ISSN 1440

                                                                                                                              ISSN 1440-9828
                                                                                  April 2005
                                                                                           No 242

Major antisemitic incident in Germany

Ginger the cat arrested in Germany for pro-Nazi sympathies

Newsflash – NSDAP, Mannheim 20 April 2005

Jewish German groups claim that Ginger, now living in an old cattery in Fürth, is the cat seen affectionately admiring Adolf Hitler during the 1934 Nürnberg Party Rally. Evidence comes from Triumph Des Willens.

Ginger was asked to comment to journalists about war crimes allegations. “I was only obeying orders”, claimed Ginger. “I was only rooting out the pantry rats who were on a free ride to glory. I didn’t throw the piano out the window, how could I? I was only a cat.”

Police prosecutor, Klein-boy, claimed that Ginger’s denialism stems from a refusal to accept eternal guilt, and that court action will follow. He said, “These incorrigible cats have lots of criminal energy stemming from their refusal to rat on other former members of the ‘NS Katzenjammer SS Sonder Kommando für töten von Ratten in Speisekammern’.”

Ginger’s collar and registration tag have been impounded to prevent its escape to Sardinia, something vigorously opposed by defence counsel, Shepherd Blondie, who claimed that cats are never a flight risk.

An unidentified source close to Judge Bobcat claimed that an out-of-court cash-offer of 20 rats is expected soon. “An intervention at the highest diplomatic level will come from a German-related English royal whose grandson recently gave up fox hunting to join the Holy Order of the Pussies.”

The case is continuing .

Ginger in pensive mood outside Mannheim court

seeking understanding and solace from the media.

Leigh Bishop's photos of the Wilhelm Gustloff wreck: The Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff

Coincidence or Winds of Change?

Three matters emerged in the Australian media almost at the same time indicating to me there may be a shift in favour of German sentiment. This shift, however, may well be a result of left-wing ideologues running out of steam and thereby being eaten by their own revolution. Perhaps it may also be that individuals have intellectually matured on account of, justifiably or unjustifiably, attracting the label ‘antisemite’ because of their continued opposition to the apartheid, Zionist and racist state of Israel. This applies to both left and right-wing media ideologues – though I hasten to add that for me personally this left-right divide has for a number of years become unhelpful in explaining problematic social configurations, especially of the international kind.

1. On 7 March 2005, one of ABC Radio National’s daily five-minute programs, Perspective, featured author and businessman, John Dawson, weighing in on the controversy surrounding Keith Windschuttle’s revisionist theses on Australian settlement. The transcript reveals the Revisionist mindset critically aiming to seek out what factual truth there is to find on the contentious issues that has Australia’s academia in umroar. So much so, that within the final minute of the recorded talk, continuous interruption by a female voice – snigger, snigger and ‘he does go on’ – was disturbingly audible. The politically correct ladies behind the radio controls while the recorded broadcast was aired, could not contain their displeasure at listening to mind-expanding material being aired. Their intolerance, as so often happens amongst the politically correct brigade, had become clearly audible through a display of bad manners. That the speaker, John Dawson, has written a concise book on this subject is interesting, even liberally mentioning David Irving, as a ‘Holocaust’ denier, something Keith Windschuttle is not, i.e. Windschuttle is a ‘Holcoaust’ believer. Dawson does admit that there is such as thing as legitimate ‘Holocaust’ Revisionism, and that there is such a thing as ‘Holcoaust’denialism. Butz, Faurisson and Rudolf, of course would be considered to be deniers, and do not get a mention, but English historian Richard Evans does because he was an expert witness against ‘denier’ Irving. Evans supports Keith Windschuttle against about 600 members of Australia’s community of historians who reject the contention that history can discover objective truth – and this from Richard Evans!

2. On 10 March, 2005, Australia’s Judeophile, left-wing socialist millionaire and virulent anti-German/Nazi broadcaster, Phillip Adams, devoted his hour-long talk program to “A discussion about the world's worst maritime disaster and why, to this day, it is a little known story. When the German cruise liner, the Wilhelm Gustloff was sunk in the Baltic Sea, in January 1945, an estimated 9-10,000 people perished. They were mostly refugees and mostly children.” Some of the more interesting matters raised in the discussion have to my knowledge not been aired so specifically, and below will follow the more pertinent remarks heard on this program.

3. In March 2005, one of Australia’s more noted educational writer, Luke Slattery, advised in a magazine article that he has to front the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission - HREOC, for having written anti-German remarks. Although I personally have a distain for the HREOC mind-set – and having been taken before it by Australia’s leading Jew, resulting in a Federal Court of Australia Gag Order – with interest I watch this procedure develop to its logical conclusion Illogical is a better word here because the procedure runs on emotional energy and little rationality – a hurt feeling is enough to find someone guilty. For about two decades various German Australians have taken ‘offending material’ to HREOC, without success. This matter may or may not proceed any further, and had Luke Slattery not written about it, then it may have remained in someone’s drawer-of-grief without gaining national airing. Interestingly, during the 1980s when I was fighting the good fight in education, Luke Slattery, and his mate Geoff Maslen – an outright lefty, scoffed at my expressed concerns at what was coming our way in education. Later, before the HREOC appearances, very few public figures took my comments seriously that they would be next in line. I am trying to suppress a certain Schadenfreude as the HREOC machinery grinds to its own logical conclusion.

