohlinger/Ney, <em>&#8220;Gutachten zur Frage der Echtheit des sogenannten Wannsee-Protokolls&#8221;</em>, pp.6-7). Thus, aside from the fact that documents had been sorted out, some are still not accessible. Why is this?<br />
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA">Further we have the well founded suspicion-, and not just suspicion, that documents had been forged. The Displaced Persons&#8217; Camp Föhrenwald-Wolfratshausen housed the largest forgery and photo-montage operation in post war Germany (Ibid, p.p.6, footnote 10). Prof. Dr. Franz Seidler provides some examples of forgeries (pp.152 ff). Thomas E. Mahl, in his <em>&#8220;Desperate Deception</em>&#8221; also gives examples of the forgeries produced by the Brits to turn the American public against the &#8220;Nazis&#8221; in order to get America into the war. Now, this was done before WWII, but could not some of those forgeries have been used following the war? One would assume that, because of the one-sidedness and shenanigans, historians would be extra careful before accepting a document as evidence, make sure that an original exists and that the original presented is a true original. Sadly, this is not the case. The victors captured German typewriters, stationary, stamps, etc., etc., making it no great achievement to manufacture a “original”.</span></p>
<p>At the IMT, the Russians were allowed to submit photocopies of documents, promising to produce the originals later. This did not happen, and the court just turned a blind eye (Seidler, p.80). We have the following exchange between the Russian Rudenko and the President on day 54, Friday, 8 February 1946, re. a document pertaining to the Sudeten Germans, IMT Proceedings Vol. VII, p.202ff ( <a href="http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/02-08-46.asp">http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/02-08-46.asp</a> ):</p>
<p><em>&#8220;THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Pokrovsky, I am sorry to interrupt you but it is not quite clear, on the translation that has come through, whether you have deposited the original of this document and have given it an exhibit number, that is, if it has already been put in.<br />
COL. POKROVSKY: All the documents presented by the Soviet Delegation are submitted by us to the Tribunal in Russian and they are then handed for translation to the international translators&#8217; pool, which is charged to serve the Tribunal with translation into all the other languages. This document is referred to by me in precise correspondence with its registration number &#8211; our Number USSR-271.<br />
THE PRESIDENT: If the original document is not in Russian, it must be deposited with the Tribunal in its original condition. I do not know what the document is. It is about a conference, apparently, and I suppose the original is in German.<br />
COL. POKROVSKY: The original document is in German.<br />
THE PRESIDENT: If that is so, we would like to see the original in German.<br />
COL. POKROVSKY: The photostatic copy of the original document, in the German language, is at present at the disposal of the Tribunal. May I continue?<br />
THE PRESIDENT: One moment. Is this the original?<br />
COL.POKROVSKY: It is a photostat.<br />
THE PRESIDENT: I am afraid that we must&#8217; insist upon having the original.<br />
COL. POKROVSKY: The original document is at the disposal of the Soviet Government and, if the Tribunal wishes, it can be sent for and presented to the Tribunal a little later. The photostat is certified.<br />
THE PRESIDENT: I am afraid we must have the original documents. After the original documents have been produced and exhibit numbers given to them, they will remain in the hands of the Tribunal. Of course, the subject of the translations is quite a different one, but for the purpose of insuring that we get really genuine evidence we must have the originals deposited with the General Secretary.<br />
COL.POKROVSKY: I note the wish of the Tribunal and we shall give instruction for the original documents to be submitted to the Tribunal, although in this case we have followed the established precedent where the Tribunal considers it sufficient to accept the certified photostats. We can submit the original, but we shall have to do it somewhat later, as not all the requisite material is in Nuremberg at the present time.<br />
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, so long as you undertake to do it. But I do not think you are right in saying that it is the practice that has been already established, because we have been demanding the production of the original document from the French prosecutors, and they have been produced.<br />
COL.POKROVSKY: We shall take the necessary measures so that the Tribunal<br />
will receive, although of course somewhat later, all the original<br />
documents from which the present photostats were taken. May I now continue? I now continue the quotation&#8230;.<br />
THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Pokrovsky, I imagine that you will be able to produce tomorrow the originals of the documents which were referred to today.<br />
COL. POKROVSKY: I cannot promise that, because not all the originals are here. A considerable part of these documents are unique and consequently not kept in Nuremberg. Here we keep only a certain part of the originals.&#8217; All that I can do is to submit, in the future, the originals at our disposal. Those which we do not have here we shall request the Soviet Government to send over in exchange for the photostats. This we can do.<br />
THE PRESIDENT: I think the Tribunal had better adjourn for the purpose of considering this matter.<br />
[A recess was taken.]<br />
