As most people know, the Holocaust is defined as "the mass slaughter of European civilians and especially Jews by the Nazis during World War II." ⁽¹⁾ From May 1942 to September 1944, over 4.2 million Jews were killed in the Nazi death camps of Auschwitz, Treblinka, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, and Sobibor, all on Polish soil. More than one million additional Jews were slain by the Einsatzgruppen, SS "death squads" operating in conquered Soviet territory on the heels of the advancing German army. In totality, an estimated six million Jews died at the hands of the Nazi regime. ⁽²⁾
    However, there are several people claiming that the Holocaust was a hoax, or at best, greatly exaggerated. These people usually refer to themselves as "Holocaust revisionists," though a more accurate designation would be Holocaust deniers, due to the fact that these so-called "revisionists" seem more interested in promoting an ideological agenda than in revising history. ⁽³⁾ Often distancing themselves from antisemitism, the leaders of Holocaust denial have made inroads into mainstream society that modern-day neo-Nazis and Klansmen only dream of. This veneer of respectability is further enhanced by the credentials of the movement's leaders, including noted historians David Irving and Harry Elmer Barnes; university professors Austin J App, Robert Faurisson, and Arthur R Butz; and concentration camp survivor Paul Rassiner.
    This paper will provide the reader with a brief introduction to Holocaust denial and a historical overview of the movement. Additionally, this work will attempt to refute claims made by the deniers and examine Holocaust denial's future and impact on society.

What is Holocaust Denial?

    Holocaust denial includes claims that the attempted genocide of European Jewry by the Nazi regime never occurred; that any Jewish losses are nowhere near the established number of six million; and even that the Holocaust was comparable to various other genocides and mass killings-the "relativist" argument. ⁽⁴⁾ Relativism, will not be addressed here, however, as it is beyond the scope of this paper.

    According to Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman, the foundation of Holocaust denial rests on three "pillars":
        1. The gas chambers were used for delousing, not for mass extermination.
        2. The death of six million Jews at the hands of the Nazis is a gross overstatement.
        3. The Nazis had no intention whatsoever to rid Europe of its Jewish population. ⁽⁵⁾

    Nearly all deniers subscribe to these three arguments, though specific details vary from person to person. For example, French denier Paul Rassiner puts the number of "Jews who died as victims of Nazi persecutions" between one and 1.5 million, ⁽⁶⁾ while American denier Arthur Butz claims that a figure of one million Jewish deaths "seems rather high," ⁽⁷⁾ and German denier Ernst Zundel places the figure at 300, 000. ⁽⁸⁾
    These three assertions are often associated with belief in a worldwide Jewish/ Zionist conspiracy which has manufactured and/ or perpetrated the "myth" of the Holocaust for political gain. Though a far-fetched notion, use of the conspiracy theory is cited by deniers to explain why the Holocaust denial movement has yet to gain widespread acceptance.
    Though essentially still a fringe movement, Holocaust denial has made much progress in the last twenty-five years, mainly through changes in presentation and tactics. Where denial literature was once little more than crude neo-Nazi propaganda filled with antisemitic slurs, current publications tend to be slickly packaged and "objectively" written. Current literature, such as The Hoax of the Twentieth Century by Arthur R Butz, often will have a veneer of scholarship, containing footnoted citations and impressive bibliographies. The denial movement is slowly trying to distance itself from the neo-Nazi fringe, vehemently denying accusations of antisemitism, and trying to recruit legitimate historians into its ranks. Additionally, the deniers attempt to lend legitimacy to their arguments by presenting Holocaust "revisionism" as a valid historical alternative. ⁽⁹⁾