Summary: The Wilhelm Gustloff was once the pride and joy of the Nazi regime in Germany – a cruise ship named after a Hitler protégé – and she was absolutely crammed with passengers, 9-10 thousand, all of them fleeing the advancing Russian Army, one thousand survived. She was sunk by three torpedoes from a Russian submarine, in the southern Baltic Sea, enroute to the western German port of Kiel. In this program, three survivors, a historian and a shipwreck photographer tell a story of immense human drama, and explain why this remains a little known tragedy.

Guests on this program: Leigh Bishop, Deep sea diver and shipwreck photographer; Eva Rothchild, Switzerland, Wilhelm Gustloff survivor; Horst Woit, Toronto, Canada, Wilhelm Gustloff survivor; Inge Rödecker, Melbourne, Wilhelm Gustloff survivor; Claes-Goran Wetterholm, Shipping historian & author. Claes-Goran Wetterholm Dodens Hav-Sea of Death, Prisma, Sweden, 2003, in Swedish only. Arthur V. Sellwood : The Damned Don't Drown, Naval Institute Press, USA, Reprint edition, 1996. Christopher Dobson et al: The Cruelest Night, Little Brown, 1980. Günter Grass: Crabwalk, Harvest Books, English edition, 2004. Story Producer and Researcher: Chris Bullock ………….

Claes-Goran Wetterholm: …They also evacuated the conentration camps. So at the same time as ordinary Germans were evacuated, people, concentration camp prisoners, were towed in barges all over the Baltic to be collected and many of them later on ended up on these two ships Kap Arkona and Tielbeck, and they wer, as far as we know, accidentally bombed on 3rd May 1945. You must remember war ended officially on 7 May. So there were some 6-7 thousand people packed on these two ships and they were bombed by RAF, more or less an unknown story – a horrible, horrible mistake. And the pilots were using a new kind of phosphate bomb so the ship burned from top down.

…

Adam: Let’s talk to a little girl … I’m looking at a photograph of her when she’s about two, and she’s there with a pusher, a pram beside a very young mother, and to our astonishment we found this little girl is living in Melbourne. Her name is Inge Rödecker, she was two in January 45, so she can’t remember much of the events but she knows her mother’s story very well because until the day she died her mom, Milde, had never been able to share her story with another survivor but she had shared it with her daughter …Eva, Horst and Inge all leave Germany after the war to live in other parts of the world, and although they were survivors of the worst shipwreck in history, they weren’t able to talk about it. In Eva’s case she marries a Jewish man called Rothchild – live in New York...Eva doesn’t want to tell or go into details of her experience with her family because they had Jewish friends who suffered more in concentration camps, and in your case, Inge, you were the only one your mother could speak to. Inge Rödecker: That’s correct, yes. She never, ever found anybody who knew anything about the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff.

Adams: Your mother never found another survivor?

Inge Rödecker: Never. Yet I was so surprised in the book written by Mr Selwood The Damned don’t drown, my mother’s account of her survival clearly written about and I will never know how he got that account…a total mystery. My mother must have told somebody the story , probably immediately after this, maybe in the Red Cross camp where we were for , I don’t know how many days, maybe one night or more, but the story must have been told by somebody else to this author of that book.

Adams: But Inge, the other interesting thing is that there were times when she almost wanted to tell the story but people didn’t believe her. .. you talk about a social gathering where people are talking about the Titanic and your mum says, ‘I was in a much worse disaster’, and she’s discounted and faintly ridiculed.

Inge Rödecker: Yes, people turned around and sniggered and laughed and , and it happened two or three times, I was there and I remember , and in the end she said to me, ‘I will no longer discuss this with anyone except you’.

Adams: And she’s weep when she told you about it.

Inge Rödecker: Every time , yes. …

Phillip Adams: What’s it feel like, to re-visit the subject now, these events, together, do you feel very close to each other?

Inge Rödecker: I feel privileged to be able to speak to the others. I think it’s just wonderful.

Adams: Yea. Do you have nightmares about it, Inge. Do you have, does it rush up when you least suspect it?

Inge Rödecker: No, I don’t. Probably because I truly don’t have a memory of it – that would help me [She’s not a ‘Holocaust’ survivor- FT]. You know, if you had’ve gone through it yourself and seen what Eva and Horst had seen, I’m sure you’d have nightmares, absolutely.

Adams: Well, finally, class, as we’ve said, this was the worse tragedy … what is the status of these wrecks? Are they regarded as war graves?

Claes-Goran Wetterholm: They’re regarded was war graves and should be regarded as such. Unfortunately as Leigh Bishop said there has been plunder going on, both by the Soviets and by others… it’s not hard to get a hold of artefacts from the Gustlof

Adams: The final question I have to ask you: Can you explain to me – I know there were two films made on the story, I think a Polish film and a German film, and there’s been quite a few authors who have tackled it – why is it, however, that it has so little penetrated what one might describe as the collective consciousness?

Claes-Goran Wetterholm: The Titanic as a comparison sank when there was a low tide with news and she sank between the two big news metropolises, at the time is was London and New York.

