How 'Fahrenheit 451' Trends Threaten
Intellectual Freedom
by Richard A. Widmann
Revised text: 02/14/98
Graphics added: 09/02/06
In 1952, Harry Elmer Barnes
wrote a timely article, "How 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' Trends Threaten
American Peace, Freedom, and Prosperity" as the final chapter of
the classic revisionist anthology, Perpetual War for Perpetual
Peace. Barnes analyzed George Orwell's classic novel as a work
of prophecy and sounded the alarm to reverse the "1984" trends prevalent
in the America of his day. Barnes argued that propagandists and
"court historians" were fashioning a present, based on a falsified
and inaccurate telling of the past, that was designed to meet Establishment
desires to participate in world wars. Ironically, Barnes' article
was omitted from the first edition the collection.(1)
Barnes may be best remembered as the author of the generally accepted
definition of "revisionism,"
"Revisionism means nothing more or less than the effort to correct
the historical record in the light of a more complete collection
of historical facts, a more calm political atmosphere, and a
more objective attitude." (2)
Barnes had discovered that a more nearly accurate
version of the history of the First World War was only possible
after the fighting had ended and the emotional excesses had lessened.
He was unable to predict that similar corrections of Allied propaganda
and popularized conceptions of the methods of warfare in the Second
World War would meet even sterner resistance.
Today - half a century after the conclusion of the Second World
War - it would be fair to expect a less emotional environment, one
in which historians, researchers and writers were free to examine
the actual causes of the war as well as the atrocities committed
by both sides in the conflict. However, those and other topics are
more forbidden than ever with the greatest taboo surrounding analysis
of the fate of Europe's Jews and others in what has come to be known
as the Holocaust.
In 1950, three years prior to Barnes' article concerning "1984"
trends another author, Ray Bradbury, set out a foreboding vision
of the future in a short story titled, "The Fireman." Later, Bradbury's
story would be renamed Fahrenheit 451 after the temperature
at which paper burns. Fahrenheit 451 describes a horrific
future in which millions of books are banned and firemen set fires
instead of extinguishing them. In order to maintain a society of
brainwashed, "happy" people, the firemen kick down doors and burn
the hated volumes along with the homes that housed them.
Barnes would never have suspected how fast the world would progress
from the "1984" trends he identified to the trends Bradbury identified
in Fahrenheit 451(3). In our time, we see the events
of Bradbury's science fiction novel coming to pass every day.
Custodians of our peace of mind
Bradbury explained the origins of the book
burnings in Fahrenheit 451 through his fire chief,
Captain Beatty:
"It didn't come from the Government down. There was no dictum,
no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no! Technology,
mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick,
thank God. Today, thanks to them, you can stay happy all the
time, you are allowed to read comics, the good old confessions,
or trade journals." (4)
Contemporary America is similarly undergoing
a period of "political correctness" that has touched us on every
societal level. The impulse not to "offend" has resulted in the
censorship of thought which breaches the limits of recently defined
"good taste." The solution to politically incorrect thought is obvious
in Bradbury's nightmare world. In the words of Captain Beatty:
"Colored people don't like Little Black Sambo. Burn it.
White people don't feel good about Uncle Tom's Cabin.
Burn it. (5)
One of the first examples of a Fahrenheit
451 trend was an arson-attack on The Historical Review Press
(HRP), a publisher of revisionist books in Britain. On November
5, 1980, "firemen" destroyed the office, warehouse and printing
plant of the HRP. Damage was estimated at 50,000 pounds.(6) HRP
rebuilt only to have the "firemen" return in September 1996. The
offices were once again badly damaged by the "firemen's" flames.(7)
A huge pile of burned books
after the 1984 arson attack at the Institute for Historical
Review.
HRP was not the only revisionist publisher to meet a fiery fate.
On July 4, 1984, "firemen" paid a call on the Institute for Historical
Review (IHR) in California. IHR publishes revisionist histories
of the Second World War and has dared to question elements of the
orthodox "Holocaust" story. The "firemen" chose to attack IHR's
warehouse and burn tens of thousands of books that they feared people
would read. Among the books burned was Barnes', Perpetual
War for Perpetual Peace. (8)
On May 8, 1995, "firemen" in Canada brought their form of censorship
to Ernst Zündel, a small independent publisher. Zündel had run into
trouble with the authorities in Canada for publishing a slender
volume which dared to pose the question,
Did Six Million Really Die? After years of state censorship,
Zündel's home and office were severely damaged by fire after an
unknown assailant doused the building with gasoline and set it ablaze.
Witnesses reported seeing what Bradbury readers would have to call
a "fireman" carrying a red gasoline canister to the front of Zündel's
home, "gingerly like a bomb," and setting the fire.
The charred remains of books and the ceiling of
Ernst Zündel's home and "headquarters" in 1995.