The Roots of Holocaust Denial

    Though the most obvious influence on Holocaust denial can be said to be antisemitism, it also has strong roots in the legitimate fields of World War I and World War II revisionism. Though the links between this brand of revisionism and Holocaust denial are tenuous at best, many modern-day deniers seem to draw inspiration from these historical revisionists, and often one can find the works of these historians cited in modern denial publications. ⁽¹⁰⁾
    World War I revisionism is said to have begun in 1920 when Smith college professor Sidney B Fay claimed in a series of articles in the American Historical Review that Germany had no desire to go to war and only did so as a last resort. Fay, along with other World War I revisionists, rejected the notion that the Germans bore sole responsibility for the war, and despised the Versailles Treaty's use of the concept of war guilt to place a severe financial burden on Germany. ⁽¹¹⁾
   Fay was soon joined by his fellow professor at Smith, Harry Elmer Barnes. Barnes played an important role in the development of Holocaust denial in America, as he wrote some of the earliest criticisms on the history of the extermination of Europe's Jewish population. ⁽¹²⁾
    During the interwar years, xenophobia, tinged with antisemitism, picked up steam in the United States-to say nothing of Germany and other European nations. With the progress of the Great Depression, many began to believe that a particular group, ideology, or financial interest was responsible for this economic disaster. These fears manifested themselves in several ways. ⁽¹³⁾
    The Immigration Act of 1924 was designed to limit the number of nonwhite Anglo-Saxon Protestant emigrants to the US. Red scares abounded. Hearings were held to determine if Wall Street bankers colluded with arms merchants to lure the United States into World War I. ⁽¹⁴⁾ Many residents in the Midwest feared that the Pope would one day order a hostile takeover of the US. ⁽¹⁵⁾
    Many people, however, believed the Jews to be the ultimate cause of America's (if not the world's) troubles. President Franklin Roosevelt drew criticism for his foreign policy, accused of pandering to "Jewish interests." Millions tuned in to Father Charles C Coughlin's antisemitic rants on CBS radio. Famed aviator Charles A Lindbergh held the Jews to be monolithic group committed to interventionism with enough political clout to make their goal a reality. Auto entrepreneur Henry Ford went so far as to serialize the Protocols of the Elders of Zion-a Russian forgery cited as proof of a Jewish conspiracy to take over the world-in his newspaper, the Dearborn Independent, under the name "The International Jew." ⁽¹⁶⁾
    After World War II, many isolationists once again came to Germany's defense. Among them was Charles C Tansill, a Georgetown University professor of diplomatic history, who claimed that Hitler did not desire war with Poland, but wanted Germany and Poland to join forces in the domination of Europe. He argued that this partnership was thwarted by American machinations. Thus, World War II was ultimately America's fault. Interestingly, many deniers would adopt Tansill's views, exonerating Germany and vilifying the United States. ⁽¹⁷⁾
    Probably the most direct link between these legitimate historical revisionists and the Holocaust deniers was the aforementioned Harry Elmer Barnes. A World War I revisionist, Barnes was challenging the official history of World War II even before it ended. Barnes at this time was a member of a group attempting to resurrect the popularity of isolationism while sullying Roosevelt's reputation. Not surprising was the fact that this group received their funding from prewar isolationists such as Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh. Barnes argued that nearly every one of Hitler's military and political maneuvers were necessary to rectify the injustices cast upon Germany by the Treaty of Versailles. ⁽¹⁸⁾
    Barnes believed in a pervasive historical "blackout" silencing anyone who rejected the notion of German guilt. According to Barnes, this "blackout" conspiracy kept the truth about World War II from being revealed. In his 1947 pamphlet, The Struggle Against Historical Blackout, Barnes claimed that "court historians" lied, ignored contradictory information, and fabricated new truths in order to prevent revisionist views from being heard. ⁽¹⁹⁾
    Barnes claimed that he was finally convinced that "Hitler had not desired war" and that Great Britain was almost "exclusively responsible" when he read a dissertation in 1955 completed at Harvard by David Leslie Hoggan. Barnes would later help Hoggan publish his book, The Forced War. First published in Germany in 1961, Hoggan's book was based upon his dissertation, though quite different. Hoggan's dissertation, according to one of his advisers at Harvard, followed the rules of historical evidence despite its revisionist stance. The Forced War, however, painted the British and Poles as the aggressors and Germany as an innocent victim. Hoggan's book also asserted that the Third Reich's Jewish policies were benign, or at least better than Poland's. It is suspected that Barnes was instrumental in changing Hoggan's dissertation from a work of scholarship into a "Nazi apologia." ⁽²⁰⁾
    Barnes moved increasingly toward Holocaust denial in the 1960s, when he began to suggest that the tales of German atrocities were inaccurate and motivated by political gain. He also began claiming that Allied atrocities were worse than any perpetrated by the Germans, and the Holocaust was a "theory." Eventually, Barnes became so obsessed with illuminating the "truth" enveloped by the "historical blackout," that his works are dismissed by most modern scholars. ⁽²¹⁾ While never completely crossing over into denial, Barnes came close enough that he is considered by many deniers to be "one of America's greatest historians." ⁽²²⁾
 