The Gustloff sank with no famous people on board. There was no orchestra playing. There was no glamour. There was just people, just like you and and me who were trying to save what we could save, and in the end the only thing you could save was your own life, which of course I think is interesting and fascinating, and I was taken aback by the story because I had never heard of it until 1972 and then I started to find as much information as possible and only realizing that it was only in Germany that there had been somebody writing about it. So, there are lots of different reasons. The other reason is that the survivors were actually told they could not speak about the disaster, and in the new Germany, Bundesrepublik, nobody wanted to talk about disasters and accidents, nobody. [What rubbish, the legal Holocaust framework was being put into place ever so gently- FT] And first and foremost, up till now, any German has been not looked upon as a victim. This is important to remember that on the Wilhelm Gustloff the people were victims, but it’s always been said concentration camps or extinction camps, and that’s it. It’s not until now that it’s been allowed to say that “Oh, yes, Germans, too, could suffer”.

Adams: I think that’s a very, very profound observation. Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you very much.

[What rubbish, Phillip Adams, and you know it because you have been in the forefront of stifling debate on such matter – shame on you for lying here! FT]

I am not a racist. In fact. I’m something of a sensitive multi-culturalist: the more complex the cultural stew, the better. But a vile bigot I may turn out to be if, in the eyes of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, I’m found guilty of “repeated racial vilification” for dissing, of all people, Germans.

The accusations have been levelled by a German-Australian in a document that as hysterical as it is histrionic. Yet the commission regards it as grave enough to have written me demanding a response and threatening sanctions

And so I find myself in a free-speech trial. The complainant asserts that I’ve maligned the German people by uttering “extremely disturbing and racially offensive remarks” in several articles written for the Weekend Australian magazine.

Now, I’m enough of a sensitive centre-leftie to believe in the notion of racial vilification as embodied in the Racial Discrimination Act. On the other hand, I’m enough of a realist to want the law’s purview restricted to races (not nations) that may be tangibly harmed by acts of repeated vilification and manifold “hatred”.

As I write these words, a copy of the HREOC complaint lies open on my desk. It includes three photocopies of the offending articles, incendiary passages underlined. The first contains the line: “The Germans have always had the gift of killing to music.”I wrote this on May 29, 2004. Or, rather, I cited it. The line is a quotation by the Austrian writer-journalist Joseph Roth in a 1938 essay in which he warned of “the political terror that Hitler contrives to exert over his European colleague”. The beauty of Roth’s “killing to music” phrase is that it goes to the paradox of National Socialism: how does the Nazi killing machine sit with the culture of Bach and Mozart, heir to the Renaissance and the Enlightenment? I’d defend his use of it in this historical context, and my re-use of it in the same context, a thousand times.

How have we come to the point where a writer risks drawing down upon himself the weight of the Racial Discrimination Act by quoting a 1938 article about the rise of the Hitler machine? The questions raised by Roth in his taut and elegant phrase will plague mankind for eternity.

And yet the Canberra bureaucracy appears sympathetic to the view that they should not be uttered in public.

The other claims in the dispatch from HREOC are based on overheated and neurotic misreadings of my article, including one in which I refer to “German shame” in the context of a war cemetery.

This is the problem with any discussion of Germany’s behaviour during the war. Hitler was voted into office by 37 per cent of the population and his plans were carried out with alacrity by many ordinary Germans, as illustrated by Daniel Goldhagen in his book, Hitler’s Willing Executioners. A nation, a race, a people were involved both explicitly and tacitly in the Nazi machine. The historical facts lead one to consider a degree of collective German shame: to do otherwise is to not have the discussion.

Recently I had reason to write again about Joseph Roth as I was reviewing a collection of his journals (1925-39). Roth was a fierce opponent of Hitler and his writings foreshadowed the disaster. I found myself drawn to his reflections on Germany and the Germans of his time (reflections that draw on the memories of World War One and of Prussian militarism). I stalked them warily, and moved on. I had been bullied, finally, into self-censorship.

Fredrick Töben replies: Letter 17.03. 2005

Poor Luke Slatter! When I fought the good fight against the Victorian Education Department’s nonsense during the 1980s, Luke was watching on the side. When I fought the good fight against HREOC and Federal Court of Australia – and obtained a gag order against myself – I informed him that journalists would be next in line because the nonsense HREOC- Racial Discrimination Act will continue to eat its own children.

Now it has happened. Luke wants to talk about World War One and World War Two, openly and freely? Then Revisionists must be given a right of reply and be free to demolish the Holocaust’ myth, something that to date attracts criminal sanction in many European countries, otherwise the equation remains unbalanced and unjust. See the recent Ernst Zündel affair. Luke Slattery cannot understand “How have we come to the point where a writer risks drawing down upon himself the weight of the Racial Discrimination Act by quoting a 1938 article about the rise of the Hitler machine? The questions raised by Roth in his taut and elegant phrase will plague mankind for eternity.” It will not, if Revisionists can help clarify the matters in dispute in open debate. I vehemently oppose Luke Slattery having to justify himself before HREOC, and I suggest he ignores all of it. If the HREOC matter succeeds, then he may take the matter to the Federal Court of Australia (FCA) to have it thrown out or to have it legally confirmed. I do hope his matter will not proceed that far because Luke gives me the right to open the whole issue that I worry about – so that we can have an open discussion about, among other things, matters ‘Holocaust’ – and damned be the FCA’s gag order that to date has silenced me, as he may be silenced soon.

