Did Six Million Really Die?

Richard Harwood’s Attack on History

by C. M.

A student essay from Dr. Elliot Neaman's History 210 class (historical methods - spring 2001)

Ernst Zundel likes to cast himself as a vigilante, one who was fighting for the freedom of speech and expression in Canada when he published Richard Haywood’s piece of Holocaust Denial literature Did Six Million Really Die? Truth at Last-Exposed.   Zundel is the publisher who had been able to spread denial literature to over 18 countries before attempting the same in Canada,  to the sharp rebuke of the Justice system.  Ernest Zundel was tried and convicted twice in Canada under the Hate Law section of the Canadian Criminal Code, "for stimulated anti-Semitism through the publication and distribution of material he knew to be false (Lipstadt 157).  His repeated claim is that the censorship of his material is equivalent to silencing debate on what he considers a debatable topic: The Holocaust.  Zundel’s major organ for spreading the "Holocaust Myth" exists in Samsidat, Publications.  The word Samsidat itself means  "the underground" in Russian.  Thus, Zundel has portrayed himself as part of a noble resistance to what he considers to be, in his neo-fascist state of mind, a fight for free speech. His fight is waged with a fanfare that belies the validity of his statement and comes off seeming more like a publicity stunt; what Samsidat Publications does by distributing the fascist message of hate to the world, Zundel tried to reproduced in his trial: "Each day he appeared at the courthouse wearing a bullet-proof vest and a hard had bearing the words "Freedom of Speech"(Lipstadt, 158).   And he is among the "revisionists" of Holocaust literature who cling tenaciously to defending the fascism of Germany’s Third Reich.  Zundel was born in Germany in 1939, and experienced the Allied bombing raids and the devastation of occupation that followed (Nelson, 1).   Zundel rallies the persistent cry that "the truth needs no coercion"(Sec 1, 2), and the fact he is silenced eggs his on into thinking that his point is so powerful that no one would deign to take it on.  In actuality, though, what Zundel has to say is not even worthy of historical debate in the public sphere; Zundel and his cause need no more publication under the guise of legitimate history.  If the neo fascist materials he has published don’t speak enough for Zundel’s distorted point of view, then the books he has written most certainly drive the point home: His The Hitler We Loved and Why characterizes the Fuehrer as an angel of the German People, and ends with an empathetic "WE LOVE YOU, ADOLPH HITLER"(Lipstadt 158).  Maybe Zundel thinks that the battle has not been lost, that the world really is like his book UFO's: Nazi Secret Weapons?  Maybe he that if he is prolific enough about his adoration, then the still-active secret weapon UFO’s that the Fuehrer has stored in sub-arctic bases in Antarctica will come and rescue him from the obvious attack on whites that the "Holocaust myth" represents.   These if, ands, and buts, were conclusively put to an end with the conviction of Zundel, which successfully proved that Zundel was not demented, but that he consciously spread messages of hate, which he knew were not true.  Zundel might not be clinically insane, but the ardor of his anti-Semitic and neo-fascist rants is most certainly not the work of a valid historian or an honest publisher.

WILL THE REAL RICHARD HARWOOD PLEASE STAND UP?

Richard Harwood, AKA Richard Verrall, is the author of the material published by Zundel and Samsidat.  His Did Six Million Really Die, the Truth at Last, is a veiled attempt to introduce the notion of The Holocaust Myth in a  historically sound and legitimate argument.  Indeed, the pamphlet seems to deny the atrocities of any of the members involved in the war, and legitimizes all of the actions under the banner of "anti-communism".  According to Verrall, the testimony of Jews cannot be credited because they are involved in the worldwide conspiracy for complete domination that the Holocaust tried so hard to "erase".  In this framework for analysis, the German’s action was a defensive measure and not an offensive one.  Why, they even tried to get the Jews their own homeland in Madagascar, where they could live autonomously.  "Truths" like these are put forward by Verrall as the be all and end all of the Holocaust; it should be noted that and  there is some legitimacy to the claims: ie there were instances of Jewish partisan activity; the German Army was under express orders to combat the communists; and their was, for a very short time, a proposal which would ship all the European Jews to Madagascar, where they would be autonomous (under German Mandate).  These half truths do not explain the whole picture, and Verall distorts history by presenting such a one-sided story.  As this paper strives to prove, Verralls work is rife with these overextended generalizations which "come from the failure to think of negative instances"( Barzun and Graff, 146) and Reductive fallacies, which "reduces diversity to one thing: All this is nothing by That."(Barzun and Graff, 147).

