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Dr. Robert Faurisson Vs. Mark Weber
Two Revisionists Disagree on Gas Vans
- and Dr Bob Countess chips in as well
Director of the Institute for Historical Review
December 19, 2003
Dear Robert,
For more than 20 years, you have been on the Editorial Advisory
Committee of the IHR’s Journal of Historical Review. During those years,
you never insisted on a declaration about Nazi gas chambers or gas vans
from any Journal editor or IHR director.
Now, for the first time ever, you insist -- as a condition for remaining
with the Committee -- on an affirmative reply to your query: “Tell me
whether or not you say, as I myself have so clearly stated for so many
years, that the alleged Nazi gas chambers and the alleged Nazi gas vans
never existed." To the best of my knowledge, you have not made, and do
not make, such a demand of any other associate. You seem to be holding
me to a standard to which you do not hold others.
In your e-mail message to me of Wednesday, December 17, you wrote that
you are “ill at ease” with what I wrote to you in response to your
query, and you therefore ask that we take your name off the Committee
list. Of course, we will do as you wish.
At the same time, I am very disappointed with your handling of this
matter. Specifically, I am unhappy that you sent to others a copy of an
e-mail message to me that I regard as misleading and unfair. For one
thing, it is misleading because you quoted only part of my response to
your question. That may give some people the false impression that I
accept or believe the Holocaust story.
Here, as you will recall, is my complete response.
“To respond to your repeated gas chamber question: I don’t believe the
claims about the alleged Nazi gas chambers.
“In that regard, an important experience for me was my visit to Dachau,
Mauthausen and Hartheim with you and Fred Leuchter in April 1989. I have
also been impressed with the technical arguments that you, Leuchter and
others have presented. However, the ‘gas chamber’ question is not as
significant for me as other aspects of the ‘Holocaust,’ in large part
because my knowledge of technical or chemical matters is so limited.
“I do not like to say that ‘the Nazi gas chambers never existed,’ in
part because I do not regard myself as any kind of specialist of ‘gas
chambers,’ and in part because I avoid making such categorical
statements (on any subject).
“Given that you have not pressed me for my view of Nazi gas chambers
during the past ten years or so, I don’t understand why you have been
pressing me on this in recent weeks.
“As you know, my view of the ‘Holocaust,’ including the ‘gas chambers’
is detailed in my testimony over five days during the 1988 Zundel trial,
in the July 1995 ‘Holocaust debate’ with Michael Shermer, and in
numerous essays, reviews, and speeches, and so forth, published over the
years.”
In your message of yesterday, you also wrote that I agreed not to say
that “we (or I) do not deny the Holocaust...” You add that you “no
longer trust” my “promises in such matters.” Well, I think that your
memory is faulty on this point. I cannot find any record of such a
pledge, and I do not recall making any such statement or promise to you.
Moreover, your unhappiness on this point is strange, given that you
yourself have publicly declared that “revisionists to do not deny the
genocide and the gas chambers.” These words appeared, for example, in a
short declaration by you published (with your permission) in the
Jan.-Feb. 1999 Journal of Historical Review (p. 21). Of course, both you
and I normally explain just what we mean when we say that we do not
“deny” the “Holocaust.”
This entire matter is particularly unpleasant for me because I hold you
in esteem, and regard you as a friend. Over the years, probably no
person has done more than I to make your writings available in English.
As you know, I have devoted many hours working together with you to
present your writings, as clearly and as effectively as possible, to
English-speaking readers.
In my view, the effectiveness and long-term survival of the Institute
for Historical Review requires that we avoid dogmatism, even about the
“Holocaust.” Accordingly, I have published writings with which you (and
I) do not agree, including contributions by persons who accept “the
Holocaust.”