The damage was extensive; many books and files
were destroyed. The blazing roof collapsed into the building. What
wasn't ruined by the flames was damaged by the water of the official
fire brigade which flooded the lower floors. (9)
The message was loud and clear: Publications that inspire thought
on certain controversial topics are not allowed.
Setting the Structure to burn the books
Sometimes, the "firemen" are able to carry
out their objective - Preventing books from being read - without
actually consigning volumes to the flames. In 1996, St. Martin's
Press decided to publish a biography of Hitler's propaganda minister,
Joseph Goebbels written by David Irving, a popular albeit controversial
British historian.
David Irving's Goebbels
as published by Focal Point Productions
St. Martin's Press publisher Thomas Dunne issued the following
angry statement after receiving dozens of protests against his plans
to publish Irving's Goebbels:
Mastermind of the Third Reich .
``A number of the calls we have received have expressed fury that we
would publish a book by 'a man like David Irving' and have questioned
our moral right to do so. I can only say that Joseph Goebbels
must be laughing in hell. He, after all, was the man who loved
nothing better than burning books, threatening publishers, suppressing
ideas and judging the merits of ideas based not on their content
but by their author's racial, ethnic or political purity. That
is indeed a sad irony.''
The campaign to ban the book built for several
weeks. Initially, St. Martin's editors stood by their decision and
insisted they found nothing wrong with Irving's book. However, the
pressure increased - now including death threats from the "firemen"
- and Thomas McCormack, chief executive officer of St. Martin's
finally gave in and reversed the company's earlier position.(10)
St. Martin's decided not to publish Irving's volume. Far from being
widely condemned, the St. Martin's surrender was upheld by numerous
American newspapers.
Presumably St. Martin's Press would have acquiesced in a literal
as well as a figurative incineration. Submitting to such tyranny
is always simpler than standing up to it. In Bradbury's novel, Faber,
a retired professor says,
"I saw the way things were going, a long time back. I said nothing.
I'm one of the innocents who could have spoken up and out when
no one would listen to the 'guilty,' but I did not speak and
thus became guilty myself. And when finally they set the structure
to burn the books, using the firemen, I grunted a few times
and subsided, for there were no others grunting or yelling with
me, by then." (11)
Fahrenheit 451 trends are perhaps
most prevalent in Germany. Günther Deckert, a school teacher translated
into German a work of American execution consultant, Fred Leuchter,
titled
The Leuchter Report. The report is Leuchter's 1988 analysis
of the alleged gas chambers of Auschwitz and Majdanek. Deckert,
who was very familiar with Leuchter's work interpreted at a meeting
at which Leuchter spoke in Weinheim in November of 1991.
Günther Deckert was arrested for translating
the Leuchter Report into German
For those actions, Deckert was dragged into court and given a
one-year suspended sentence. Owing to protests over that "lenient"
penalty, he was retried. This time, in a Karlsruhe court, Judge
Eva-Marie Wollentin sentenced him to two years imprisonment - in
what has been described as "the freest state in German history.
The Neue Osnabruecker Zeitung
spoke for many of Germany's modern editors in an editorial, intoning
that it was a just sentence. "There was no reason to suspend the
sentence passed on the rightwinger," it declared. "Deckert showed
not the slightest repentance" In that, the newspaper was correct.
When accused of having shared Leuchter's views, Deckert told the
court: "I stand unconditionally by what I said." (12)
Burn It!
Fahrenheit 451 trends become most apparent after Germar
Rudolf published an anthology titled, Grundlagen zur Zeitgeschichte:
Ein Handbuch über strittige Fragen des 20. Jahrhunderts,
(Foundations of Contemporary History:
A Handbook on controversial questions of the Twentieth century).
Rudolf, forced to use pseudonyms after publishing
Das Rudolf Gutachten
(The Rudolf Report), his own scientific analysis of the
purported Auschwitz gas chambers, suffered numerous raids on his
home by the German state "firemen." In March of 1995, the "firemen"
raided a German publisher and seized all available copies of
Grundlagen zur Zeitgeschichte.(13)
All copies of Grundlagen zur Zeitgeschichte
were ordered burned by a German judge.
In May 1996, Judge Burckhardt Stein ruled that Rudolf had to
be arrested without delay for his part in publishing the book. On
June 15, 1996, the judge ruled that all copies of Grundlagen
zur Zeitgeschichte must be burned. The "firemen" no longer
had to operate under the cover of darkness - they were now given
official authority to carry out their murder of ideas. Not content
to simply burn the words of Rudolf and his co-authors, the "firemen"
sentenced Rudolf to 14 months imprisonment. He has so far eluded
his captors and today writes in exile.(14)
In Bradbury's novel, Captain Beatty discovers that Montag, the
novel's hero - and a renegade firman - had hidden books in his home.