"THE JEWISH THREAT"

Did Six Million Really Die: Truth at Last Exposed is in large part predicated on the notion that the Germans were the victims to Jewish belligerency and acted out of self defense in order to save themselves from the impending onslaught of anti-German Jewish rage.  For proof of such a threat, Verrall cites the statement of Chaim Weizmann, "the principle Zionist leader", who said on September 5^th, 1939, "the Jews stand by Great Britain and will fight on the side of the democracies·The Jewish Agency is ready to enter into immediate arrangements for utilizing Jewish manpower, technical ability, resources, etc·"(Jewish Chronicle, Sept. 8^th 1939 quoted in Zundel, Part 2, 4).  The quote itself is a fabrication; Weizmann never mentioned Great Britain in his statement(Lipstadt 110).  Lipstadt furthermore makes the good point that there were plenty of anti-Semitic policies in effect before Weizmann made his declaration in support of "democracy".  As is expanded on in the Einsatzgruppen testimony in a later section, this "spark" from a Jew is a common tactic the German’s use to justify severe retaliation by the German Reich.  But did such threat exist?  The Jews, by 1938, had no rights in Germany; in 1933 they were they were stripped of agricultural land, excluded from the press, banned from practicing Kosher ritual and unable to be civil servants, just to name a few. IN 1935 the Nuremberg laws dissolved Jew’s citizenship right, defined the Jewish race and prohibited further interracial marriages.    Kristalnaacht had laid siege to Jewish businesses six months prior to Weizmann’s declaration.  In short, the Jew was so disenfranchised, as it was, that the real threat seems to dissolve upon closer examination.  

THE MADAGASCAR PLAN

Verrall is very adamant about the fact that the Reich did not threaten the Jews.  The evidence he gives for the Reich’s’ goodwill is the evidence for the emigration of the race to Madagascar at the end of the war. Verrall thus revises the "exterminationist" intentions of the Reich when he says that the "’Final Solution’ meant only the emigration of Jews, and also that transportation to the eastern ghettos and concentration camps such as Auschwitz constituted nothing but an alternative plan of evacuation"(Zundel, Part 2, 2).  The Madagascar plan is spoken publicly of by Luther’s assistant in the foreign office in a Herr Rademacher in a July 3^rd 1940 statement issued from Berlin.  This plan is predicated on the fact that war will be ending soon: " The approaching victory gives Germany the possibility, and in my view also the duty, of solving the Jewish question in Europe.  The desirable solution is: all Jews out of Europe"(The Madagascar Plan, 1).  Germany’s plan to dictate peace includes taking Madagascar from the French and re-settling the Jews there, where they will be "autonomous" and "remain in German hands as a pledge for the future good behavior of the members of their race in America"(Ibid, 2).  The Madagascar Plan is not as benign as Verrall would lead us to believe in his rendition of the events.  Upon further consideration of the documents, the Jews on Madagascar seem more like prisoners and hostages than beneficiaries of their long-sought after homeland.  It can be asserted nonetheless that the elimination of the Jewish race was not the plan of action in July 1940.

INTELLECTUAL HONESTY?

Upon looking at the documentary evidence, it becomes apparent that there is a definite intensification over time of the perceived threat of the Jewish population if they were to be allowed to emigrate.  Verrall notices no such escalating tensions, and sticks very stubbornly to this original thesis that absolves the Reich of any exterminationist plotting.  He chastises both the historians Reitlinger and Poliako for both "mak[ing] the entirely unfounded supposition that because the Madagascar Plan had been shelved, the German’s must necessarily have been thinking of "extermination""(Zundel, Part 2, 2). Verrall is not being a good historian here, for he is not taking into account anything but his "uncontrollable interest", which is to prove that the German’s were innocent of the Holocaust.  The Bias that Verrall is showing here shows none of the intellectual honesty that is required of a historian, and therefore perceives him of the right to bear the title.