The Rise of Holocaust Denial

    The first proponent of true Holocaust denial may have Alexander Ratcliffe, a Scottish politician who claimed in late 1945 in his magazine Vanguard, that the Holocaust was a Jewish invention. This statement was taken from The Truth About the Jews, a pamphlet Ratcliffe had published earlier in which he also speculated that the British government was actually controlled by the Jews. ⁽²³⁾
    In 1947 a prominent French fascist named Maurice Bardeche began attacking Allied war propaganda, while at the same time defending the Nazis. Bardeche claimed in his second book, Nuremberg or the Promised Land, that at least part of the evidence surrounding the concentration camps had been falsified and that the deaths of those interred there were mainly due to starvation and illness. He also argued that the Jews were to blame for their fate because they supported the Treaty of Versailles and therefore helped to instigate the war. Bardeche was also the first to contend that no Jews were gassed, because the gas chambers were used for disinfection. ⁽²⁴⁾
    Paul Rassiner, another Frenchman, was the next important denier to arise. Oddly enough, Rassiner was himself a concentration camp survivor. He was arrested by the Gestapo in 1943 for his activities with the resistance (which included smuggling Jews into Switzerland) and spent the remainder of the war in Buchenwald and Dora. In 1948 Rassiner published Crossing the Line, which was the first in a series of books intending to show that the claims of most concentration camp survivors were exaggerated, and that the inmates entrusted with running the camps were the true culprits of the camp horrors, not the SS! ⁽²⁵⁾
    Rassiner would later change his focus from defending the SS to concentrating on the development of what he dubbed the "holocaust myth." In his 1964 work, The Drama of European Jewry, Rassiner argued that the claim that gas chambers were used to kill Jews was nothing more than an invention created to serve the Zionist government of Israel. ⁽²⁶⁾ Though Rassiner died in 1967, his work would later be collected and published posthumously in 1976, under the title, Debunking the Genocide Myth, bringing this French concentration camp survivor's theories to a new generation of deniers.
    Another early denier was a professor of English literature at the University of Scranton and LaSalle College named Austin J App. Throughout World War II, App constantly defended Germany's actions through letters sent to journals and newspapers. In 1945, one week after V-E Day, App claimed that the atrocities that took place in the concentration camps were legally justified in accordance with the rules of warfare. Unlike Barnes, who was merely pro-German, App was attracted to Germany's fascist regime. ⁽²⁷⁾
    In 1946, App began playing with statistics in order to show that six million Jewish deaths at the hands of the Nazis were impossible. This was accomplished by doubling the number of survivors and by claiming that all of these surviving Jews were of German origin. In fact, the vast majority of these Jews were from occupied nations who had been transferred to Germany from the eastern camps as the Soviets advanced. App also attributed any deaths in the concentration camps to "legitimate" causes. By 1949, in a letter to Time, App had calculated the number of Jewish deaths at 1.5 million, without offering a shred of evidence. ⁽²⁸⁾
    In 1973, App published The Six Million Swindle: Blackmailing the German People for Hard Marks with Fabricated Corpses. ⁽²⁹⁾ In this pamphlet, App laid out his eight "incontrovertible assertions" that demonstrate that the figure of six million Jewish deaths is a gross exaggeration:

• Germany's solution to its "Jewish problem" was actually a plan for emigration, not annihilation.
• Any evidence of gas chambers being used to kill Jews in the concentration camps is extremely unlikely.
• The majority of those Jews unaccounted for vanished in those territories in the hands of the Soviet Union.
• Most of the Jews killed by the Germans were actually criminals, spies, subversives, or otherwise enemies of the German state.
• Israel has not opened its archives to allow for thorough research into the "hoax." Additionally, anyone wishing to expose the myth is branded an anti-Semite.
• Those Jews and their media cohorts who accept the figure of six million as valid have yet to offer even any evidence to support their claim. Instead, they rely on misquoting Eichmann and other Nazis.
• The burden of proof should rest on the shoulders of the accusers, not the Nazis.
• Discrepancies among even the figures of Jewish scholars "proves" that scientific evidence for the Holocaust is nonexistent.

Holocaust Denial in the Fifties and Sixties

    The Holocaust denial movement produced few visionaries after its initial boom in the late forties. Antisemites such WD Herstrom, James Madole, and Benjamin H Freedman played the "numbers game" to account for the six million "missing" Jews, and American Nazi Party leader George Lincoln Rockwell declared the Holocaust "a monstrous and profitable fraud," but these men had little influenceon either the general public or the future of Holocaust denial. ⁽³⁹⁾ However, there are two men of note: the aforementioned David Leslie Hoggan and Liberty Lobby founder Willis Carto.
    Carto, an Indiana native, was for a short time in the fifties employed by the John Birch Society, but he was fired by its founder, Robert Welch, for his extreme antisemitism. In 1958, Carto formed the right-wing Liberty Lobby, a "pressure group for patriotism." The Liberty Lobby remains the "flagship" of a huge network of Carto-owned businesses and organizations devoted to spreading hate. By the 1980s, a former Liberty Lobby official acknowledged that the organization made close to four million dollars annually. Carto is believed by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to be "the most important and powerful professional antisemite in the United States." ⁽⁴⁰⁾
    An admirer of Francis Parker Yockey, Carto was the last person, other than his lawyer, to visit Yockey in jail before his suicide. After Yockey's death, the Liberty Lobby began touting Imperium as a Mein Kampf for the burgeoning neo-Nazi movement. ⁽⁴¹⁾ In 1962, Carto's Noontide Press reissued Imperium with a lengthy Carto-penned introduction.
    Carto's contributions to Holocaust denial don't stop with his advocacy of Imperium. His publishing houses have served as an outlet for denial literature. ⁽⁴²⁾ Liberty Lobby's weekly newsletter, the Spotlight, often features articles on denial. The organization even publishes its own "revisionist" journal, The Barnes Review. However, Carto's most important contribution to the denial movement was the founding of the Institute for Historical Review in 1978, which helped to "legitimize" Holocaust denial.
    If David Leslie Hoggan's status as a denier was still unclear after publishing The Forced War in 1961, there could be no mistaking him for a mere World War II revisionist after he wrote The Myth of the Six Million, which was published anonymously in 1969 by Carto's Noontide Press. ⁽⁴³⁾
    In addition to the arguments concerning the number of dead, existence of gas chambers, Nazi intentions on the "Jewish problem," and Zionist conspiracy, The Myth of the Six Million went so far as to blame America's racial tensions on the perpetration of the Holocaust "myth." ⁽⁴⁴⁾ Hoggan's book also included five articles in its appendix which had first been published in Carto's American Mercury newspaper in 1967-68. These were "The Elusive Six Million," by Austin App, "Zionist Fraud," by Harry Elmer Barnes, a piece praising Paul Rassiner, an article questioning the authenticity of the diary of Anne Frank, and a piece claiming that most of Israel's Jews were not of Hebrew descent.
 