A very dear friend has just left us. Salomon Lubicz, physician commandant, former prisoner of the camp of Auschwitz, has been engaged volunteer for the period of war as a stranger and was recruited to the reserve of the Légion Etrangère on September the 7th 1939. Affected to the twelve regiment of infantry, he left for the army on May 11th 1940. Taken prisoner on June 9th 1940 in Billy (Aisne), and released on March 7th 1942 due the agreement of Genava on health personnel, he was arrested, following an order from the prefecture; the motive: stranger, trouble maker because of his patriotic engagement; he turned out to be a danger for those who wanted to sell our country to a bloodthirsty insane. He was detained in Merignac, and after that in Compiègne and Royal Lieu. It was then the great departure to the Nazi penal colony and the arrival in Auschwitz, the model camp of decay and humiliation created by the madness of men.

The defeat of the Germans was taking shape and his commando was evacuated towards Lübeck and the camp of Neuengamme where we were taken aboard on boats (KapArkona, Deutschland, Tielbeck or Athena). We lived here, until the 2nd of May 1945, a dantesc nightmare surrounded by vermin and epydemias where every day we were jamming dead people in a corner of a boat without being able to pay them the homage due to human dignity.

In the morning of May 2nd, we witnessed the greatest naval disaster of all time, because the Germans to hide part of their crimes, didn't want to comply the orders of the allies to join the coastline before noon and the aviation ignoring the nature of the loading, sink the boats with the only exception of the Athena which has been able to join the wharf of Lübek on 30th April. In this tragedy, a lot of men from Bordeaux died, among them the Doctor Barraud Albert and the engineer Frank Larrey. There were only 276 of us left on the quay of Lübeck kept prisoner by two Germans patrols which were about to exterminate us.

But a good star was watching us, the earl Bernadotte and two of his officers of the Sweden red cross saved us from the death and we were taken aboard on two little cargos which had just unloaded medicines to the free town of Lübeck. The wonderful welcome of the Swedish, their care, their kindness, at the disposal of the Doctor Lubicz, lavished for two mouths, turned us a little healthier. At his arrival in France, his struggle was not finished, he had to fight with a hard and egotist society, he was not French anymore, neither physician and no money remaining. He had to cope to make his family live and give instruction to his children. He had to pass again the Baccalauréat, and all the physician studies and he kept going passing all the working physician studies. He was recruited as a attending physician at Haut Levèque and ten years later, he brought up his own surgery in Pessac where his first clients were his children and mine. He was for us all of model of courage. He came back disabled ex-serviceman 1939-1945. His actions in this tragedy brought him the mention of Chevalier in the order of Nation Merite and numerous other distinctions.

Salomon leaves us a message for the future of the youth which, this very day, is very topical due the events in the world; our total disappearance is near and already we assist to the disinformation of history and the negation of living memory. Salomon served the cause of the liberation of France. He was born good and modest and stayed so. His life and his professional carrier are not but a long example of simplicity, of fidelity and devotion. We will keep of Salomon the memory of a patriot and of man of heart. We will have also a thought about all whom left us. May his wife Esther, herself former deported to the Ravensbrück camp and all their family children and little children accept our sad and moved condolences. Farewell Salomon.

Five questions to Professor Faurisson, France, from journalist Hosein Amiri, Iran. 26 February 2005

1. As you may be aware, the "Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel" (CSA) has banned the Iranian satellite television network Sahar from broadcasting in France. Is this an illegal act, and is it contrary to the principles of freedom of speech and of the media ? What is your opinion?

RF: Yes, I am aware of that decision of February 10 and have read the wording of it. It is not an illegal decision since it is essentially based on two special laws that we have here in France: one against racism and anti-Semitism (1972), and the other against "historical revisionism" (1990), which the Jews call "denial of the Holocaust". Both laws are against the freedom of speech; the second is especially disgraceful since it is also against the freedom of historical research. The French Jewish organisations were instrumental in getting both laws passed -- especially the second one.

2. We are all aware that this government Council called CSA have accused Sahar of anti-Semitism because of its broadcast of the series "Zahra's Blue Eyes" and "Al-Shatat". How do the CSA define the term "anti-Semitism"?

RF: The real reason of Sahar's ban is not the transmission of those series. They clearly stated that the reason was the fact that Sahar broadcast a ten-minute interview with yours truly on February 3. In that interview I said that there had been no extermination of the Jews by the Germans during World War II and that the gas chambers allegedly used to kill the Jews in the camps ("gas chambers" are not to be confused with the crematoria) never existed. The Jews call "anti-Semitic" anyone who, in their opinion, hates the Jews. I call "anti-Semitic" anyone that the Jews hate.

3. Given the fact that, as they are broadcast from the Eutelsat, all inhabitants of Europe, indeed, people all throughout the world, may view such programmes, why is that such accusations against them are made only in France?