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal has considered the matter of the deposition of original documents, and they wish the following procedure to be adopted: In the first place, they want original documents deposited with the General Secretary of the Tribunal, wherever possible. Secondly, where it is impossible for original documents to be deposited, or highly inconvenient, they will accept photostat copies of the original documents, provided that a certificate accompanies the photostat document that it is a true copy of an original document, and that the original is an authentic document, giving the origin of the original document and the place of its present custody. Thirdly, they will accept photostat copies for the present, on the undertaking of counsel that certificates, such as I have indicated, will be furnished as soon as possible. Is that clear, Colonel Pokrovsky?<br />
COL.POKROVSKY: I would ask the Tribunal to explain one point to me. Do I understand that the Tribunal only confirms its former decision and practice, which was established in connection with the presentation of the document in evidence by my American and British colleagues, or is it something new that the Tribunal is introducing? I am asking this because a similar document to the one which caused the interruption in my presentation today has already been accepted as a photostat in the same Trial under Exhibit Number USA-95 or Document 2788-PS. Therefore, it is not quite clear to me whether I am dealing with a new decision or with the confirmation of an old practice.<br />
THE PRESIDENT: I think what you have stated is true, that this particular document does not appear to have any certificate that it is a true copy. But the Tribunal expects that the United States will produce such a certificate that it is a true copy of an authentic document and will state the origin and the custody of the original document.<br />
COL.POKROVSKY: Pray forgive me, but I consider that the question which I wish to elucidate is of equal interest to all the prosecutors. Am I, and with me all the representatives of the Prosecution, to understand the decision of the Tribunal to mean that we are to present supplementary documentation in support of all photostats, including the photostats previously accepted by the Tribunal, or does it only refer to documents which the Soviet Delegation will present in the future?<br />
THE PRESIDENT: If a document had been accepted in photostatic form and there has been no certificate that it was a true copy of an authentic document, then such a certificate must be given. And we desire that the certificate should also show that the document was authentic, and the place of its present custody. And that applies equally to all the chief prosecutors.<br />
COL., POKROVSKY: Now, I understand that the Tribunal is confirming its former practice which means that we can present a photostat, but that they must be certified and that the originals should be presented whenever possible. Have I understood you correctly?<br />
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, we desire originals, if possible. If it is impossible or if it is highly inconvenient, then we will accept photostats. And in the meantime, and for your convenience &#8211; because this practice has not been perhaps adequately stated before &#8211; we will accept photostat copies without certificate, on your undertaking that you will have the certificate later on. Is that clear?<br />
COL. POKROVSKY: I understand. The former practice will continue in operation […]&#8220;</em></p>
<p>This was about a relatively unimportant document, but the precedent was set. If it was &#8220;impossible or…highly inconvenient&#8221; to produce the original, a copy would do &#8211; but the copy of what, one might ask. Also, how can it even be &#8220;impossible&#8221; or &#8220;inconvenient&#8221; to produce an original, if one exists? Thus, even though tons of documents had been confiscated, the prosecution still had to resort to this.</p>
<p>At the Frankfurt <em>&#8220;Auschwitz Trials&#8221;</em> 1963-1965, the judges had to admit in their verdict that the few documents at their disposal referred only to generalities, and that they therefore had to rely almost exclusively on eyewitness testimony. Hundreds of tons of documents and no case for mass murder could be made using any of them. Did the Germans destroy each and every incriminating document? Historians try to make us believe just that. But, if such a mass murder actually happened, would the Germans even have drawn up documents? Just to later have the bother of destroying them, a procedure that would require much work and the involvement of many hands, whom all had to be absolutely trustworthy. Why the Korherr report or the Hoefle telegram, if they referred to Jews that had been murdered? Especially the latter &#8211; why tell all how many Jews had been murdered, if that was what happened? There would have been no need to document this. Also, why then the need for the above mentioned Allied document sorting conference? Why the still locked archives?</p>
<p>When looking closely at the evidence presented, it becomes clear that no solid case has been made to prove the mass murder of Jews. No substantial evidence is presented, such as reports of investigations by experts in the field of criminal- and forensic investigations. All we are shown is some circumstantial evidence, transport lists, telegrams, excerpts of speeches by dignitaries, bits of diary entries (the Dr. Hans Frank diary is an example [Seidler, pp.150/51]) copies of documents of dubious origin. Do originals exist? No doubt they do, but even if all of the documents presented are genuine, no case for mass murder can be made relying on them. In all cases, eyewitnesses are providing the &#8220;real evidence&#8221;, and those constitute the weakest link in the evidence chain.</p>
<p>Wilfried Heink</p>
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