Based on the introduction of Leuchter at the Eleventh IHR Conference,
October 1992
By Mark Weber
Fred A.
Leuchter, Jr. – like most Americans – basically accepted the Holocaust
extermination story. In itself that is not at all remarkable, except that this
man also just happened to be the foremost American expert on gassing and gas
chamber technology.
As readers of
this Journal know, Fred Leuchter was commissioned in early 1988 by
German-Canadian publisher Ernst Zuendel to conduct a thorough forensic
investigation of the alleged wartime gassing facilities in Poland for his
defense case in the Toronto „Holocaust Trial.“
Zuendel was so
sure that the Holocaust gassing story would not stand up to expert examination
that he sent Leuchter to Europe at considerable expense, completely confident that
an independent investigation would confirm the Revisionist view.
In early 1988,
Leuchter and his team carefully investigated the so-called gas chambers at,
first, the Auschwitz main camp, second, the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, which is
supposed to have been the most terrible Nazi extermination center, and, third,
the Majdanek camp near Lublin, where the Allies claimed at Nuremberg that a
million and a half people were killed. As an expert witness testifying under
oath in April 1988 in the second Zuendel trial, and in his published report of
his on-site investigation, Fred Leuchter explained in detail that the supposed
gas chambers at Auschwitz, Birkenau and Majdanek could not possibly have been
used to gas people as alleged.
Leuchter’s
findings demolish the core of the Holocaust legend – the Auschwitz gassing
story. British historian David Irving found Leuchter’s forensic investigation
so compelling that, as he has publicly acknowledged, it was a major factor in
persuading him finally to reject the Holocaust extermination story.
Many tens of
thousands of copies of what has become known simply as the Leuchter Report
are now in circulation around the world. It has been published in numerous
countries and languages. Earlier this year, for example, it appeared for the
first time in Russian in a collection of Revisionist writings published in
Moscow. More recently, it was published in Hungarian in the August 25 issue of
the Budapest intellectual journal Hunnia.
In April 1989,
Leuchter returned to Europe to carry out an expert forensic investigation of
other alleged extermination gas chambers, this time at Dachau in Bavaria, and
at Mauthausen and Hartheim, near Linz in Austria. Accompanying him on this
visit, as she had during their 1988 visit to Poland, was his wife Carolyn. The
results of this investigation have been published as the Second Leuchter
Report, which appeared in the Fall 1990 IHR Journal.
The Institute
for Historical Review is proud of its cordial and productive association with
Fred Leuchter, who spoke at the IHR Conferences in 1989, 1990 and 1992. In his
presentations at the last two conferences, he reported on the relentless
international campaign against him.
During the last
two years, unfortunately, there has been no let up in the bigoted campaign to
discredit Leuchter’s work and reputation, and to destroy his career – all
because of his courageous refusal to lie about his professional findings. What
his enemies want, apparently, is for Leuchter to violate his conscience, betray
his profession, and to lie under oath in a court of law, all for the sake of
upholding what has become, in essence, an article of religious belief. It is
fair to say that no American has suffered more for his defiance of the
Holocaust lobby than Fred Leuchter.
The most
insidious (and effective) effort has been has been a behind-the-scenes campaign
to destroy his livelihood by pressuring state governments to stop employing him
as their execution hardware engineer. To allow Leuchter to continue working for
the state, declared Illinois Representative Ellis Levin (D-Chicago), „would be
an affront to the Jewish community.“ (Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, August
17, 1990.) Sadly, these underhanded efforts have been successful. The Chicago
Sun-Times newspaper, for example, confirmed (in August 1990) that „the
state [of Illinois] cut its ties with him over statements that Nazi gas
chambers, including those at Auschwitz, could not have been used for executing
Jews.“
In spite of the
clearly unfair and bigoted nature of the campaign against him, the normally
vociferous champions of civil liberty and freedom of speech in America have, so
far, anyway, been noticeably silent about this case.
An important
propaganda weapon in this campaign has been a book published jointly by the Klarsfeld
Foundation and a group that calls itself „Holocaust Survivors and Friends in
Pursuit of Justice.“ This book bears the pretentious title: Truth Prevails:
Demolishing Holocaust Denial: The End of ‘The Leuchter Report’.
The most
important charges made against Leuchter, which are also included in this widely
distributed book, are:
First, that
Leuchter’s motive in concluding that the alleged gas chambers were never used
to kill anybody was the professional fee he received from Zuendel for his work.
Second, that
Fred Leuchter has no qualifications as an execution equipment specialist, and
Third, that he
lied under oath in the 1988 Zuendel trial.
What are the
facts? Let’s take a close look at each of these charges.