RF: I am not sure that such accusations are made only in France. I suppose that they are made in every country in which the Jewish power is in control of the public policy and the media of the country. In France the Jewish power is fantastic. The CRIF (Conseil représentatif des institutions juives de France) holds, in January or February of every year, a dinner attended by our Premier and, at least, 15 of his ministers. Each time, the leader of the CRIF will deliver a speech in which he indicates what our government must do in the year ahead. That leader will be very rude and arrogant with our ministers. Usually the latter will bow, express their thanks and then obey.

4. Why is that the media can accuse all the nations, ethnic groups or religions -- the Germans, the French, the Italians, the Muslims, the Christians -- but not the Jews and the Zionists?

RF: It has nearly always been the case in the Western World. Jews have the power. People in general and governments are afraid of displeasing them. People and governments also believe, more or less sincerely, that the Jews suffered so much during World War II that they deserve very special respect and, accordingly, enormous privileges.

5. BY THE WAY, it is necessary to call to mind that Mr Ernst Zündel is another victim of the suppression of freedom of speech. This GERMAN-BORN HERO was kidnapped in the USA two years ago and deported to Canada where he had previously lived for 40 years. For two years he has been held near Toronto in solitary confinement. On February 24, 2005 a single judge (sitting without a jury and hearing secret witnesses whom it was impossible for the defence to cross-examine) decided that this pacifist was a threat to the national security of Canada, as well as to international security. In doing so, that judge has cleared the way for Zundel's deportation to Germany where the heroic man may well spend the rest of his life in prison. How do you evaluate the Jewish power in its struggle against freedom of speech, considering that other revisionists like yourself have already been the victims of such actions on the part of the Jews?

RF: Yes indeed, Ernst Zündel is a hero. The only reason why he has been so persecuted and why, as we see, he may now have to spend the rest of his life (he is 66) in prison is that he has devoted his life to the defence of the reputation of his beloved country, Germany. He has for decades been fighting remarkably against the abominable "Holocaust" lies spread by Jewish propaganda against Germany. He is a revisionist. In the past he often tried to make the Arabs and the Moslems understand that the alleged "Holocaust of the Jews" was (and is) the sword and the shield of Israel. He would say: "If you really want to defend yourselves against Zionism, don't go and buy expensive weaponry but, with the help of the revisionist findings, go and destroy its monstrous lie, the lie of the "Holocaust"." It is time that Arabs and Moslems understood the importance of Revisionism and, to begin with, Sahar and all the media associated with Sahar ought to make known what Canada is doing right now to that hero. Ernst Zündel should not be deported to Germany. He should be freed and taken back to the USA, where his American wife has been waiting for him since February 5, 2003. Could Iranians go and protest at the Canadian Embassy in Tehran? It would be a good thing for freedom of speech, for freedom of historical research, for the Arab and Moslem World, and for Iran and Palestine.

The Dresden Syndrome

Robert Faurisson, 15 February 2005

For the first time in sixty years, the French daily Le Monde has just shown a bit of humanity and understanding towards the German people in calling to mind some of the atrocious sufferings inflicted on the great defeated nation by the wartime Allies. On the front page of its edition dated 13-14 February, the newspaper carried the three-column headline “La renaissance de Dresde réveille la mémoire allemande” (“the rebirth of Dresden awakens German memory”). Page 2 was entirely devoted to the commemoration of the 1945 bombing of Dresden. The editorial, on page 17, was entitled “Mémoire allemande” (“German memory”); it was, of course, Jesuitical in tone but there were to be noted a few sentences that give some hope; for example: “With the passing of time, we are witnessing a re-examination of Germany’s history with its dark points and bright points”.

January’s Holocaustic tsunami had smothered a good number of French people. But it seems that, from the beginning of this month, a turnaround has started to get underway in the public consciousness. It remains to be hoped that this turnaround will be long-lasting in France, Germany and the rest of the world.

No illusions should be harboured about Le Monde’s capacity to defy a certain coterie in this way. One may even fear that, in order to seek forgiveness for a one-off act of daring, it will resume its holocaustic one-upmanship with the rest of the media, for instance in April, on the occasion of the “Days of the Deportation”, or in July, for the commemoration of the 1944 rounding up of Jews at the “Vel d’Hiv” (the winter cycling arena) in Paris, or in October-November during Chirac’s visit to the camp of Struthof in Alsace. That said, Le Monde has made an effort at probity, and it might be worthwhile to write to chairman Jean-Marie Colombani and encourage him along this new path. Some readers had spoken up against the exorbitant space allotted by the paper to the sixtieth anniversary of the “liberation of the Auschwitz camp”. In his “Chronique du médiateur” (“mediator’s column”), Robert Solé echoed their protests, going so far as to write: “A first front-page headline, in the issue of January 25th, was followed by a second, on the 26th, then by a third, on the 28th. There was doubtless one too many” (Le Monde of 30-31 January, p. 14). Ten days later, a reader’s letter was published with the title “The destruction of Dresden”; it ended with the question: “Don’t you think it would be right to talk about this, not only out of respect for the hapless victims, but also to remind many people that the apocalyptic tragedy occurred just sixty years ago?” (11 February, p. 16).

