Freedom of Speech and Holocaust Revisionism
in Germany and Austria
By Paul Grubach
In recent times four major figures of the Holocaust
revisionist movement have been arrested on “Holocaust
denial” charges. German scientist Germar Rudolf and
German revisionist activist Ernst Zundel were deported
from the United States and will stand trial in Germany.
Likewise with Siegfried Verbeke, as he was extradited
from Belgium for trial in Germany. British historian
David Irving was arrested in Vienna, Austria, on charges
that he publicly denied aspects of the “Holocaust” in
the late 1980s. His trial will supposedly take place
in 2006.
In response to these arrests, a series of articles were
published in the mainstream media addressing the issue
of freedom of speech in regard to the Holocaust issue.
Among the most important was a piece by noted Jewish
writer D.D. Guttenplan, London correspondent for The
Nation and author of The Holocaust on Trial.1
Guttenplan apparently condemns the Austrian government’s
threat to imprison Irving for rejecting aspects of the
Holocaust ideology: “The threat of a 20-year prison
term, even if it doesn’t come to pass, only burnishes
Irving’s counterfeit credentials as a martyr to free
speech.”
He adds, however, it is the Austrian government’s right
to censor him: “Whatever their motives, the Austrians
have every right to deny Irving a platform, even to
deport him. They do not, though, have the right to rescue
him from well-deserved obscurity.” Nevertheless, Guttenplan
does offer arguments as to why “Holocaust denial” laws
are justified in countries like Germany and Austria.
As we shall soon see, this is an attempt to “sell” the
censorship of Holocaust revisionism in foreign countries
to an American audience that places a high value upon
the right to freedom of speech.
“Countries that outlaw Holocaust denial,” Guttenplan
writes, “do so not because they love liberty less than
we do but because their history is different from ours.
Holocaust denial causes real pain to survivors and their
families. To fail to acknowledge that pain, or to treat
it as a particularly Jewish problem that need not trouble
anyone else, is to deny our common humanity—precisely
the denier’s aim.”
For the moment, let us examine the statements of two
major Jewish figures who can cause pain in non-Jewish
Europeans by their use of the Holocaust ideology. Holocaust
ideologist Elie Wiesel declared: “Auschwitz signifies…the
failure of two thousand years of Christian civilization…”2
Here is a statement that can cause real pain to Christian
peoples, as he is saying that, because of the alleged
Holocaust, the whole span of Christian civilization
is a failure! In a past issue of the Forward, one of
the most important Jewish newspapers in the United States,
the president of the Union for Reform Judaism, Rabbi
Eric Yoffe, made this statement: “And in Europe, which
bears the mark of Cain for its complicity in the Holocaust,
the Arab-Israeli conflict has become a means of absolving
guilt.
In turning Israelis from victims into Nazis, they [non-Jewish
Europeans] seek to cleanse their consciences by casting
their sins upon us [the Jews].”3
Once again, here we have a major Jewish figure claiming
that non-Jewish Europeans carry the mark of a murderer.
Obviously, statements like this cause pain to non-Jewish
Europeans. Let me put my argument in the language of
Guttenplan. “Jewish people like Wiesel, Yoffe and others
cause real pain to Europeans and Christians when they
use the Holocaust ideology to degrade and humiliate
European and Christian civilization. To fail to acknowledge
that pain, or to treat it as a particularly European
and Christian problem that need not trouble anyone else,
is to deny our common humanity—precisely the aim of
Jewish promoters of the Holocaust.
Therefore, countries should outlaw promotion of the
Holocaust ideology because it causes real pain to many
non-Jews. ”Countries like Germany and Austria would
obviously reject such an argument, because their laws
and policies are riddled with a hypocritical double
standard. Jews are accorded special privileges. According
to Guttenplan’s logic, Germany and Austria rightly outlaw
Holocaust revisionism because it causes pain to Jewish
survivors and their families.
But Germany and Austria do not outlaw the Holocaust
ideology when Jews like Wiesel and Joffe use it to cause
pain to non-Jews. In the language of Guttenplan: Germany
and Austria fail to acknowledge the pain that the Holocaust
ideology causes non-Jewish Europeans. Again in the language
of Guttenplan: the German and Austrian governments treat
the pain caused to non-Jews by the Holocaust ideology
as a “Gentile problem” that need not trouble anyone
else.
Finally, one last time in the rhetoric of Guttenplan:
the governments of Germany and Austria deny our common
humanity because they prosecute non-Jews for rejecting
the Holocaust ideology and causing pain in Jews, but
they fail to prosecute Jews for the pain they cause
when they promote the Holocaust ideology.
Germany and Austria thereby deny our common humanity
because they elevate Jewish concerns and pain above
that of non-Jewish concerns and pain. Guttenplan’s argument
is a contorted and twisted rationalization for the censorship
of Holocaust revisionism. He dresses up the “justification”
for the punishment of those Germans and Austrians who
publicly reject the Holocaust ideology in the garb of
“humanitarian moral principles.” As the political psychologist
Kevin MacDonald has pointed out, this is an age-old
Jewish tactic—clothing sectarian Jewish interests in
universalistic “moral” rhetoric in order to make it
more appealing to the non-Jewish world.