THE INCREASING THREAT OF EMIGRATION

That is not to say that were never any indications that the treatment of the Jews was to be non-violent.  Indeed, Himmler had already iterated this possibility in a secret memorandum to Hitler on May 25^th, 1940 where his states that " I hope the concept of Jews will be completely extinguished through the possibility of large-scale emigration of all the Jews to Africa or some other colony·. Cruel and tragic as every individual case may be, this method is the mildest and the best if, out of our inner convictions, we reject the Bolshevist method of physical destruction of a people as un-Germanic and impossible"(Himmler to Hitler May 25^th, 1).  Indeed, if we look at this evidence it seems that Himmler is very blatantly disavowing the use of excessive force in favor of moving all the Jews to an island far, far away.   If we were to stop here in our investigation and generalize this statement, then it would be very easy to look at the "evacuation to the East" to be a benign and "alternative" plan, as Verrall implies in his citation of a Feb 10^th 1942 document.  The document states that the invasion of Russia was the impetus for the temporary shelving of the Madagascar Plan.  Although the document in question was not found, there were two which very explicitly banned the right of any Jew to emigrate, first the Government-General (Poland) in Nov., 1940 and then from the Reich at all in October 1941.  Both of these stand in explicit contradiction to Verrall, and work to discredit his claims.    The regulation was issued by the Reich Security Main Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt) on October 25^th and declared that the Eastern Jews were attempting to get to the US, where Jews were "endeavoring, with the help of newly immigrated Jews, especially from Eastern Europe, to create a new basis from which it intends to force ahead its struggle, particularly against Germany"(Regulation for the Ban from the Government-General, 1).   The regulation further gives the Government- General government the right "to reject without further investigation any applications by Jews·for permission to emigrate"(Ibid, 1).  Once again there is the reference to the danger that American Jewry could pose to Germany if Eastern European Jews were to "escape" the continent and join forces with their American brethren.  The theme of the Jewish threat is pervades not only Varrell’s discussion, but also the very documents from which he bases that discussion.  The fact that he does not see the "Jewish Threat" for the paranoid and unrealistic notion that it was (See above The Jewish Threat) discredits him as a historiographer and places him in a similar mind-set to that of the German Reich of the 1930’s and 1940’s.

EMIGRATION DOES NOT EQUAL EVACUATION

Verrall refuses to see the distinction between emigration (like the Madagascar Plan) and evacuation (like the concentration camp re-settlement in the East).  The distinction does exist however, and is very explicit in the October 1941 "Order Banning the Immigration of Jews From the Reich".  The secret document states that "The Reich fuehrer SS and Chief of the German Police that the emigration of the Jews is to be prevented, taking effect immediately. (Evacuation Aktionen will remain unaffected)" (Italics in original, 1).  There is a difference between emigration of Jews and their concentration in the East.  While Verrall proposes that the Germans just wanted the Jews off the continent, a program that would be made feasible through the Madagascar Plan, the directive here does exactly the opposite; it calls for the restriction of the Jews to the continent, and very specifically to the East. 

THE EAST

October 1941 was not a safe time to be Jewish in the East.  While Verrall equates the evacuation to the East with emigration to Madagascar, he is neglecting the historical context in which the East was immersed; namely, the war with Russia was beginning, and the anti-Communist stance of the Reich was expanded to include the Jew as Bolshevik and partisans who were against the German state.  In a secret document "Protection of Troops against Partisans and Sabotages", Dated November 17th^h, dictates harsh treatment of the occupied population.  The regulations include a mandatory pass in order to pass on the roads, the assigning of village elders to name each house and note any stranger who has recently arrived to the village; the rigorous questioning of stranger; and the "blank check" stating that "Every suspected civilian in the battle area [meaning the roads] will be shot"(2). While this statement seems fairly innocuous and does not single out Jews by name, October 10^th document titled "Conduct of Troops in the Eastern Territories" does associate Jew with Communist, and sheds light on the later transmission; while Jews are not specifically named, this earlier document makes the association clear:

Regarding the conduct of troops toward the Bolshevistic system, vague ideas are still prevalent in many cases.  The most essential aim of the war against the Jewish-Bolshevistic system is a complete destruction of their means of power and the elimination of Asiatic influence from the European culture·Therefore the soldier must have full understanding for the necessity of a sever by just revenge on subhuman Jewry.  The Army has to aim at another purpose ie. i.e., the annihilation of revolts in hinterland which, as experience proves, have always been caused by Jews"(Ibid 4).