In Paris on 12 February, sixteen members of the government, Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin among them, attended the annual dinner of the CRIF (“representative council of the Jewish institutions of France”). True to form, Roger Cukierman took the liberty of making numerous complaints and threats against France and her government. Hitherto he was always thanked for his observations, with compliments to boot. This time, Michel Barnier, Minister for foreign affairs, deemed R. Cukierman’s talk “disheartening”. For his part François Fillon, education minister, stated: “The president of the CRIF was able to note, upon returning to his seat, that the members of the government considered that the very strong attacks made against France’s foreign policy were not acceptable” (Le Monde, 15 February, p. 9). Not long ago, the voicing by our political leaders of such reservations or criticisms with regard to the omnipotent Jewish organisation would have been inconceivable.

Towards a re-examination of German history?

Will there be talk one day of the “Dresden syndrome”? Are we at present seeing the first signs and symptoms of a return to reason after sixty years of outrageous propaganda against a country that was defeated in the second world war? In January 2005, the French on the whole were staggered at the fits of shoahtic hysteria. They wondered what could ever have produced such sustained epilepsy. The Jews, for their part, know the how and the why, but have to conceal it: the edifice of the “Holocaust” or Shoah seems ever more to them to be shaking at the foundations. Initially, over the period from 1975 to 1995, they had counted on their historians to rebut the revisionists’ arguments. But the outcome was to be a thorough fiasco.

On the plane of reason and history, the revisionists have annihilated the Poliakovs, Wellers, Dawidowiczes and Vidal-Naquets like the Klarsfelds and the Berenbaums (who had engaged the services of a Jean-Claude Pressac), or again, the Raul Hilbergs and, later on, the Jan van Pelts. The general public are unaware of this because of the repression exerted by a thought police that has managed to obtain the passage of special laws against the distribution of revisionist material. But then, the Jews themselves read the revisionists and have been spectators to the rout of their own historians. Thus, in a latter period, they have progressively abandoned the field of the rational world for that of whatever may grab some attention. They have dismissed their historians and brought their clowns and tumblers out onto the floor, the Elie Wiesels and the Claude Lanzmanns.

To evoke the Shoah they have turned to imagination, to fiction, the cinema, novels, the theatre, television, spectacles and ceremonies of all sorts, and to the phantasmagoria of the “Holocaust” religion, industry or business, all to the point where the average Frenchman, caught in a whirlpool of images, a constant fracas, a tide of recriminations coupled with endless moaning and groaning, has had no choice but to ingest the force-fed frenzied accounts of Nazi barbarism and extermination of the Jews, an extermination which, let it be said in passing, fortunately produced an ever-renewed throng of “lone witnesses”, “sole survivors” and “incredibly, miraculously spared” Jews. The sewers have all been dug open up again. Alleged testimonies and confessions that the Jewish historians themselves had written off as false have since been recycled and presented as genuine.

Finally, the most receptive section of the population has been set upon: children from the age of seven (!) and middle and secondary school pupils. They are the choice target of a brazen propaganda. Between the ages of seven and seventeen, possessing only a few scraps of historical knowledge and generally having scant idea of the lengths to which an adult will go — especially in old age — to make himself interesting either as a smooth-talker or a downright liar, youngsters are hardly armed to defend against it. Kitted out with their “Simone Veil satchels”, the children or adolescents thus taken in would be very surprised indeed to learn that the said Veil was for a long time officially listed as an Auschwitz gassing victim (under her maiden name of Jacob) and was, in that camp, a regular witness to specific occurrences which show that the SS men were not at all instructed to treat the Jews like so much expendable livestock.

The propagandists will not be changing tack. Their folly will carry them still further. They will turn up the sound still higher. One day, this folly will be plain for all to see. Perhaps then it will be said that, at least on this chapter of second world war history, the return to reason began in February 2005. The syndrome of Dresden and its white roses will have “awakened German memory” and opened the way for a “re-examination of Germany’s history”.

Meanwhile, in Canada, the German pacifist Ernst Zündel languishes in the high security prison where he has been kept for the past two years, without even being charged. His crime? He is a revisionist. His wrongdoing?

He works to awaken German memory and demands a re-examination of his country’s history.

On Sunday, some 5,000 neo-Nazis took to the streets of Dresden to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Allied bombing of the baroque city. The march — one of the biggest far-right demonstrations in Germany since the fall of the Third Reich — sought to draw an "immoral equivalence," in the words of one neo-Nazi leader, between the "Allies' Holocaust of bombs" and Nazi crimes.

Unfortunately, it is not only admirers of Hitler who believe in the mythology of Dresden.

The British and American raids on February 13-14, 1945, have entered popular history as an action, taken for no strategic or military reasons against a city that was harboring thousands of refugees, that resulted in the death of between 150,000 and 250,000 people. The facts, however, are remarkably different. Historian Fredrick Taylor has meticulously demonstrated this in his fascinating book, "Dresden: Tuesday 13 February 1945." Wartime Dresden was a German "administrative, industrial and communications center" that was close to the front lines and home to one of the Reich's largest military garrisons. Dresden, Taylor points out, was a key railway junction. In October 1944, as the military fronts in the East and Southeast were coming closer, 28 military trains carrying almost 20,000 soldiers transited through Dresden daily. By February 1945, that pace would not have measurably decreased. Dresden's railway traffic made it an important Allied target.