Holocaust Denial in the Seventies

    Up until the early seventies, Holocaust denial in the US was primarily supported by fringe, extremist, and antisemitic groups and individuals, though support was sometimes found in a number of seemingly respectable circles. ⁽⁴⁵⁾
    In 1974, Did Six Million Really Die? The Truth at Last, a twenty-eight-page booklet largely plagiarized from Hoggan's book, would appear in Britain. The author, Richard Harwood (whose real name was Richard Verral) was the editor of Spearhead, the publication of a British neo-Nazi organization called the National Front. Verral sent copies of his booklet to several journalists, academics, and every member of Parliament. In ten years over one million copies were circulated in more than forty nations. Due to its wide distribution and somewhat scholarly appearance, doubt was sown in the minds of many who would otherwise never have considered Holocaust denial a viable "alternative." ⁽⁴⁶⁾
    Verral's success, however, would soon be eclipsed by that of Dr Arthur R Butz. Butz, a professor of electrical engineering at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL, can be said to have revolutionized Holocaust denial with the 1976 publication of his nearly four-hundred-page opus The Hoax of the Twentieth Century. This book differed greatly from the vast majority of denial literature up to that time, not only in presentation-endnotes, a vast bibliography, and quotes by prominent historians-but also in content. Refusing to whitewash Germany's actions during the war, Butz willingly conceded that Jews did suffer and die at the hands of the Nazis, though nowhere near the popularly-accepted figure of six million. ⁽⁴⁷⁾ By saving his harshest criticisms for Zionists, rather than Jews per se, Butz appeared less antisemitic than his predecessors. ⁽⁴⁸⁾ Additionally, though Butz did praise some "revisionists," such as Rassiner, he was not afraid to criticize others. ⁽⁴⁹⁾
    Despite the aura of scholarship projected by Butz's book, it was little different at its core from the works of other deniers. All the elements were there--the gas chamber "hoax," ⁽⁵⁰⁾ the "myth of extraordinary Nazi brutality," ⁽⁵¹⁾ Germany's lack of an extermination plan, ⁽⁵²⁾ and the existence of a conspiracy involving the World Jewish Congress and several US officials to create and spread "extermination propaganda." ⁽⁵³⁾
    The next important figure to make significant contributions to Holocaust denial in the 1970s was David Irving. "Arguably the most historically sophisticated of the deniers," Irving has written several notable books on World War II, though he doesn't have any professional training as a historian. ⁽⁵⁴⁾ A self-described "mild fascist" specializing in the "rehabilitation of Hitler," ⁽⁵⁵⁾ Irving took his initial steps into denial with the publication of Hitler's War, in which he concluded, "No documentary evidence exists that Hitler was aware that the Jews were being massacred." ⁽⁵⁶⁾ Irving gained much notoriety shortly after the publication of Hitler's War when he issued a $1000 public challenge to any historian able to present a written order from Hitler proving that the Fuhrer ordered the Holocaust. No "smoking gun" was produced, but Irving received much publicity. ⁽⁵⁷⁾
    While Irving initially believed that the Holocaust happened, but without Hitler's knowledge, he gradually joined the ranks of the deniers. For instance, after reading the Leuchter Report, a pseudoscientific analysis "proving" that gas chambers were used for mass murder, Irving began claiming that no homicides took place in the gas chambers. ⁽⁵⁸⁾ In fact, later German editions of Hitler's War lack Irving's earlier references to Treblinka and Auschwitz as "extermination camps." ⁽⁵⁹⁾
    In 1978, Willis Carto founded what has arguably become the most influential force on the promotion of Holocaust denial before or since. The Institute of Historical Review is an organization devoted to historical revisionism, though its focus seems to be primarily on Holocaust "revisionism." The IHR publishes the Journal of Historical Review, which has not only featured new and reprinted articles by deniers such as Butz, Irving, and Yockey, but has also received contributions from reputable historians like William B Hesseltine and John Toland. ⁽⁶⁰⁾
    The IHR appears, on the surface, to be a scholarly institution. Since 1979, it has held the International Revisionist Conference, which serves as a forum for revisionist scholars, researchers and activists to present and discuss their ideas. The Journal of Historical Review apes other academic publications. ⁽⁶¹⁾ Though more than seventy percent of the Journal... is devoted to Holocaust "revisionism" or the redemption of Nazi Germany, ⁽⁶²⁾ the IHR presents itself as a group of truth-seekers devoted to aligning history with the facts without succumbing to social or political influences. ⁽⁶³⁾
    In the spring of 1980 the IHR tried to ingratiate itself with the academic community by sending a complimentary copy of the Journal of Historical Review to every member of the Organization of American Historians (OAH). Though few took the IHR seriously (the Journal... was characterized by some as "bad historical writing"), by 1991 the institute had gained enough legitimacy, at least on the grounds of free speech, to be allowed to place a call for "revisionist" papers in the newsletter of the OAH. ⁽⁶⁴⁾
    In 1980, the IHR made headlines when IHR director William David McCalden arranged for letters to be sent to several well-known survivors of Auschwitz, offering $50,000 if they could prove that Jews had been gassed at Auschwitz. This challenge was initially accepted by famed Holocaust survivor Simon Wiesenthal, who would withdraw due to concerns that the tribunal judging the evidence would be biased. The next survivor to answer the challenge would be Mel Mermelstein, despite objections from Jewish organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League, which advised against giving the IHR the attention it sought. ⁽⁶⁵⁾ Mermelstein supplied documents, eyewitness testimonies, histories, and photographs to the IHR. Upon hearing nothing in response from the Institute, Mermelstein sued. ⁽⁶⁶⁾ In July 1985 the IHR was ordered to pay Mermelstein the entire reward, plus an additional $40,000 for pain and suffering. ⁽⁶⁷⁾ The Mermelstein case gained enough publicity to warrant a 1991 made-for-TV movie, Never Forget, in which Mermelstein was portrayed by Leonard Nimoy. ⁽⁶⁸⁾
    The Mermelstein case would not be the only setback for the IHR. In 1984, an arsonist destroyed the IHR's Torrence, California headquarters. A terrorist group, the Jewish Defense League, was suspected, though no indictments were made. ⁽⁶⁹⁾
    Another obstacle to the IHR's success would come in the early 90s from an unexpected quarter-Willis Carto himself. In September 1993, Carto was ousted from the IHR by its board of directors due to mishandling of funds and differences over the future direction of the Institute. A month later, according to the IHR, Carto physically stormed the Institute's offices with "hired goons." The battle soon moved to the courtroom. By the end of the year, the IHR had won a judgement against Carto. Not willing to abandon the "revisionist" cause, Carto began publishing his own Holocaust denial journal, the Barnes Review, named after Harry Elmer Barnes. The legal struggle continues, however, as the IHR is currently engaged in trying to recover damages caused by Carto's raid and lost monies (including roughly $15 million willed to the institute by Thomas Edison's granddaughter, Jean Farrel Edison) that he allegedly embezzled from the organization. In spite of these financial troubles, the IHR remains formidable in its assault on history, as the Journal of Historical Review continues to be published, and the International Revisionist Conferences continue to be held. ⁽⁷⁰⁾
 