So, while the Jews were not targeted in name in the November 17^th document, they had already been identified as synonymous with partisan activity in early October. Indeed, the Orders of the October 10^th seem to have been taken to heart by the Einzatsgruppen, whose "Operations and Situation Report # 6" speaks to the wholesale slaughter of Jews for their presumed Bolshevik relationship.  Verrall would like to counter the fact that the killings were directed at Jews by claiming that "Of course, only a small proportion of these [supposed 100,000 killings by the Einzatsgruppen] could have been Jewish partisan and Communist functionaries·These casualties were inflicted during savage partisan warfare on the Eastern Front·"(Zundel Part 4, 1).  But as report #6 indicates, the now recognizable trend appears once again; Jews were implicated in some bombings in Kiev because "they wee seen as NKVD informers and agents"(Operation and situation report #6,1).  So, in retaliation for the bombings "all Jews were arrested·and all together 33,771 Jews were executed on September 29^th and 30^th"(Ibid 1).

Similarly, it is reported that in the town of Schitomir, "3,145 Jews had to be shot, because experience showed that they must be considered as bearers of Bolshevist propaganda and saboteurs"(Ibid, 1).  Verralls statement falls apart, and his distortion of the facts becomes clear; the Reich had very explicitly stated the correlation between Communist and Jew, so being a Jew by default made one a communist, and then worth of the wrath of the Reich as a Îpartisan saboteur".  The validity of the statement can be called into question, especially considering the similar tactics used by the Germans to start containing all the Jews in then Reich because of one anti-government statement made by Chaim Weizmann in 1938 (See "The Jewish Threat").  No documents were collected which could prove that the Jews were by-in-large communist agents, but that does not universally vindicate them.  A Wehrmacht document was uncovered, however, which specifically points to the lack of partisan activity among the Ukrainian Jews, which stands in very sharp contrast to the Einsatzgruppen’s perceived need to murder 33,771 Jews for their subversive intentions. 

The Wehrmacht, who entered Ukraine before the Order Police and the Einsatzgruppen, very specifically noted that " there is not evidence that the Jews, either as a both, or even in any considerable numbers, have taken part in sabotage·It cannot be claimed that the Jews as such present any kind of danger for the German Wehrmacht"(Armament in Ukraine, 1).   The statement also goes on to note the ill ease with which the Wehrmacht participated in the killings {which are significantly called Aktionen÷see the Emigration does not equal Evacuation).  One of their final statements pertains to the final section of the study and relates to the irrationality of the Jewish focused killing sprees.  One of the consequences of the large-scale slaughter of the Jews in the Ukraine is "c) [the] Elimination of urgently needed craftsmen, who were in many cases indispensable for the requirements of the Wehrmacht"(Ibid. 2).  The final section deals with the nature of German treatment of potentially useful Jewish workers.