Dresden, however, was inviting not only because of what went through it. The city's legendary china, camera, chocolate, bicycle and other factories had been reconfigured to produce precision military equipment and armaments. Zeiss Ikon, the distinguished camera company, made shell cartridges. The Germans, anxious about protecting these factories, kept them secret. Often, only the factory workers knew that its prewar consumer product had been replaced with military equipment. Furthermore, the city's leaders, sure that Dresden's status as a Kulturstadt would protect it, steadfastly refused to prepare basic air raid protection, which greatly increased the death toll.

Critics, relying on hindsight — which is always 20/20 — charge that the raid came when victory was in the offing. But in February 1945, Allied strategists as well as soldiers on the front were quite uncertain that Nazi Germany was collapsing. A month earlier, the Battle of the Bulge had cost the Allies 80,000 killed, wounded or captured. Two months later, the Soviets would lose 80,000 soldiers in the assault on Berlin. Germany fought till the bitter end. This was particularly so, at least ideologically, in Dresden, which was an avidly Nazi city until the bitter end. After Hitler committed suicide, Dresden observed an eight-day period of public mourning, leading one survivor to recall that "Dresden was the only city that experienced eight days of National Socialism without Hitler."

Critics of the bombing also have charged that the Allies purposely strafed innocent people who were trying to flee the Russian advance from the East. But there is no evidence of strafing in Allied or, even more significantly, German military documents . Neither the Wehrmacht's report on the bombing nor Göbbels’s propagandists — who were wont to highlight charges of strafing — mentioned it. In fact, the German and American documentary records of the bombing are remarkably similar, making it unlikely that the American records were subsequently falsified.

Using the number of burials, certified deaths, missing persons lists and other official sources, virtually all historians, Taylor included, have concluded that the death toll was between 25,000 and 40,000 — a substantial figure, but far less than the 250,000 figure that is often cited. So how did strafing, tremendous death tolls and a strategically unnecessary military exercise enter popular mythology?

First of all, immediately after the bombing survivors made all sorts of demonstratively false charges, as Taylor proves. Göbbels's propagandists reiterated these charges and circulated a death toll of between 200,000 and 250,000. For Göbbels, the bombing of Dresden was a "cynical opportunity" to motivate Germans to keep resisting the Allies. Subsequently, Communist authorities, anxious about portraying the West badly, reinforced this version of the bombing.

But most influential, Taylor argues, was David Irving's "The Destruction of Dresden." Irving, a writer of historical works that tend toward a sympathetic view of the Nazis, spread the story of deliberate strafing in his 1963 book and promulgated the notion of a very high death toll. The book, a best seller, was repeatedly reissued and translated into many languages. Kurt Vonnegut used it as the source for his bestselling Slaughterhouse-Five.

When Irving sued me for libel for describing him as a Holocaust denier, my defense team decided to examine his treatment of the bombing of Dresden. While Taylor attributes many of the misconceptions about the raid to Irving, he does not seem to be aware of the extent to which Irving not only misrepresented the evidence that he had, but also ignored and even suppressed information that proved him wrong — particularly in relation to the death toll. That aspect of the myth has taken on a particular importance, because Holocaust deniers use the inflated figure to "balance" the deaths in camps such as Auschwitz.

In court, Irving claimed that his estimates came from a March 1945 German document, TB-47, which was a "brief extract" from a statement by the Dresden police chief. After the war, a Dresden photographer had seen a copy of it in the home of a Dresden doctor. The photographer surreptitiously copied the doctor's copy and subsequently typed it up. In 1964, when Irving was visiting the photographer, he saw the copy of the copy of the extract, and asked for a copy for himself. The photographer's wife typed up additional copies, and Irving took one. Our historical witness, Richard Evans, testified that, based on this carbon copy of a typed copy of a typed copy of a surreptitiously handwritten copy of an unsigned document that was an "extract" from an official police report, Irving proclaimed to have reliable information about the bombing.

From the witness box, Irving insisted that the doctor, from whom the photographer copied the report, was Dresden's chief medical officer during the raid, and therefore a most trustworthy source. In fact, after the publication of the German edition of Irving's book, this doctor wrote him, protesting that he had only been a urologist and had no hand in any official reports. Irving ignored the doctor's protests, continued to adhere to a higher figure and on the stand argued that the doctor was lying in order to please Communist authorities. This was completely illogical. The Communists wanted a higher, not lower, death toll.

The Dresden official responsible for collecting and counting the bodies, Theo Miller, wrote Irving in 1965 that the highest possible toll was 30,000. Irving ignored Miller's lucid and sober account in the many subsequent editions of his book. In 1965, a copy of the original police report, from which TB-47 had been extracted, was found. It listed a toll of 20,000 to 25,000.

Charles Gray, the presiding judge in my case, found Irving's treatment of the Dresden historical record "reprehensible" and "absurd" and concluded that Irving's work on this topic "fell far short of the standard to be expected of a conscientious historian." Even more telling is what Irving's German publishers wrote on the title page when they republished his book in 1985: "a novel."

Though the devastation of Dresden was immense, Taylor's riveting book conclusively proves that the bombing was not a unique and senseless crime against an innocent city. Holocaust deniers and other extremists, who care little about the facts, will be unmoved, as Irving has been unmoved by all the contradictory evidence that has come his way. That is to be expected. However, in order to thwart their attempt to engage in immoral equivalencies, those who do care about historical accuracy must abandon the exaggerated mythology of the bombing of Dresden.