Cordially,
Mark
weber@ihr.org
Institute for Historical Review
22 December 2003
Reply to Mark Weber
I shall briefly sum up for you what, precisely, our recent exchange of
correspondence has been. For greater clarity, I find myself obliged to emphasise
certain words of this exchange, although I do not care for the practice. You will
see that, contrary to what you venture to say, the letter that I sent you and
made public on 17 December was neither “misleading” nor “unfair”. You will
also see, at the end of this reply, that you have made a monumental muddle of
a text of mine of which you quote a very brief fragment; by so doing, you have
been “misleading” or “unfair” or both. In conclusion, I will show that this
controversy may in the end lead to a heartening prospect for the future of
revisionism.
My question of 17 December was: “Tell me whether or not you SAY, as I myself
have so clearly STATED for so many years, that the alleged Nazi GAS CHAMBERS
and the alleged Nazi GAS VANS never EXISTED”. The question was clear: it
focused 1) on what you SAY or STATE, 2) on the very EXISTENCE, 3) of the allegedNazi GAS CHAMBERS, 4) and of the alleged Nazi GAS VANS.
Instead of answering this question directly, you wrote back: “I don’t
believe the claims about the alleged Nazi gas chambers”. That act of faith was not
what I was looking for. Effectively, whereas I was waiting to see what you, as
a historian, would SAY or STATE, you answered by what you DIDN’T BELIEVE.
Then, you asserted that you did not BELIEVE in CLAIMS, a particularly vague word;
the remark may mean that you refuse to believe certain statements concerning
the said gas chambers, but not necessarily all such statements; the choice of
the word “CLAIMS” may mean that you call into question certain aspects of the
story of the Nazi gas chambers (their number, location, performance) but not
necessarily the affirmation of their existence itself. Finally, with such a
sentence you do not, as all may see, breathe a word of the “gas vans”
Noting that with so vague a sentence you had not gone into the subject, I did
not feel the need to deal with it in my letter itself, but, in the
accompanying message, addressed to Jean Plantin, Yvonne Schleiter and Arthur Butz at the
same time as to you, I plainly told you: “I did not ask for your ‘beliefs’
(?) about ‘claims’ (?) and, moreover, you do not mention the Nazi gas vans”.
Nor did I deal with your prologue regarding at once Dachau, Mauthausen,
Hartheim and your “limited” knowledge of technical and chemical matters. As is my
habit, I went straight to the heart of the matter and so it was that, leaving
to one side everything of the order of more or less trifling preliminary
remarks, I extracted from your response the lone sentence that constituted an
answer, FINALLY, to the question put. And that answer was as follows: “I do not
like to say that the ‘Nazi gas chambers never existed’, in part because I do not
regard myself as any kind of specialist of ‘gas chambers’ and in part
because I avoid making such categorical statements.”
I think it useless here to run once more through the remarks that such a
pitiful answer inspires me to make. It is typical of what I call “spineless
Revisionism”. At the 2002 conference, I protested against this form of revisionism
and suggested that, in future, revisionists come out fighting. I find comical
the insistence of some revisionist “researchers” on still looking into “the
problem of the gas chambers”. We are not about to carry on this way till the end
of time killing what has already, on the commonsense level, been
“overkilled”. But with our “researchers” the corpse of the “Nazi gas chambers or vans”
is buried, then exhumed to be put in a coffin into which one more nail is
driven. The role of an Institute like the IHR ought to be to come out with a
formal assertion, one requiring neither technical nor chemical expertise but rather
of the simplest kind: For more than half a century, Germany’s accusers have
in the end revealed their inability to let us see a single specimen of the
alleged weapons of mass destruction that the Nazis are said to have designed,
built or used for “The Destruction of the European Jews” (Raul Hilberg).