Here is Guttenplan’s other argument in favor of censoring
Holocaust revisionism: “[I]n Germany and Austria Holocaust
denial is not just hate speech but also a channel for
Nazi resurgence, like the Hitler salute and the swastika,
which are also banned. Countries where the experience
of occupation and the shame of collaboration still rankle
have different views than ours on the balance between
dissent and disorder. And Bosnia and Rwanda should have
taught all of us that these are not simple questions.
Sticks and stones may still break bones but name-calling
can clear a path to genocide.” In other words, the proliferation
of Holocaust revisionism will cause the masses of people
to reject German/Austrian democracy, overthrow the current
governments, and establish totalitarian, extremist right-wing
regimes.
These new, National Socialist type governments will
then initiate genocidal policies directed at non-German
minorities. One could cogently argue just the opposite.
It is not the public espousal of Holocaust revisionism,
but rather, the censorship and persecution of Holocaust
revisionism that causes many Germans and Austrians to
reject the current “democracies” and favor extremist
right-wing regimes.
The more the current German and Austrian “democracies”
assault and humiliate the Germanic/Austrian national
identity with Holocaust propaganda, and the more they
persecute those who reject the Holocaust ideology, so
in turn, the more they actually promote the totalitarian
National Socialist “alternative.” That is, the German
and Austrian governments’ policies are counterproductive,
and they promote the very thing that they are attempting
to stamp out—totalitarian National Socialism.
Winfried Brugger, professor of Constitutional Law at
the University of Heidelberg, points out that “Every
politician says we have a healthy, robust democracy
in Germany.”5 Yet, it is this same “healthy, robust
democracy” that prevents a defendant charged with “Holocaust
denial” from presenting evidence showing that “Holocaust
denial” is in fact true. All Holocaust revisionist arguments
and evidence are simply banned—period!6 This is the
characteristic of a totalitarian and fascist legal system,
not that of a democracy It is this blatant contradiction—on
the one hand, the German and Austrian governments’ claims
that they are “democratic,” and on the other hand, their
denial of free speech for Holocaust revisionists—that
generates disdain for “ democracy” and prods people
to turn towards totalitarian National Socialism.
To continue with this line of reasoning. If the German
and Austrian governments are truly interested in preventing
a resurgence of right-wing extremism, they would tolerate
Holocaust revisionism instead of persecuting it. This
would show the German and Austrian peoples that a truly
democratic society tolerates all points of view in regard
to the Holocaust. This would suggest to the people that
a true democracy that grants freedom of speech to all
is superior to an extremist right-wing government that
denies freedom of speech to many. And finally, it would
allow the German and Austrian peoples to “clean up”
their national identity by showing the world they are
not nations of mass murderers that build “gas chambers”
to exterminate whole populations.
Real German and Austrian democracies that promote a
positive national identity, and freedom of speech in
regard to the Holocaust issue, are more likely to survive
than false German and Austrian “democracies” that degrade
the national identity with the Holocaust ideology and
suppress freedom of speech in regard to the Holocaust
issue.
II
Viewpoints and theories that are supported by evidence
and reason don’t need special laws and jail sentences
to protect them. For example, there are people that
reject the theory of Darwinian evolution. There are
no special laws and jail sentences for such individuals.
Evolutionary theory stands on its own body of solid
evidence. Ironically, it may be a somewhat favorable
sign for the future of Holocaust revisionism that Germany,
Austria and other European nations ban Holocaust revisionism.
Like Revisionist scholar Robert Faurisson has pointed
out, it suggests to the world that Holocaust revisionism
cannot be defeated with evidence and reason.7
The opponents of revisionism are intellectually impotent,
and they cannot defeat revisionism with facts, evidence
and logic. Unlike revolutionary theory, the “Holocaust”
is a weak and flimsy ideology that needs special laws
and jail sentences to protect it.
Footnotes:
1. D.D. Guttenplan, “The rights of a ‘paper Eichmann,’”
The Los Angeles Times, 19 November 2005. Online: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-guttenplan19nov19,1,894937.story
2. Quoted in Robert Jan van Pelt, The Case for Auschwitz:
Evidence from the Irving Trial (Indiana University Press,
2002), p.6.
3. Quoted in the Forward, 14, November 2003, p.9.
4. Kevin MacDonald, The Culture of Critique: An Evolutionary
Analysis of Jewish Involvement in Twentieth-Century
Intellectual and Political Movements (Praeger, 1998),
passim.
5. “The virus of hate,” Toronto Star, 8 November 2005.
6. Ibid.
7. “Zionist power stems from West’s belief in ‘Holocaust’
myth:
Faurisson,” Tehran Times Political Desk, 10 November
2005.
Online: http://www.tehrantimes.com/archives.asp