Deborah Lipstadt, professor of modern Jewish and Holocaust studies at Emory University, is the author of "History on Trial: My Day in Court with David Irving" (Ecco, 2005).

TEHRAN, Dec. 29 (MNA) -- Dr. Fredrick Toben of the Adelaide Institute in Australia believes that it is not important who occupies the post of U.S. president because the Zionists currently have a firm grasp on the United States.

Toben also says the global capitalist system needs war to continue its own existence as a predatory capitalist entity.

The Mehr News Agency recently conducted an interview with Toben on U.S. policy on non-proliferation and unilateralism and its opposition to Iran’s civilian nuclear program. Following are excerpts of the interview:

Q: Basically, do you think the U.S. administration is honest in its approach toward the prevention of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction?

A: No, the USA is not honest in its approach because the current U.S. government is influenced by world Zionist considerations to retain the survival of the European colonial, apartheid, Zionist, racist entity of Israel, and so anything will be done to save the survival of that state.

There is also another factor, that of U.S. duplicity with the various Middle East political entities since World War Two. Most of the Arabic-speaking world is financially controlled by the U.S. through various agreements and treaties, hence one cannot only point to the USA as a villain but one must also address the issue of which country in the Middle East is working and cooperating with U.S. policies. One also needs to be reminded that the U.S. controlled/influenced the Iraq policy towards Iran. Any further considerations would be a detailed focus on U.S.-Iran policies before the 1979 Revolution -- and what role the U.S. had in bringing it about. From such U.S. policies would flow some clarity as to what is going on today where the U.S. intentions are openly controlled by Israel-Zionist interests. As with Iraq, the U.S. has the receipts that brought about many of the activities in the Middle East.

Q: Experience has shown that international cooperation is the logical approach for resolving matters of global concern, so why does the U.S. act unilaterally on such matters?

A: The world is too small for anyone to go unilateral about such matters. However, it is not good policy to have a selective morality on such matters as clearly the U.S. has shown in its disregard of Israel's flouting international cooperation. But then again, Israel's right to exist is questioned and thus one cannot demand that it partake of anything that would further lead to its dismantling -- that's suicide.

Q: Peaceful nuclear corporation between Iran and Russia has drawn opposition from some countries, especially the U.S. How do you think Iran should respond to the U.S. propaganda campaign?

A: I think that the Iranian attitude is clear, and the whole Middle East awaits Iran's strong stance against the U.S. and its policies that are detrimental to Middle East stability. Iran must continue to resolve such things also within its own society, without external pressures from the U.S. that are made under the guise of the war on terrorism. One also needs to recall how the Shah's regime attempted to get nuclear energy equipment from Germany, something the U.S. did not approve of at that time.

Q: Israel is a nuclear threat to the Middle Eastern region, does not respect international law, and faces no opposition from the U.S., while it applies pressure on other countries which try to gain access to nuclear technology meant for peaceful purposes. Do you think this double-standard policy is a major factor in the Middle East conflict?

A: Of course the double standard is a major factor that continues to produce instability in the region. But we must recall that the U.S. cannot work alone in this region, and it seems to find collaborators quite easily. We have already seen how Israel is busy in Iraq gaining control of vital points.

This fact will also operate in Iran -- and that is why Revisionists are astounded that no Arabic-speaking regime, except recently Egypt, has openly pushed for adopting a 'Holocaust' expose. It is this information that will help to dismantle the Zionist entity because the state of Israel is founded on the 'Holocaust' lie. Revisionists have all the information to hand that would eliminate the rationale on which Israel is based.

Cousins Irving and Samuel Althaus survived three years at the extermination camp before their 1945 liberation

January 25, 2005... In January 1942, top Nazi leaders met in the infamous Wannsee Conference outside Berlin to finalize Adolf Hitler's grand plan to exterminate the Jewish race. Auschwitz rose to the challenge. When Samuel's train arrived carrying his large family and every other Jew from his hometown of Ciechanow, north of Warsaw, the SS had already successfully gassed Russian POWs in trials using an insecticide called Zyklon B - chosen after a canny SS officer figured that, if it could kill lice, it could kill people, too. By February 1942, two temporary gas chambers were operating in Birkenau. "It was a manufacturing plant," says Dr. Mark Nataupsky of Newport News, who heads a local committee to commemorate the Holocaust. "What did it manufacture? Death.". … Typical of transports, Samuel was beaten from the train and into a long line for selection. An SS officer - in this case the notorious camp doctor Josef Mengele, dubbed the "angel of death" for his inhuman medical experiments - decided whom to gas immediately and whom to starve and torture beforehand … The SS put Samuel and Irving, an electrician, to work to make Auschwitz an even more efficient killing machine. Permanent gas chambers opened in Birkenau in early 1943. Four main crematoria, too. "I built all four of them," Irving says quietly.

[Self delusion is worse than depression or any of a number of mental illnesses that afflicts those who believe what they believe is a physical/historical fact, without subjecting their belief to an empirical test. If this report is accurate, then Althaus is either lying or ignorant of the facts, or mad!-FT]