Whatever you do, don’t moan that “Given that you have not pressed me for my
view on Nazi gas chambers during the past ten years or so, I don’t understand
why you have been pressing me on this in recent weeks”. In reality, you know
perfectly well that there has been this point of discord between us for quite a
long time. I have reminded you of the instance at which you and I confronted
one another on it ten years ago in Washington. There was also, though you seem
not to remember, another instance, over the telephone, on the subject of a
statement of yours during a talk-show on a Black radio station. And I am not the
only one to deplore Mark Weber’s shilly-shallying with regard to the gas
chambers. I can recall Fritz Berg rightly complaining of your dodging the
question. Carlos Porter also seems to find you are dancing around. I myself have had
to approach you more than once in order to get you to respond. And now,
finally, that your response is known, it is understandable why you have tried to
dodge an irksome question. But, is it normal, Mark Weber, to conceal from the
IHR’s readers, members, dues-paying supporters that their editor perhaps refuses,
to a certain degree, to BELIEVE a lie and a historic slander but DOES NOT LIKE
to have to say so? How many people imagine that for the Editor of the Journal
of Historical Review a proper reply to that slander is: “I do not like to say
that ‘the Nazis gas chambers never existed’”?
During the above-mentioned talk-show, you stated: “I do not deny the
Holocaust happened but …” I immediately told you how deadly wrong it was to make such
a CONCESSION to The Big Lie and Defamation. You retort now that in 1991 I
myself declared: “Revisionists do not deny the genocide and the gas chambers”.
There you make a fine muddle. I said then, on the contrary, that by the
acceptance of the word “deny” an untoward CONCESSION was made to the liars. I give
you below the full text of my remark, that was published under the altogether
unambiguous title “AFFIRMATION, NOT DENIAL”:
A reminder: Revisionists do not deny the genocide and the gas chambers. This
is a MISCONCEPTION. Galileo didn’t deny that the earth was stationary; he
AFFIRMED, at the conclusion of his research, that the earth was not stationary,
but that it rotated on its axis and revolved around the sun. In the same way,
the revisionists, after concluding their own research, AFFIRM that there was no
genocide and no gas chambers, and that the « final solution of the Jewish
question » consisted of the removal of the Jews from Europe – by emigration if
possible, and by deportation if necessary. – The revisionists strive to establish
what happened ; they are positive while the exterminationists doggedly
continue to tell us about things which didn’t happen : their work is negative. –
The Revisionists stand for the reconciliation of the antagonists in the
recognition of what really happened. (Robert Faurisson, The Journal of Historical
Review, January-February 1999, p. 21).
In other words, I make with that remark the opposite of a CONCESSION. In a
general way, not only do I expose the enthusiasts of the Big Lie for what they
are, but I also refuse to borrow their least turn of phrase. The revisionists
must show themselves to be candid, unbending and without CONCESSION. The time
for CONCESSIONS is over.
I come now to the possibility, mentioned at the outset, of an interesting
prospect for the future of revisionism.
On 2 June 2003, I published the following short article.
Hitler’s and Saddam’s Weapons of Mass Destruction
Is it not wonderful to get the same lie from the same people and for the same
purpose?
In January 1944, President Franklin D. Roosevelt decided to create, at the
request of the Jew Henry Morgenthau and his fellows, the so-called War Refugee
Board (WRB). In November 1944, that official body published, under the heading
“Executive Office of the President / War Refugee Board / Washington, DC”, a
report entitled German Extermination Camps – Auschwitz and Birkenau, falsely
accusing Adolf Hitler of having weapons of mass destruction or WMD (called
execution gas chambers).
.
In 2002, President George W. Bush decided to create, at the request of the
Jew Paul Wolfowitz and his fellows, the so-called Office of Special Plans (OSP).
That official body authored reports falsely accusing Saddam Hussein of having
WMD.
The lie was the same: an accusation based on false evidence. The people were
the same: powerful American Jews. The purpose was the same: war.
But there were also differences. First, the lie against Hitler was about
impossible and inconceivable WMD (for physical and chemical reasons) while the lie
against Saddam Hussein was about quite possible and conceivable WMD since his
accusers themselves had the same kind of weapons. Secondly, the lie against
Adolf Hitler was more than half a century old and stronger than ever while the
lie against Saddam Hussein was a few months old and already not too strong.
