Ernst Zündel and Free Speech in Canada

The mission statement of Zundel’s own website, Ingrid Rimland is the debated authentic author, The Zundelsite states exactly what his, and his followers, sentiments are. It notes that World War II did occur, but that Jewish deaths were only caused because they were “caught up in the maelstrom.” The three specific aspects of the Holocaust that Zundel challenges, in the sites’ very words are:

1. That there ever was a Fuhrer order for the genocidal killings of Jews, Gypsies and others 2. that the chief murder weapon or instrument for the alleged mass killing, called a ‘gas chamber,’ was designed for the express purpose of targeting groups of human beings that 3. the numbers of victims claimed to have been killed are anywhere near the number of people who actually died in concentration camps of whatever cause—including lack of food, lack of shelter and medicines, epidemics and old age.2

Many deniers like to compare and relate themselves to mythological and literary heroes and Zundel is no exception. He has claimed to be the “David” holding the slingshot and taking on the “Goliath,” which has been embodied by the Holocaust Lobby. He argues that the many organizations trying to cease his hate speech are much better financed and have the upper hand over his small, yet eminent quest. But the Director of the Nizkor Project, Ken McVay refutes this argument by citing Zundel’s many claims to have the money to refurnish his home, therefore having enough to publish wide-spread literature, as well as having the “use of a 486.”3 Nonetheless, it is correct to assume that there is more riding against Zundel; groups who know the conclusions he has drawn up are false, rightly so outnumber him.

Arguing over his freedom of speech has been pretty much all that Zundel has been doing since he was first taken to Canadian court in 1985. He helped write and publish Did Six Million Really Die? and was charged in Toronto on counts that he had spread to the public the idea that the Holocaust was a Zionist hoax. Once found guilty of distributing false news about the Holocaust, he arrived to be sentenced “with a blackened face (because whites cannot receive justice in Canada) carrying a cross, like Jesus on his way to Cavalry. The cross bore the inscription ‘Freedom of Speech’; not only was Zundel, like Jesus, being crucified by an evil society, but freedom of speech was being crucified as well.”4 Again, he has chosen to compare himself to a world-renown character, trying to veil himself to the media’s world audience as a victim.

This would be the first of Zundel’s ongoing battles in court. He would return to attempt to clear his name and to have the ability to write for what he believes is the truth. Zundel’s trials have become revisionist media events; the defense has successfully put the Holocaust on trial instead of Zundel and has been able to gather revisionists Robert Faurisson, David Irving, Mark Weber, Fred Leuchter, and others as expert witnesses. The first conviction would later be overturned by the Canadian Supreme Court, which ruled that the false news law is unconstitutional because of the Charter of Rights and Expression, which allows for the freedom of expression-as long as it is non-violent. Zundel established his own website to publicize not only his “revisionist” viewpoint, but seemingly mainly to publicize himself as a victim of restriction to bring sympathy and funding from defenders of civil liberties.

The pamphlet that has given Zundel such attention, Did Six Million Really Die? (DSMRD), only has the preface and afterword authored by Zundel, he was also responsible for the publishing by his Samisdat Publishers Ltd. It does indicate that the author is Richard London, supposedly with the University of London. But it has been uncovered that the author is actually Richard Verral, editor of the neo-Nazi British National Front newspaper.

The Zundelsite provides the publication for free; Part One explains the views of its authors immediately. It explains that the Holocaust committed by the German National Socialists against the Jews of Europe during World War II never occurred. It provides disgust towards the real propaganda that continues to “roll from the presses…the most colossal piece of fiction and the most successful of deceptions” from the hands Jewish-Zionists for political purposes. DSMRD quotes a former chief rabbi in saying that the Jewish people found themselves in stronger positions after the War. The Jews allegedly used the German defeat to take Palestine back and create their own state (Israel), which was has been politically supported and greatly funded by the compensation that has been paid out to them by the Federal Government of West Germany.

The publication accuses that the count of six million dead is a term of “political blackmail” against German nationalism. Allegedly, the “lie” hopes to make others believe that the German government of the time tried to kill off so many Jews they were trying to keep a German-only nation, therefore the “lie” is trying to break what was once a strong, powerful working nation for its own political purposes. To appall readers of believers’ of the “lie” ideals, it cites the book The Incomparable Crime, which discusses racialism and its spread throughout the nations of Europe, especially in Nazi Germany and British-controlled India. DSMRD goes on to allege that the deaths that did happen to occur were because of starvation and disease. What have been believed to be extermination camps were actually gas chambers built by Russians after the War and that there are no liable witnesses to or survivors of the murders.5

One has to approach the work of Ernst Zundel with caution, it is so hard to decipher whether what is being presented is completely factual. Looking back at his past work and comments helps to organize what sort of approach should be taken. Shermer and Grobman again describe their interview with Zundel, explaining that when a person has been known to stretch the truth, his/her credibility immediately decreases. He told them that when he had claimed that the Nazis were storing flying saucers in Antartica, it was only for publicity purposes.6 He may have made up a story to gain attention for his deeper insights, but now he will be known for his ability to make up anything at any time as it suits him.