Holocaust Denial in the Eighties and Nineties

    After its "renaissance" in the seventies, the Holocaust denial movement over the next twenty years seems to have been most notable for the many trials in which it was a factor. In addition to the Mermelstein case and the IHR/ Carto legal wrangling, among the most noted are the Zundel trials in Canada, and the Irving v Lipstadt trial in Britain.
    Ernst Zundel was born in Germany in 1939 and emigrated to Canada in 1958. He soon came under the wing of the country's leading fascist, Adrian Arcand, sometimes known as "Canada's Hitler." Remembering his mentor, Zundel would later claim that Arcand "made a German out of me." After a failed attempt to win the leadership of Canada's Liberal party, Zundel supported himself by working as a photo retoucher for national magazines such as Maclean's and Homemaker's. ⁽⁷¹⁾
    In the early seventies, Zundel formed Samisdat Publishers Ltd, which would soon become one of the largest suppliers of denial literature in the world. In 1977, Zundel began a worldwide mass mailing campaign of "revisionist" books and information. Thousands of journalists, television and radio station, politicians, judges, prosecutors, newspapers, and historians around the world would receive Zundel's "truth" literature. ⁽⁷²⁾
    In January 1984, Zundel was charged by the Canadian government for violating the country's "false news" ordinance. This law makes the willful production and distribution of false material damaging to the public a criminal act. ⁽⁷³⁾ The trial took place in early 1985, and garnered Zundel much publicity. A consummate showman, Zundel turned his trial into a media circus. Variously appearing in a concentration camp uniform, in blackface, or bearing a cross marked with the words "freedom of speech," Zundel quickly became known as the "PT Barnum of Holocaust denial." ⁽⁷⁴⁾
    In 1985 Zundel was sentenced to serve fifteen months in prison, but his conviction was overturned on appeal due to procedural errors. A second trial, held in 1988, was noted for the number of "revisionist" celebrities who served as witnesses for the defense, the most important of whom were David Irving, Robert Faurisson (who was also present at the first trial), and Fred Leuchter. ⁽⁷⁵⁾
    Faurisson, a former professor of literary criticism at the University of Lyon-2 in France, has been called the "Pope of Revisionism" by Australian deniers for his dogged criticism on the use of gas chambers for mass murder. Faurisson's numerous statements and works on this subject have resulted in the loss of his job and being physically assaulted, tried, convicted, and fined in his native France. ⁽⁷⁶⁾ His best-known work is probably his pamphlet The "Problem of the 'Gas Chambers'" or "the Rumor of Auschwitz," in which he characterizes the gas chambers as a Zionist "lie." ⁽⁷⁷⁾
    Faurisson arranged for Fred Leuchter's involvement in Zundel's defense. Leuchter, a Boston "engineer" specializing in the construction and installation of execution devices, was sent to Auschwitz in February 1988 to gather evidence disproving the gas chamber "myth." Haphazardly taking samples of brick and cement fragments, Leuchter returned with these to the US and submitted them to a lab for chemical analysis. The results were published as theLeuchter Report, which claimed that the gas chambers were used solely for the purpose of delousing. ⁽⁷⁸⁾
    Even to this day, deniers often cite the Leuchter Report as conclusive proof that the homicidal use of gas chambers is little more than a myth. During the trial, however, Leuchter's expertise and methodology were exposed as the true myths. The fact of the matter was that Leuchter had no formal training as an engineer nor did he hold a degree in toxicology or any other field which would lend credibility to his research. The highest level of formal education Leuchter had achieved was a BA in history. Additionally, the low levels of Zyklon B (the gas used in the mass murders) found in the samples taken from the ruined Auschwitz crematoria were likely due to exposure to the elements. ⁽⁷⁹⁾
    Zundel was found guilty a second time, and sentenced to serve nine months in prison. ⁽⁸⁰⁾ However, Zundel's conviction was overturned again in 1992, when the Supreme Court of Canada struck down the country's "false news" law, declaring it too vague. ⁽⁸¹⁾
    In 1998, David Irving sued Emory University professor Deborah Lipstadt for libel in the British courts. Irving took issue with Lipstadt branding him as a Holocaust "denier" in her 1993 book Denying the Holocaust. At the International Revisionist Conference in Costa Mesa, California in 1998, Irving claimed that he filed suit against Lipstadt and her publisher in England because libel laws in Britain are much stiffer than in America. ⁽⁸²⁾
    The trial began in January 2000. Irving not only admitted that he was not a "Holocaust expert," but he also compared the term "Holocaust denier" to the "N-word." ⁽⁸³⁾ The judge ruled in Lipstadt's favor in March 2000 due to Irving's inability to refute the evidence for his denial provided by Lipstadt's defense. ⁽⁸⁴⁾
 