Thirdly, if someone disputed the accusation against Adolf Hitler, he might go to
prison like Ernst Zündel while, if someone disputed the accusation against
Saddam Hussein, he might, at least currently, be taking limited risks.
Observe how the lie was built against Saddam Hussein and you will see exactly
how the lie against Adolf Hitler was forged by the same kind of people and
for the same purpose: perpetual war.
When you, Mark Weber, recently held a conference with David Irving on current
world events, I suppose that the two of you had a good laugh with the tale of
Saddam Hussein’s WMDs. If so, did you also have a laugh with Adolf Hitler’s
WMDs? And, if you did not, may one ask why?
It is time for the end of this COMEDY that consists in demanding that the
Allies show us those weapons that Saddam is said to have possessed whilst, on the
subject of the far more fantastic weapons that Hitler is said to have
possessed and used on a large scale, Mark Weber is as reserved as a shy young maiden.
With Saddam’s WMDs, our patience did not last even a year, whereas with
Hitler’s we shall soon have shown sixty years of patience.
In the late 1970s I myself opened the way to material revisionist studies,
looking into the technical, physical, chemical, topographical and architectural
aspects of the matter of Hitler’s alleged WMDs. On this level, the
revisionists have attained results of such abundance and precision that, little by
little, the LIARS have found themselves at a loss for any answer. Their museums of
the “Holocaust” have been unable to take up my final 1992 challenge: “Show
me or draw me a Nazi gas chamber”. And what is true of the “Nazi gas chambers”
is equally true of the “Nazi gas vans” or “Jewish soap” or lampshades made
of human skin or still other nonsense.
I therefore suggest that the revisionists today close the book on this
physical, chemical and other material research, for it is in fact taking a
progressively pedantic turn. It is becoming “art for art’s sake”. These redundant
studies have, above all, the disastrous effect of making a problem appear
complicated when it is actually altogether easy to solve.
It is pitiful when the head of an institute of revisionist studies is reduced
to confessing: “I do not like to say that the Nazi gas chambers never existed
”. It is regrettable that he should have concealed that attitude up to now and
that only my insistence on getting an answer on the subject made him come out
with it. It is a pity that, seeking to vindicate his position, he wrongly
accused me of having been “misleading and unfair”. It is lamentable that in the
dispute with me he should bring up a text of mine whose meaning he distorts to
the point of turning it entirely around.
But it is heartening to see that I am now far from alone in denouncing a
revisionism that has had its day and in advocating a new revisionism, more
clear-cut, straightforward, vigorous and able, for a start, to put it to the
upholders of the Big Lie that “The best proof that your Nazi gas chambers and your
Nazi gas vans did not exist any more than your Jewish soap, your lampshades of
human skin and so much other nonsense of a vile war propaganda is that, more
than fifty years after that war, your ‘scientific experts’ are, more than ever,
unable to show them to us”.
This new revisionism, which demands character, calls for young and spirited
men.
Epilogue
"Hitler's gas chambers are like Saddam's weapons of mass destruction: THEY’VE
NEVER BEEN SEEN!” Voiced by a woman, this radio-style watchword has for the
past few weeks been making the rounds of a French revisionist news group. I
recommend that it be taken up with insistence in all revisionist publications and
correspondence for as long as the Allies have not found Saddam's secret
weapons.As for the Liars who, to display Nazi gas chambers, put on view for us a
section of wall or a door with a small window or a showerhead or a spyhole or a
pair of shoes with the inscription “We are the last witnesses” (as seen at
the Washington Holocaust Memorial Museum), they make one think of General Colin
Powell who, at the UN, showed photos of buildings or trucks supposed to
represent Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.
And no one will have forgotten the
“phial of poison” brandished there by the same general, himself raised, as his
biographers tell us, in Yiddishtown (New York). The phial contained only a
sort of sneezing powder. It was pure, unadulterated “Nuremberg trial”!