DSMRD attempts to use certain quotes to prove points to reveal the manipulative side behind the Jews. All it does is state true facts that really have nothing to do with the argument, of course the rabbi would say that the Jews are doing better after the War. Before and during the War they were being oppressed, under heavy prejudice, sent into ghettos, and murdered by Aryan supremacists.

The issue at hand at all of his trials is that with the work Zundel publishes, he questions the occurrence of key elements of the Holocaust and in doing so promotes anti-Semitism and racial hatred. Dr. Gary Prideaux assessed along with DSMRD, The Zundelsite’s materials 66 Questions and Answers on the Holocaust and Jewish Soap, to find certain attitudes formed by the framework of German victimization and the deception of the Jews. Rhetorical strategies employed in the works include the common use of terms such as “Jewish Lobby,” “Holocaust Lobby,” and “Zionist Lobby” to single out Jews, using quotation marks around particular terms that are not really treated as quotations like “victims,” “Holocaust,” and “forgery,” declare to be exposing the truth of, and on the basis of such exposure, invite the reader to target Jews as an identifiable group and attribute to them negative, criminal, etc. characteristics.

Prideaux continues to point out that anti-Semitism is used in the writings because the authors make use of “highly negative stereotyping.” The identity of the victim is always flipped; Jews are actually the victimizers of Germans, Jews are grouped together in one band plotting to destabilize the West, and other Jewish stereotypes one should have the decency and intellect to ignore.7 It really does not take someone with a PH.D. to figure out Zundel’s racist views, but as many deniers should learn, having a degree does give credibility for truth.

Zundel’s first trial could have been merely a criminal prosecution based on a minor statute, but as the trial would develop, the courts found that procedural formalities in the trial involved the factuality of the Holocaust as an issue to deal with. The prosecution chose to convince the jury that Zundel is aware that his claims about the Holocaust are false. During a cross-examination, the prosecution suggested that Zundel was not in fact a researcher, but a fervent neo-Nazi, to also suggest that he has been spreading racist literature. All Zundel could do was show the selected material he had for his own claims and ignore the vast evidence that has been brought to his attention about the Holocaust. The prosecution also asserted since the bulk of DSMRD brands the Jews as liars and swindlers, he is denying the Jews’ credibility in order to rehabilitate the old German Socialist government and injuring Canada’s public interest by upsetting the country’s racial and social harmony.

The prosecution had to convince the jury that no reasonable person who has researched the Holocaust could come to the conclusion that no Nazi brutalities were committed, and that someone, Zundel, could have only selectively chosen material to advance his “revisionist” cause while disregarding the massive amounts of evidence supporting the existence of the Holocaust. They brought in six witnesses who had survived the concentration camps to talk about what they had experienced, a documentary film with images of a concentration camp, and called to the stand Dr. Raul Hilberg, a professor at the University of Vermont and a leading expert in Holocaust studies. Dr. Hilberg’s evidence and conclusions supported the testimony of the witnesses.8

The defense Douglas Christie, the Victoria-based lawyer whose record of clients includes a number of alleged Canadian anti-Semites. Christie helped make this trial the media spectacle that it has gone down in history as. He allowed Zundel’s attempt to enter court wearing a bulletproof vest and a helmet and his claims that he needed protection from angry Jews. This type of media attention pushed Canada into the world limelight with its debate over the free-speech rights of Holocaust deniers.

Further attention was grabbed when Christie increased the difficulty of court proceedings by hounding the Holocaust survivor witnesses for names of relatives who were burned in Nazi ovens, trying to cast suspicion on their pain. He also unsuccessfully attempted to introduce into evidence a model of the Auschwitz crematorium so that the court participants could debate the purposes of those buildings. Christie continued by calling a number of “expert” witnesses, which were other Holocaust deniers similar to Zundel. Because of the many brutally provocative suggestions the defense and the testimonials witnesses gave, the focus of media coverage turned to Zundel. The trial has been criticized as “an impromptu press conference held from the prisoner’s dock in the courtroom,” Zundel has even claimed to have received one million dollars worth of publicity.9 These unfounded claims of publicity are all that Zundel gained from his first trial. His sensational antics caused the public to further sympathize with the Jewish community and a conviction from the jury.