Refuting the Deniers

    Generally speaking, the claims of Holocaust deniers are easily refuted, though a denier well-versed in rhetoric can stymie even experienced historians and scholars in a public forum. On a 1994 episode of Donahue, for example, an enraged survivor in the audience claimed that Jews were made into soap. Denier Bradley Smith took advantage of the situation by getting historian Michael Shermer, his opposition, to admit that the woman was wrong. ⁽⁸⁵⁾  Most of the deniers' claims are based on faulty reasoning, inexperienced research, and selection only for the facts which fit their agenda. ⁽⁸⁶⁾ This paper will briefly refute the three foundations on which Holocaust denial rests.
    The gas chamber "argument" is best exposed by that which is most often presented as evidence--the Leuchter Report. As explained before, Fred Leuchter's credentials are lacking. Additionally, Leuchter's methods of gathering the "evidence" were inconsistent and unscientific-he wore a surgical mask only part of the time while taking samples, and did not take into account the effects of weather on the ruined crematoria nor in the differing amounts of Zyklon B needed to kill lice and humans. ⁽⁸⁷⁾
    The "numbers game" is also fairly easy to explain away. The number of Jews who died in the Holocaust is placed by most scholars between 5.1 and 6.3 million, though six million is the norm. These figures are arrived at by independent corroboration, using various methods and sources. The exact number may vary researcher to researcher, but it is consistently within the margin of error. ⁽⁸⁸⁾  The extremely low figures used by Holocaust deniers, rarely more than Rassinier's one to 1.5 million, ⁽⁸⁹⁾ are most easily explained by the same argument Arthur Butz uses to discount the figure of six million: "...it appears that one can get whatever results desired by consulting the appropriately selected pre-war and post-war sources." ⁽⁹⁰⁾
    Nazi Germany's intent to destroy the Jews is supported by testimony at Nuremberg and evidence from the Wannsee Conference, where the "final solution" was planned.  As for Hitler's written order for the final solution, a "smoking gun" has yet to surface, but a document David Irving claims exonerates Hitler may actually be the closest thing to condemning him.  In Hitler's War, Irving discusses and reproduces a handwritten note from Heinrich Himmler on November 30, 1941, when the SS chief telephoned his chief lieutenant from Hitler's bunker.  The note bears the order, "Jewish transport from Berlin. No liquidation."  Irving, taking this order out of context, claims that Hitler ordered that there was to be no liquidation of Jews whatsoever. ⁽⁹¹⁾  The order actually refers to one trainload of Jews who are not to be liquidated.  Naturally, for the Fuhrer to halt the liquidation of one particular transport implies that liquidation was taking place. ⁽⁹²⁾
 