For that infraction, the "firemen" visit Montag's home and Beatty
orders Montag to burn his own books.
"I want you to do this job all by your lonesome, Montag. Not
with kerosene and a match, but piecework, with a flame thrower.
Your house, your clean-up."(15)
As Montag burns his home and precious books,
Beatty declares not unlike Judge Stein,
"When you're quite finished... you're under arrest." (16)
These are not isolated cases. In February
1995, after receiving numerous complaints, a German publisher ordered
the "recycling" of John Sack's An Eye for an Eye which
recounts the story of Jewish revenge against the Germans after World
War II. Citing information from Germany's Federal Archives, Sack,
who is himself Jewish, maintains that 60,000 to 80,000 ethnic Germans
were killed or otherwise perished between 1945 and 1948 in camps
run by the Polish communist regime's Office of State Security.
The German cultural establishment launched a bitter assault.
The book was denounced as a sensationalist, "vile docudrama" and
a "gift to neo-Nazis." Soon, the book's publisher, R. Piper found
itself deluged with complaints.
All 6,000 copies of the German edition were stacked in a Stuttgart
warehouse when Piper publisher Viktor Niemann decided to destroy
them. On February 13, the publisher announced, "They will be recycled."(17)
In December of 1996, German authorities ordered all copies of
Carlos Porter's Not Guilty
at Nuremberg: The German Defense Case to be destroyed
along with the means of reproducing it. Porter resided in Belgium
at the time of the German order. Porter's troubles with the German
thought police began in August 1996 when he sent several copies
of his book, along with a cover letter to several people in Germany.
All copies of Carlos
Porter's Not Guilty at Nuremberg were ordered to be
destroyed by German authorities.
In Munich, a certain Judge Zeilinger ruled
that Porter had violated the German law against "defamation and
desecration." He was fined 6,000 DM for writing and distributing
his book, which is a revisionist analysis of the Nuremberg trials.
Zeilinger, also directed, in her "Order of Punishment," that all
copies of Not Guilty at Nuremberg be confiscated, including
copies in Porter's personal possession. Zeilinger wrote: "It is
also ordered that all means for the production of this published
work be confiscated, including any plates, forms, templates, negatives,
or matrices."
Zielinger charged that various passages from Porter's revisionist
analysis denied or minimized the tales of the "Holocaust."(18)
Striking the Match
One of the most moving scenes in Bradbury's novel
is the raid on an old woman's home when neighbors tip off the authorities
that she has built an illegal library. The "firemen" squirt their
kerosene over the books. Montag later explains to his wife, "We
burnt copies of Dante and Swift and Marcus Aurelius." (19) When
the "firemen" attempt to drag the old woman from her house, she
refuses to cooperate. The woman is too proud to give in to the "firemen"
and instead carries out the final act of rebellion by striking a
match and immolating herself.
"On the front porch where she had come to weigh them quietly with her
eyes, her quietness a condemnation, the woman stood motionless.
Beatty flicked his fingers to spark the kerosene. He was too
late. Montag gasped. The woman on the porch reached out with
contempt to them all and struck the kitchen match against the
railing."(20)
A stain marks the place of Reinhold
Elstner's self-immolation at Feldherrnhalle in Munich.
In April 1995, Reinhold Elstner, a former
Wehrmacht soldier, chose the same miserable fate. He wrote in his
final letter:
"A Niagara of lies and defamations inundates us. Since I am now 75
years old, there is not much left for me to do - but I can still
seek death by self-immolation; one last deed that may act as
a signal to the Germans to come to their senses. Even if through
my deed only one German will awaken, and because of it will
find the way to the truth, then my sacrifice will not have been
in vain. I felt I have no other choice once I realized that
even now, after 50 years, there seems to be little hope that
reason would gain the upper hand." (21)
Elstner went to the Feldherrnhalle
memorial hall in downtown Munich and poured gasoline over himself
and struck a match. Authorities have banned the publication of his
letter and have even made it illegal to leave flowers for Elstner
at the site of his immolation. Many wonder how long it would have
been before Germany's "firemen" visited Elstner had he not preempted
them.
Conclusions
Today authors around the world are finding publishers
afraid to touch their manuscripts. Brave publishers are finding
printers shutting down their presses to controversial volumes. Published
volumes are being consigned to sanctioned burnings by the "firemen."
Around the world, news of immolations like Elstner's are blacked out.
We are supposed to occupy our minds with sports on big-screen TV's,
video arcades, fast food, cellular telephones to occupy our minds
while traveling, lap top computers and even on-flight computer games.
