[quote=CRJ1960]...
Holocaust historian, Dr. Martin Broszat of Germany's Institute of Contemporary History, stated in a 1960 letter that appeared in the German weekly Die Zeit that, "Neither in Dachau, nor in Bergen-Belsen, nor in Buchenwald, were Jews or other prisoners gassed." The dead, he concluded, were the victims of horrible conditions in the camps, leading to deadly disease.
"Martin Broszat and the gas chambers in the "Altreich"
Another abused professor
As has been made clear several times in various places, the deniers of the murder of the Jews like to hide behind real or supposed authorities in order to give their lies credibility.
This is what happened with a statement that goes back to Martin Broszat. Sometimes in literal terms, but often only in indirect speech, the Holocaust deniers use a quote from this historian, which is supposed to show that there were no gassings in the "old Reich".
The quote appears indirectly in an article by Robert Faurisson, which is distributed by IHR, among others (own translation):
However, on August 19, 1960, this historian had to report to his astonished compatriots that there had never been mass gassings in the entire Altreich (German borders from 1937), but only in a small number of selected places, especially in occupied Poland, including Auschwitz and Birkenau, but not Majdanek. The weekly magazine DIE ZEIT learned this astounding news from a simple letter to the editor that was published on August 19, 1960 on page 16 (...) It would be extremely interesting to know:
How does dr. Broszat that the "gas chambers" in the Altreich were a hoax?
How does he know that the "gas chambers" in Poland are real?
Why do the "evidence", "certainties" and "eyewitness accounts" about concentration camps in the West suddenly have no value, while the "evidence", "certainties" and "eyewitness accounts" about camps in communist Poland are no longer of any value still remain true?
Faurisson, The 'Problem of the Gas Chambers'[1]
It will soon become clear that Faurisson stretched the truth a bit, but this cannot be avoided within the framework of the "revisionist search for truth". First, let's look at the version presented by another Auschwitz denier:
8/19/1960 DIE ZEIT page 16
Jews or other prisoners were not gassed in either Dachau, Bergen Belsen or Buchenwald. The gas chamber in Dachau was never fully completed and put into operation. Hundreds of thousands of prisoners who perished in Dachau or other concentration camps in the old Reich were victims primarily of the catastrophic hygienic and supply conditions. According to official SS statistics, in the twelve months from July 1942 to June 1943 alone, 110,812 people died of disease and starvation in all concentration camps in the Reich. The mass extermination of the Jews by gassing began in 1941/1942 and took place exclusively in a few locations that were selected for this purpose and provided with the appropriate technical facilities, primarily in occupied Polish territory (but nowhere in the old Reich): in Auschwitz-Birkenau, in Sobibor on the Bug , in Treblinka, Chelmno and Belzec.
There, but not in Bergen Belsen, Dachau or Buchenwald, were the mass extermination facilities disguised as shower baths or disinfection rooms that your article talks about. This necessary differentiation certainly does not change one iota of the criminal quality of the establishment of the concentration camps. But it may perhaps help to eliminate the fatal confusion which arises when some unteachable people use individual correct arguments that are polemical and taken out of context, and when people rush in to reply who have the correct overall judgment but rely on false or faulty ones information."
dr Martin Broszat
quoted by Manfred Koch[2]
Let us assume for the sake of simplicity that this reproduction corresponds to the printed wording [cf. facsimiles]. What did Broszat say? He said: In the "Old Reich" there were no mass exterminations of Jews. However, this is by no means an astonishing new finding; it has been known for a long time.
However, Broszat did not say that the gas chambers in the "Altreich" were a "hoax" and that no gassings had taken place there at all. There were certainly gas chambers in the "Altreich" that were also used. More than 100,000 people were murdered in the Nazi "euthanasia" campaign alone, many of them in gas chambers.
The allusion to Majdanek in Faurisson's text is simply ridiculous. The fact that a historian does not mention a certain historical fact does not mean that the historical event in question never happened. This "logic" is so abstruse that any further discussion is unnecessary.
At the end of the Faurisson quote one can then see how the "revisionist search for truth" unfolds in all its glory. From Broszat's accurate account that the mass extermination of the Jews took place in the East, which by no means excludes the murders in gas chambers in the "Old Reich", Faurisson constructs the insinuation that Broszat had blanketly described the gas chambers in the "Old Reich" as a hoax.
Germar Rudolf accepts this distortion and writes succinctly:
First of all, it is interesting that the Institute for Contemporary History is revising the statement made by its former head, M. Broszat, who stated that there were no gassings in the concentration camps of the old Reich.
Germar Rudolf, Basics of Contemporary History [3]
This kind of malicious misunderstanding is typical of the deniers of the murder of the Jews. They don't have facts, so they make whatever "evidence" they need.
In conclusion, it remains to be said that the Holocaust deniers run into a logical problem when they try to deny the gassings in the Old Reich, of all things, with a quote that clearly shows that mass gassings of Jews took place in the East.