Zundel continued to battle in the Canadian court system for years, always focusing on his believed freedoms. He seems to have disregarded the actual framework a historical “revisionist” like him should work along, he has lacked in actually proving the validity of his views. Shermer and Grobman provide the guidelines of what correct revisionist work actually entails: there has to be a reliable source for the claim and verification from other reliable sources.10

In the case that worked its way up to the Canadian Supreme Court, Zundel called on Fred Leuchter, a self-described “engineer,” to testify that gassings in Auschwitz concentration camps. Historians have been able to prove that gas chambers were used for genocide because of the traces of Zyklon-B, the lethal hydrocyanic acid, have been found on the walls of gas chambers in several camps. Leuchter wrote The Leuchter Report, which concluded that he found no evidence or capacity in the buildings or chambers for the use of execution. Zundel paid Leuchter $30,000 to analyze samples taken from concentration camp ruins (bricks and cement), that have, incidentally, been exposed to the natural elements of time since their use. Unfortunately for Zundel, Leuchter has no engineering degree or license so his testimonial could not be considered “expert.” Leuchter was barred from using the title “engineer” and Zundel received much bad publicity during his trial.11 Looking back at the revisionist methods, it is obvious that Zundel can only fall into the category of denier. If Zundel really wants to “seek the truth,” it is imperative that he does it correctly, or else he will forever be viewed as a pro-Nazi racist.

While Zundel claims to be on a crusade for his “guaranteed rights of democratic rights and freedoms—Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Thought and, most importantly, Freedom to Inform across all boundaries,”12 he forgets the freedoms of others. The Zundelsite displays his anti-censorship views, but Zundel also displayed himself as a hypocrite when, in 1980, he urged Canadian authorities to impose anti-hate laws by barring the television miniseries Holocaust, he was quoted, “by stopping the Zionist ‘six million’ swindle, we can stop the tyranny and terror throughout the world.” Even if he is allowed the rights to speak his mind, shouldn’t Jewish groups and sympathizers as well?

In 1996, regarding what Zundel considers “hate laws,” The Zundelsite posted, “designed to snap around good people’s hearts and minds like hand cuffs.” Yet, he promotes censorship when criticizes Steven Spielbergh and demands a ban on Schindler’s List, claiming it is anti-German propaganda.13 Zundel feels that he can publish Did Six Million Really Die? that conceives a Jewish group who plans to gain world power and calls Jews “swindlers” and “conspirators.” But feels he can censor a film that actually portrays a German as a compassionate man. Again, there is no evidence behind his reasoning. Zundel can only bring attention to himself, but when he has it he can never prove himself.

Since Zundel’s long run the Canandian government’s prosecution, Canadian Jewish groups and other Human Rights organizations that hope to end his publishing of revisionist materials, have also hit him with legal action. In an interview with Skeptic magazine’s Frank Miele, Zundel revealed his “gameplan” for the future. His intentions are to “first, bring down Jewish suffering in terms of numbers and events, both real and imagined, to what it really was, not what they say it was, what they exploit for their own political, financial, and geopolitical purposes.” He strongly believes that the world will cease all sympathy toward Jewish Holocaust survivors and realize the “brutality” Allies committed against Germany. He ignores, though the comparison in numbers of how many died in Nazi Germany’s hands (and not as a result of wartime battle) to how many died in the Allies’ hands (as a result of war tactics).

When asked what he would do if evidence was found substantiating his side of the story, Zundel would immediately cut off all aid to Israel. To him, Israel and its people have been receiving funding illegitimately and this can never be forgotten, there is no way we can move on without getting what he thinks Jews owe him. “Why should we let parasites and liars live with their loot,”14 if this point of view were applied throughout history on all empires/nations that take land and goods unlawfully, all of the North and South American continents would be vast green forests and jungles full of precious metals and wild animals.

It is quite ironic to read Zundel’s thoughts on Jewish groups, who are only trying to keep true to history, in his newsletter in Power magazine, “it is not the Holocaust Lobby that we must aim to convince. Most of them are too set in their ways or too prejudiced or blinkered to look at anything else with an open mind.”15 Even though the people Zundel calls his enemies have historians and scholars who can provide written documents, gas traces on the walls of gas chambers, eye witness testimony, ground and aerial photographs of camps filled with prisoners and even bodies burning, and even ruins of each camp to prove that there were gas chambers used for the homicidal deaths of millions from the orders of Hitler and his commanders, he still believes they are the ignorant ones.16

In the same newsletter as above, Zundel shared his support for anarchist film festivals entitled “Nazi Lies, Video Tapes and Zundel,” plans to place ads in publications around universities, and to also start a satellite “Revisionist Program,” so that he could spread his “message” to populations unaware of the true invalidity of his views.