Computerized "chat rooms" that enable us to "speak" to faceless
strangers are all the rage. How far are we from Bradbury's broadcast
TV "families"? Montag's wife exclaims, "If we had a fourth wall
[of wall-size TV screens], why it'd be just like this room wasn't
ours at all, but all kinds of exotic people's rooms."(22)
When war is declared in Fahrenheit 451, people are not
over concerned. It will be a "quick war. Forty-eight hours, they
said, and everyone home. That's what the Army said."(23) Recall
President Clinton's promise that American troops would be home from
Bosnia by September 1996! No one seems to mind that they have yet
to return. Actual thought is indeed rare today, perhaps because
it is so frowned upon.
How many readers of this article have hidden their books and journals?
Have you established a secret library yet? Are you afraid of your
friends and loved ones? Guy Montag hid his books:
"He reached up and pulled back the grille of the air-conditioning
system and reached far back inside to the right and moved still
another sliding sheet of metal and took out a book."(24)
Such hiding places are something that each of us
should consider if the Fahrenheit 451 trends prevalent
today are not reversed.
Ironically, Bradbury mentions censorship of his book on censorship
in the "Coda" of Fahrenheit 451.
"I discovered that, over the years, some cubby-hole editors
at Ballantine Books, fearful of contaminating the young, had,
bit by bit, censored some 75 separate sections from the novel."
(25)
Let there be no mistake - the "firemen" are
actively at large and active. Our future depends on truth and intellectual
freedom rising phoenix-like from the ashes of the present.
This article was published in slightly different form in The
Last Ditch, no. 19, December 19, 1997 and in Readings on Fahrenheit
451, Greenhaven Press, Inc., San Diego, CA.
Notes
1. James J. Martin, "Introduction" in Harry Elmer Barnes,
Barnes Against the Blackout (Costa Mesa, CA: Institute
for Historical Review, 1991), p. xvii.
2. Harry E. Barnes, "Revisionism and the Promotion of Peace" in
Barnes Against the Blackout, p. 273. Barnes article
originally appeared in the Summer, 1958 issue of Liberation.
3. See David T. Wright, "The incendiary prophet," The Last Ditch,
Aug. 1995, p.7.
4. Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 (New York, Ballantine
Books, 1996), p. 58.
5. Ibid., p. 59.
6. Mark Weber, The Zionist Terror Network, (Newport
Beach, CA: Institute for Historical Review, 1993), p. 16.
7. Evening Standard, September 6, 1996.
8. Martin, p. xvii. See also: Weber, p. 11.
9. "Traditional Enemy Torches Zuendel's Headquarters," David
Irving's Action Report 9b, June 10, 1995 p. 1. See also
Power Letter, May 17, 1995 and The Toronto Sun,
May 8 and 9, 1995.
10. "St Martin's Cancels Book On Goebbels," The New York Times,
April 5, 1996, p. D4.
11. Bradbury p. 82.
12. "Corrupt German Court Jails Deckert for Two Years," David
Irving's Action Report 9b, June 10, 1995, p. 2. See also:
"Two-Year Prison Sentence for 'Holocaust Denial'," The Journal
of Historical Review JHR (15)3, May/June 1995,
pp. 40-42. See also:
German Court Jails Deckert for Two Years
13. "Revisionist Books Seized in German Police Raid," JHR
(15)3, May/June 1995, p. 43.
14. In January 2006, the United States government deported
Germar Rudolf to Germany where he currently is serving his 18
month sentence. For more on the case of Germar Rudolf, the following is recommended:
Wilhelm Schlesiger, Der Fall Rudolf: Menschenrechtswidriger
Vernichtungsfeldzug gegen einen tadellosen Wissenschaftler,
(Brighton/Sussex : Cromwell Press, 1994).
15. Bradbury, p. 116.
16. Ibid., p. 117.
17. "Book Detailing Jewish Crimes Against Germans Banned,"
JHR (15)1, Jan/Feb 1995, p. 28. See also: "German Publisher
Drops Book on Postwar Camps for Nazis," The New York Times,
February 16, 1995. The book, An Eye for an Eye: The Untold
Story of Jewish Revenge Against Germans in 1945, was published
in the United States in 1993 by Basic Books of New York, a division
of the publishing firm of HarperCollins.
18. "Carlos Porter, sentenced in Germany says 'Nuts' from Belgium,"
Smith's Report 40, February 1997, pp. 4-5. Documents
regarding Carlos Porter's fines are available on the internet at:
http://www.codoh.com/germany/GERPORT.HTML.
19. Bradbury p. 50.
20. Bradbury pp. 39-40.
21. Reinhold Elstner, "A Last Letter from One of Our Number,"
David Irving's Action Report 10, July 5, 1996, p. 14.
Translated by Hans Schmidt. See also: "A German Takes His Life to
Protest Defamation and Historical Lies," JHR 15(5),
Sept/Oct 1995, pp. 23-24.
22. Bradbury, pp.20-21.
23. Ibid., p. 94.
24. Ibid., p. 65.
25. Ibid., p. 177.