The Future of Holocaust Denial

    In spite of all its trials, tribulations, and difficulty in gaining mainstream acceptance, the future of Holocaust "revisionism" looks bright. It is a growing force among not only various white power/ neo-Nazi organizations, but also among the Nation of Islam and several Arab groups. Holocaust denial is also finding popularity in several Islamic nations and Japan. ⁽⁹³⁾
    Holocaust denial continues to grow beyond the fringe. While few accept it as fact, many are willing to consider denial to be a "valid historical alternative." According to a 1994 Gallup poll, nearly one-third of Americans believe that it is possible that the Holocaust never took place. This is attributed more to ignorance of history than any neo-Nazi leanings, ⁽⁹⁴⁾ but that makes little difference. More and more Holocaust survivors and veterans of World War II die every day. Soon there won't be any witnesses left. Meanwhile, the deniers will publish more literature, hold more conferences, and gain more followers. Though it is doubtful Hitler will ever be viewed favorably by history, his image as a man of evil and hatred could quite likely change to one of "an unstable man intoxicated with power," "a ruthless leader with vision," "the Attila of the Twentieth Century," or some other such designation.
    Though Holocaust denial will certainly win many converts in the future, and perhaps even a degree of legitimacy, it will always crumble under close scrutiny. The deniers would have us believe that the Holocaust is a single event that can be proven or disproven by a solitary piece of evidence, such as the use of homicidal gas chambers. In reality, the Holocaust consisted of "a myriad of events in a myriad of places and relies on myriad pieces of data that converge on one conclusion." The Holocaust is proven through a convergence of written documents, eyewitness testimony, photographs and film footage, the camps themselves, and reconstructed population demographics. ⁽⁹⁵⁾  As long as the deniers continue to assume that the Holocaust Goliath can be brought low with a well-placed stone to the temple, they will continue to fail in their struggle to rewrite history.
 
 
 

Bibliography

Anonymous (David Hoggan). The Myth of the Six Million. 3^rd ed. Torrance, CA: The Noontide Press, 1978.

Butz, Arthur R. The Hoax of the Twentieth Century. Newport Beach, CA: The Institute for Historical Review, 1976, 1993.

Charney, Israel W, ed. Encyclopedia of Genocide. Vol 1. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio, 1999.

Davies, Alan, ed. Antisemitism in Canada. Waterloo, Ontario, Canada: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1992.

Evans, Richard J. Lying About Hitler: History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial. New York: Basic Books, 2001.

Faurisson, Robert. The "Problem of the 'Gas Chambers'" or "the Rumor of Auschwitz". Newport Beach, CA: Institute for Historical Review, 1987.

George, John, and Laird Wilcox. American Extremists. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1996.

Gutman, Israel, ed. Encyclopedia of the Holocaust. Vol 2. New York: MacMillian Publishing Company, 1990.

Hoffman, Michael A, II. The Great Holocaust Trial. Torrance, CA: Institute for Historical Review, 1985.

"Institute for Historical Review." http://www.ihr.org/ (30 Jan 2001)

Irving, David. Hitler's War. New York: Viking Press, 1977.

Lee, Martin A. The Beast Reawakens. New York: Routledge, 2000.

Lipstadt, Deborah E. Denying the Holocaust. New York: The Free Press, 1993.

Lutholtz, M William. Grand Dragon. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1991.

"The Nizkor Project." 1996-2001. http://www2.ca.nizkor.org/ (30 Jan 2001).

Rassinier, Paul. Debunking the Genocide Myth, A Study of the Nazi Concentration

Camps and the Alleged Extermination of European Jewry. Los Angeles: The Noontide Press, 1978.

Royal Courts of Justice, Queen's Bench Division. David John Caldwell Irving v Penguin Books, Ltd and Deborah E Lipstadt, 11 Jan 2000 to 15 March 2000. http://www.hdot.org/nsindex.html (18 Jan 2001).

Shermer, Michael, and Alex Grobman. Denying History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.

Singer, Mark. "The Friendly Executioner." New Yorker. Vol 74, issue 44 (1 Feb 1999): 33-39.

Smith, Tom W. "The Polls-A Review: The Holocaust Denial Controversy." Public Opinion Quarterly. Vol 59, no 2 (summer 1995): 269-295.

Stern, Kenneth S. Holocaust Denial. New York: The American Jewish Committee, 1993.

Vidal-Naquet, Pierre, and Limor Yagil. Holocaust Denial in France. Tel Aviv, Israel: The Project for the Study of Anti-Semitism, 1994.
 
 
 

Endnotes:

1. Merriam-Webster Online, nd,  http://www.m-w.com/  (3March 2001).

2. Richard J Evans, Lying About Hitler:History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial (New York: Basic Booka, 2001), 71, 104-105. See also Deborah E Lipstadt, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory (New York: The Free Press, 1993), 78; and Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman, Denying History (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2000), 174, 182.

3. Lipstadt, 20.

4. Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, sv "Holocaust, Denial of the" (New York: MacMillian Publishing Company, 1990), 681-682.

5. Shermer and Grobman, 3, 58.

6. Paul Rassiner, Debunking the Genocide Myth: A Study of the Nazi Concentration Camps and the Alleged Extermination of European Jewry (Los Angeles: Noontide Press, 1978), 390.

7. Arthur R Butz, The Hoax of the Twentieth Century (Newport Beach, CA: The Institute for Historical Review, 1976, 1993), 239.

8. Shermer and Grobman, 67.

9. Encyclopedia of Genocide, sv "Deniers of the Holocaust" (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio, 1999), 180.