"WORK" CAMPS

Verrall also makes the assertion that the extermination of the Jews would be completely unrealistic in light of the labor shortages that were beginning to affect the Reich when they entered into war with Russia.  Indeed, it is very unrealistic that Hitler and Reich would eliminate some of their most skilled workers out of Anti-Semitism.  Yet that is exactly what they did.  Verrall is not being consistent in his interpretation here.  Whereas he deemed completely rational the notion of spending millions of dollars to ship the entire Jewish Race to Africa after the war, he deems it completely irrational that the workers would not be used to their full potential as part of the war effort: "As the war proceeded, the policy developed of using Jewish detainees for labor in the war effort.  The question of labor is fundamental to when considering the alleged plan of genocide against the Jews, for on the grounds of logic alone, the latter would entail the most senseless waste of manpower, time, and energy which prosecuting a war of survival on two fronts"(Zundel Part 2, 1).  As was discussed earlier, Jews had long since been stripped of jobs which might have proven some measure of help to people in the Reich÷as doctors and lawyers and civil servants.  The extremities of the war did necessitate a reevaluation of the largely ineffectual and un-productive concentration camp system, and there are a host of documents that prove that using Jewish prisoners for productive labor was the exception to the rule.  And no, it is not rational.  Besides the previously mentioned slaughter of Ukrainian Jews who were "indispensable to the Wehrmacht", there was the "evacuation" of the skilled laborer Jews into concentration camps.  To go into the truly unproductive nature of concentration camp work is beyond the scope of this paper to adequately delve into, so The Reader is therefore directed to The Buchenwald Report translated by David A. Hackett, and well as A History of the Holocaust by Yehuda Bauer.  In the interest of remaining focused on documents that refute the claims of Verralls that to not use available labor was a ridiculous notion.  A series of documents exists, however, which note the need to preserve some Jews within their cities, or to construct camps nearby factories, to enable the continued productive labor of a small portion of the Jewish population.  In December Reichskommissar Lohse ordered the Higher SS in Austria  "to halt to killing of Jewish skilled workers" (order by Reichkommissar Lohse, 1-2).  The order lodges the complaint that "armament plants and repair workshops have been deprived of Jewish skilled workers through their liquidation, and that they cannot be replaced at the present time"(Ibid, 2).  The implication in the document is that the workers have been taken away from their jobs and killed because they are Jewish, a notion that belies logic but was an issue.  Verrall would be good to note that these propositions are not without reason, and are in fact indicative of the preoccupation of the Germans with killing the Jews, no matter their contribution to the war effort.  The complaint does not challenge the morality of killing the Jews, but rather states that " Provisions to be made as quickly as possible for the training of suitable local personnel as skilled workers"(Ibid 2).  This sentiment is re-iterated in the "Memorandum by General Von Ginant to the General Staff of the Wehrmacht in Reaction to the Removal of the Jews from Industrial Production, September 18^th, 1942".  In this Memorandum, the General acknowledges that Polish and Ukrainian workers will have to replace Jewish ones, but requests more time in order to train the appropriate personnel to replace the take over the jobs.  The General cautions that " The immediate removal of the Jews would cause a considerable reduction in Germany’s war potential, and supplies to the front and the troops in the Government-General would be held up, at least for the time being"(2). The fact that the General even has to levy this complaint is in direct contradiction to the logic and strategy of war, which would not compromise the effort by killing its skilled workers.  Nevertheless, the request for "putting off" the killing of invaluable Jews has to be made.  The response of Himmler to his request is enigmatic, and goes in farther in proving the irrationality of the Reich.  He proposes that the Jews in "real war industries·are to withdrawn step by step.  At the first stage they are to be concentrated in separate hall’s in the factories·. so that [eventually] we will then have simply a few closed concentration camp industries"(Response by Himmler· 1).  Even with the severity of war and the need for the skilled workers, the Reich is willing to isolate the Jews into sections and eventually into camps, where he concedes that "there too, in accordance with the wish of the Fuehrer, the Jews are some day to disappear"(Ibid, 1).  The very logic, which Verrall is offended that the historians even suggest, is in fact the very logic, which the German Reich used.  The blanket denial of Verrall of the Holocaust rings all the more hollow, and his credibility as a historian is exposed as all the less valid, upon understanding that his bias has truly clouded his ability to maintain any level of the intellectual honesty required of the profession. 

CONCLUSION:

Deniers of the Holocaust sometimes come very carefully disguised.  They shroud their biased, anti-Semitic and/or neo- Fascist views under a veneer of historical credibility.  The danger in their work is that sometimes it sounds a lot more reliable than it actually is.  The duty of any historian should not be to relate the truth that he/she is fed, but rather to seek the truth out of a systematic and honest attempt at research, one that is geared towards learning about the subject matter with which he/she is presented. Richard Varrell’s "history" is neither systematic, nor honest, nor does it represent any change of opinion over the course of the pamphlet.  He remains stubbornly true to his beliefs, even when much evidence to the contrary points that he should re-valuate the "facts".  History can teach us if we are willing to learn, and people can mis-lead us if we are willing to follow blindly.

Bibliography