----- Original Message -----From: Robert H. CountessTo: Carlos PorterSent: Monday, December 22, 2003 11:20 PMSubject: Re: Professor Countess: the Faurisson--Weber falling out
I'm sorry to hear these things. Let's hope Mark can just be a scholar but let's hope he drops the hypocritical "nobody says it didn't happen" or "maybe they existed" line. Nobody will have any confidence in him with a line like that. Apart from that it's not my business to criticize him. Let Rudolf go his own way with or without Mark. You hear stories like this about any organization.
CARLOS
----- Original Message -----
From: Robert H. Countess <mailto:boblbpinc@earthlink.net>
To: Walter Mueller <mailto:thetruthisback@yahoo.com>
Cc: Fred Toben <mailto:info@adelaideinstitute.org> ; Germar Rudolf <mailto:germar_rudolf@usa.net> ; Marc Faurisson <mailto:norton2.cru@wanadoo.fr> ; Juergen Graf <mailto:d_gerald49@yahoo.com> ; Harvey Taylor <mailto:hataylor@syix.com> ; Carlos Porter <mailto:lfp@swing.be> ; carlopal1 <mailto:carlopal1@tin.it>
Sent: Sunday, December 21, 2003 4:01 PM
Subject: Professor Countess: the Faurisson--Weber falling out
Dear Walter:
My closing remarks to this development, if I may.
When I resigned from the IHR’s Board [the LSF] in 2000, I did so because Mark Weber pressured me to resign, alleging that I had “a conflict of interest” as Founder and Director of Theses & Dissertations Press, with Germar Rudolf as my Editor. Mark insisted that if the IHR were to sell TADP books, there might be a conflict of interest thereby.
I was even informed by both Weber and Greg Raven that the IHR was not permitted to sell books by other publishers since such would be contrary to the IHR’s being a Non-Profit Corp. [All one has to do is look at the books offered for sale by the IHR and count up those published by publishers outside the IHR—many, if not most of them!].
But, I caved in to Mark’s pressure; a Kansas attorney was put in my place and the past three years have shown that the fellow [a nice guy, to be sure] does not even answer phone messages. He has been largely inactive and a Yes-Man for Mark’s policies. These “policies” seem to be NO production of the JHR in over a year; the last production of the JHR was a pathetic double issue of about 40 pages!
At the July 2002 IHR Conference where I presented a lecture on the important Van Pelt CASE FOR AUSCHWITZ book, I learned that Mark decided NOT to present my lecture as part of the video series for sale; then he relented, but excised the first minute or so of my introduction. [IHR attendees may want to notice that Dr. Toben’s talk is NOT available in video either, part of an effort to censure Fred’s plain speaking about certain topics.
At this conference I observed that neither Mark nor Greg announced the $100,000 [approximate amount] gift in June from the Keefer Estate that Executor Fritz Berg had gotten for the IHR; to me this was a subterfuge since the attendees were being asked to contribute money to the IHR’s DIRE and URGENT financial needs to keep it afloat. I confronted Mark and Greg about this hiding of such a large and important gift, but I got no convincing explanation.Seems that MOST of the money went to lawyers as did most of the money from the sale of the Carto home in Escondido! And yet, as former LSF Board member Judge Robert Berger Lynch learned in an office visit about two-three years ago, THERE WERE NO ACCURATE DATA AT THE IHR FOR MONTHLY LEGAL BILLING. Judge Lynch was voted off the LSF shortly thereafter and accused of being meddlesome and seeking to destroy the IHR.
During the visit, Judge Lynch asked for exact JHR subscription total and was told by Greg Raven that these could not be obtained. ANY OF US COULD GO TO NYC AND ASK THE PUBLISHER OF TIME MAGAZINE ON ANY DAY OF THE WEEK FOR THE SAME INFORMATION AND COULD GET WITHIN AN HOUR OR LESS FROM A COMPUTER CLERK HOW MANY P A I D SUBSCRIBERS AND HOW MANY G I F T COPIES AND HOW MANY NEWSTAND AND LIBRARY COPIES AND ON AND ON!