10. Lipstadt, 31.

11. Ibid, 32.

12. Ibid, 32.

13. Ibid, 35.

14. Ibid, 35.

15. M William Lutholz, Grand Dragon (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1991), 43.

16. Lipstadt, 36-37.

17. Ibid 39-40.

18. Ibid, 67-68.

19. Ibid, 69.

20. Ibid, 70-71, 73.

21. Ibid, 73-75, 82.

22. The Myth of the Six Million, 3^rd ed (Torrance, CA: Noontide Press, 1978), 3.

23. Shermer and Grobman, 41.

24. Lipstadt, 50.

25. Shermer and Grobman, 41. See also Lipstadt, 51-52.

26. Pierre Vidal-Naquet and Limor Yagil, Holocaust Denial in France (Tel Aviv, Israel: The Project for the Study of Anti-Semitism, 1994), 32.

27. Lipstadt, 87-88.

28. Ibid, 90-92.

29. Ibid, 94.

30. Ibid, 98-100.

31. Martin A Lee, The Beast Reawakens (New York: Routledge, 2000), 92-94.

32. Ibid, 94.

33. Lipstadt, 147-148.

34. Lee, 96.

35. Ibid, 99-105.

36. John George and Laird Wilcox, American Extremists (Amherst, NY: Prometeus Books, 1996), 209-210.

37. Lee, 155-156.

38. Lipstadt, 147.

39. Ibid, 65-66.

40. Ibid, 144-145.

41. Lee, 156.

42. Lipstadt, 151-152.

43. Ibid, 105.

44. The Myth of the Six Million, 2-3.

45. Lipstadt, 65.

46. Ibid, 104-106.

47. Ibid, 123-124.

48. Butz described the Holocaust as "a Zionist hoax, in the sense of having been invented by Jews who were Zionists, on behalf of Zionist ends." Butz, 87. Many, but not all Jews subscribe to Zionism, which is a nationalist ideology born in the nineteenth century calling for the creation and support of a Jewish secular state, which led to the founding of modern-day Israel. See Encyclopedia Britannica, sv "Zionism."

49. Butz, 11-12. Interestingly, though Butz claimed Hoggan's The Myth of the Six Million was riddled with errors, he describes Verral's Did Six Million Really Die?, which borrowed heavily from Hoggan's book, as "quite good."

50. Ibid, 7.

51. Ibid, 248.

52. Ibid, 59.

53. Ibid, 59-60.

54. Shermer and Grobman, 49.

55. Kenneth S Stern, Holocaust Denial (New York: The American Jewish Committee, 1993), 9, 30.

56. David Irving, Hitler's War (New York: Viking Press, 1977), 331.

57. Shermer and Grobman, 49-50, 201.

58. Ibid, 50.

59. Stern, 30.

60. George and Wilcox, 217-218.

61. Lipstadt, 137, 142.

62. Shermer and Grobman, 79.

63. Lipstadt, 142.

64. Ibid, 203-205.

65. Ibid, 137-140.

66. Stern, 17.

67. Lipstadt, 141.

68. Shermer and Grobman, 43.

69. George and Wilcox, 218.

70. "The Nizkor Project." 1996-2001. http://www2.ca.nizkor.org/ (30 Jan 2001). See also Shermer and Grobman, 44-45. According to the IHR website http://www.ihr.org, the 2001 conference in Beirut was cancelled after the Lebanese prime minister announced that his government would not allow it to take place.

71. Alan Davies, ed, Antisemitism in Canada (Waterloo, Ontario, Canada: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1992), 253-255.

72. Michael A Hoffman II, The Great Holocaust Trial (Torrance, CA: Institute for Historical Review, 1985), 17-18.

73. Davies, 249.

74. Ibid, 250. See also Shermer and Grobman, 65; and Lipstadt, 158-159.

75. Lipstadt, 159-162.

76. Shermer and Grobman, 58-59.

77. Robert Faurisson, The "Problem of the 'Gas Chambers'" or "the Rumor of Auschwitz" (Newport Beach, CA: Institute for Historical Review, 1987), 1.

78. Mark Singer, "The Friendly Executioner." New Yorker. Vol 74, issue 44 (1 Feb 1999): 35. See also Lipstadt, 162-163.

79. Singer, 35. See also Lipstadt, 163-165.

80. Davies, 253.

81. Encyclopedia of Genocide, sv "Deniers of the Holocaust," 187.

82. Shermer and Grobman, 56.

83. Royal Courts of Justice, Queen's Bench Division, David John Caldwell Irving v Penguin Books, Ltd and Deborah E Lipstadt, 11 Jan 2000 to 15 March 2000, http://www.hdot.org/nsindex.html (London: Royal Courts of Justice, 2001), 12, 24, 30.

84. Ibid, 203-227.

85. Shermer and Grobman, 109, 113-114. It is believed by most historians that human soap was never manufactured on a large scale by the Nazi regime, though it may have been done on an experimental level. See Shermer and Grobman, 114-117.

86. Encyclopedia of Genocide, sv "Denial of Genocide, Psychology of," 160.

87. Singer, 35.

88. Shermer and Grobman, 174.

89. Rassiner, 390.

90. Butz, 13.

91. Irving, 331-332, 504, 505.

92. Shermer and Grobman, 201-202.

93. Stern, 19-20, 48-51.

94. Tom W Smith, "The Polls-A Review: The Holocaust Denial Controversy," Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol 59, no 2 (summer 1995): 283, 291.

95. Shermer and Grobman, 33.