Ernst Zundel calls himself a historical Holocaust Revisionist, but in researching his work and activities with Canadian courts, one can only conclude that this man is a product of anti-Semitism and believer of racial superiority. He is one of the loudest, most fervent deniers, and deny is that all that he can do. Zundel is a loud, ever present man in courts and throughout supremacist websites, but with deep investigation, a lack of actual reliable evidence/sources is obvious. It must be thoroughly recognized that none of his words, or any other denier’s for that matter should be believed, because they are nothing but hype, and that is all that they have to live on.

Notes

1 Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman, Denying History, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 66-7.

2 Ingrid Rimland, “Mission Statement,” The Zundelsite, 26 June 1997, <http:www.zundelsite.org/english/misc/mission.html> (25 November 2002).

3 Ken McVay, “Open Letter to the Readers of Ernst Zuendel’s Power Letter,” The Nizkor Project, 16 September 1995, <http:www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/people/z/zundel.Ernst/cor-4-email.txt> (5 December 2002), 1.

4 Manuel Prutschi, “The Zundel Affair: A Report,” The Nizkor Project, 2 November, 1992, <http:www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/people/p/prutschi.manuel/zundel-affair/za-02> (5 December 2002), 1.

5 Richard E. Harwood, “Did Six Million Really Die?” The Zundelsite, no date, <http://www.zundelsite.org/english/harwood/Didsix01.html> (1 December 2002), 3-7.

>6 Shermer and Grobman, 248.

7 Gary Prideaux, “Notes on a Discourse Analysis of Selected Zundelsite Materials,” The Nizkor Project, no date, <http://nizkor.org/hweb/…ux-gary/zundelsite/analysis-summary.html> (5 December 2002).

8 Marouf A. Hasain Jr., “Canadian Civil Liberties, Holocaust Denial, and the Zundel Trials,” Communications and the Law 21, no. 3 (1999) : 43.

9 Prutschi, 2.

10 Shermer and Grobman, 248.

11 Shermer and Grobman, 129-30.

12 Rimland, 2.

13 “Ernst Zundel on Censorship,” The Nizkor Project, no date, <http:www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/z/zundel-ernst/censorship> (5 December 2002).

14 Frank Miele, “Giving the Devil His Due: Holocaust Revisionism as a Test Case For Free Speech and the Skeptical Ethic,” Skeptic 2, no. 4 (1994) : 58-70.

15 Ernst Zundel, “Victory in Bonn!” Power, 26 June 1994, no page.

16 Shermer Grobman, 127-28.

Bibliography

“Ernst Zundel on Censorship.” The Nizkor Project. no date. <http:www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/z/zundel-ernst/censorship> (5 December 2002).

Harwood, Richard E. “Did Six Million Really Die?” The Zundelsite. no date. <http://www.zundelsite.org/english/harwood/Didsix01.html> (1 December 2002).

Hasain Jr., Marouf A. “Canadian Civil Liberties, Holocaust Denial, and the Zundel Trials.” Communications and the Law 21, no. 3 (1999) : 43.

McVay, Ken. “Open Letter to the Readers of Ernst Zuendel’s Power Letter.” The Nizkor Project. 16 September 1995. <http:www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/people/z/zundel.Ernst/cor-4-email.txt> (5 December 2002).

Miele, Frank. “Giving the Devil His Due: Holocaust Revisionism as a Test Case For Free Speech and the Skeptical Ethic.” Skeptic 2, no. 4 (1994) : 58-70.

Prideaux, Gary. “Notes on a Discourse Analysis of Selected Zundelsite Materials.” The Nizkor Project. no date <http://nizkor.org/hweb/…ux-gary/zundelsite/analysis-summary.html> (5 December 2002).

Prutschi, Manuel. “The Zundel Affair: A Report,” The Nizkor Project. 2 November, 1992. <http:www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/people/p/prutschi.manuel/zundel-affair/za-02> (5 December 2002).

Rimland, Ingrid. “Mission Statement.” The Zundelsite. 26 June 1997. <http:www.zundelsite.org/english/misc/mission.html> (25 November 2002).

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

Zundel, Ernst. “Victory in Bonn!” Power, 26 June 1994, no page.

[ Holocaust denial (french) | Gravediggers of Memory | Tout PHDN ]

Notes

Bibliography

by A. D.

A student essay from Dr. Elliot Neaman's History 210 class (historical methods - fall 2002)