The IHR under Mark Weber’s directorship has been a production disaster and his falling out with key members of the JHR Editorial Advisory Committee likewise. One LSF Board Member told me on the phone that Mark is very effective in discussing Revisionist matters with key scholars around the world. But, if we look at the recent resignations of Faurisson, Graf, Butz [least of all, my resignation], we must wonder how effective Mark is after all.
Faurisson would not have resigned unless he had convincing reason to do so; I resigned for different reasons and my action has been amply reinforced, as also that of Graf and Butz.
Mark Weber is regarded by all of us as highly capable and intelligent as a researcher and writer and effectively engaging orator, but he CANNOT DO THE WORK OF PRODUCING THE JOURNAL NOR OF BOOKS ANY MORE.The time has come for Mark to be replaced by a DOER. Germar Rudolf was asked to be JHR Editor two years ago but turned down the offer [people can contact Germar for his own explanation] because he knew he could not work with Greg and Mark in view of their LACK of discipline and LACK of productivity.
I know something about Germar since he worked for me and drove me crazy with assignments to get DTH, GIANT, and Stalin’s War into print; Germar lived in our home for seven months. He worked “36 hour days”--it seemed to me. His productivity with the VffG and now TR and our book projects is beyond dispute.
The IHR needs someone like Germar who can do the work; I doubt that he would leave his present success story to go to the comatose IHR [with its funeral expected by 2005 in my opinion], but at least a reorganized IHR under his direction would be a workhorse of beehive proportions.
Faurisson is just the tip of the iceberg; when I resigned from the JHR, he urged me to reconsider. Butz urged me to reconsider. Now all are resigned. Many others on the Committee are inactive or just prefer to remain silent in all this uproar.
I wish Mark Weber the very best future, but he cannot expect to turn the IHR around since he is largely responsible for its demise [and Carto cannot be blamed for everything, as it is so convenient to do]. I wish also for the IHR to be saved, but it seems necessary for it to die first.
Looking forward to the fine Sacto Conference in April, I remain
Sincerely,
--
Robert H. Countess, Ph.D.
Ancient Greek
email: boblbpinc@earthlink.net
28755 Sagewood Circle
Toney, AL 35773 USA
Phone: (256) 232-4940 Cell: (256) 653-7598
Fax: (256) 232-4940
Carlos:
Thanks for all.
Exception here is that I have been quite personally a part of “these stories” and thus think and write.
Mark MUST go away in order to save the IHR; he MUST otherwise take a position at a new IHR where someone strong can dictate his work schedule and insure that he meets weekly performance objectives. Otherwise, Mark’s enormous talents will continue to waste away as he spends enormous hours reading newspapers and cutting out and filing clippings in the wonderfully detailed IHR file cabinets. Mark is good at so many things, but he is a disaster in meeting production schedules.
He must go!
Bob
------ Forwarded Message
From: Mark Weber <weber@ihr.org>
Reply-To: weber@ihr.org
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2003 22:16:54 -0800
To: M Weber <weber@ihr.org>
Subject: Countess' Outrageous Message
This e-mail message by Robert Countess (below) is an outrage. It is
packed with assertions about me that are both malicious and
breathtakingly wrong. For the time being, anyway, I have neither the
time nor the inclination to respond further to this rubbish.
Mark Weber
weber@ihr.org
----- Original Message -----From: CHPSent: Wednesday, December 24, 2003 12:22 AMSubject: Re: Countess' Outrageous MessageWell, there are is an inaccuracy. Greg Raven was the one who refused to take the Giant and Hoffmann books with the reason that the IHR cannot offer third party books, but Mark Weber actually straightened him out on that. After that they advertised and sold it - in very few copies, but still.Regarding the other issues I cannot make a comment, because I haven't been involved.Germar
© -free 2003 Adelaide Institute