First, Leuchter’s
motives in conducting his forensic investigation of the alleged wartime gas
chambers in Poland were entirely professional. While it is true that he was
paid a standard fee by Zuendel for his work, it cannot be stressed enough that
Leuchter was chosen to carry out this investigation not because of any
pre-existing views on this subject, but solely because he was the acknowledged
expert in this field. His political views or social attitudes were never a
consideration. (Just imagine what Leuchter’s critics would be saying if he had
conducted his forensic examination of the Polish camps on his own initiative,
without charge.)
Before he flew
to Poland to begin his investigation, Leuchter warned Zuendel that if he
concluded that the alleged extermination gas chambers were, in fact, used to
kill people, or could have been so used, he would so testify in court. Zuendel
agreed to this condition. Regardless of his findings, Zuendel would still have
been obliged to pay Leuchter his fee.
In fact, if
money and comfort had been primary considerations, and if he is as dishonorable
as those who now attack him insinuate, Leuchter would simply have pocketed his
fee from Zuendel, and then told the court what the prosecution and the media
wanted to hear.
Second,
Leuchter’s qualifications as a technical expert and inventor are actually quite
impressive. His adversaries never tire of repeating that his only academic
credential is a bachelor’s degree in history, which he earned at Boston
University in 1964. This has never been a secret. What is not so well known,
though, is the full story of his expertise.
For one thing,
Leuchter did post-graduate study in celestial navigation mechanics at the
Harvard-Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Since 1965, he
has worked as an engineer on projects having to do with electrical, optical,
mechanical, navigational and surveying problems. He holds patents in the fields
of optics, navigation, encoding, geodetic surveying and surveying
instrumentation, including patents on sextants, surveying instruments and
optical instrument encoders.
From 1965
through 1970 he was the technical director for a firm in Boston, where he
specialized in airborne, opto-electronic, and photographic surveillance
equipment. He designed the first low-level, color, stereo-mapping system for
use in a helicopter, which has become an airborne standard.
In 1970, he
formed an independent consulting firm. During his period with this firm, he
designed and built the first electronic sextant and developed a unique,
light-weight, compact and inexpensive optical drum sector encoder for use with
surveying and measuring instruments. He also built the first electronic sextant
for the US Navy. He has worked on and designed astro trackers utilized in the
on-board guidance systems of ICBM missiles.
Because of his
work in navigational devices he has had hands-on experience with surveying and
geodetic measuring equipment and a thorough knowledge of map-reading and
cartography. He is trained in reading and interpreting aerial photographs. He
designed a computerized transit for surveying use, and several years ago he
developed the first low-cost personal telephone monitor.
During the past
14 years, Leuchter has been a consultant to several state governments on
equipment used to execute convicted criminals, including hardware for execution
by lethal injection, electrocution, gassing and hanging. In the course of this
work, he designed a new gas chamber for the state of Missouri, and he designed
and constructed the first lethal injection machine for New Jersey. Leuchter has
also been a consultant on execution procedures. He has held a research medical
license from both state and federal governments, and has supplied the necessary
drugs for use in execution support programs.
In 1987, he
formed Fred A. Leuchter Associates, a consulting engineering firm specializing
in general consulting and the design and construction of prototype hardware. He
has been a forensic engineer consultant, and has testified as an expert in
courts in the United States and Canada.
(On a more
personal note, Fred Leuchter is an accomplished pianist and musician, as well
as a certified small arms instructor and NRA expert marksman.)
More to the
point, Leuchter’s expertise in precisely the field of execution hardware is a
matter of public record, and has been authoritatively and publicly confirmed.
Indeed, no one was better qualified to carry out his investigation. At that
time, Leuchter was recognized as the foremost American expert on the design and
fabrication of gas chambers and other hardware used to execute criminals in the
United States. He has worked on and designed facilities used to kill condemned
criminals with hydrogen cyanide gas, the same gas supposedly used to kill many
hundreds of thousands of Jews at Auschwitz.
Leuchter’s
expertise as the nation’s foremost specialist of execution hardware, including
gas chambers, has been abundantly confirmed. William Armontrout, warden of the
Missouri State Penitentiary, testified on this matter during the 1988 „Holocaust
Trial“ of Ernst Zuendel. As warden, Armontrout supervised the state’s execution
gas chamber. He testified under oath that he had consulted with Leuchter on the
design, maintenance and operation of the Missouri gas chamber, and confirmed that,
to the best of his knowledge, Leuchter is the only such consultant in the
United States.
Leuchter’s
expertise has also been recognized by prominent periodicals, including The
Atlantic in a four-page article in its February 1990 issue. An article in the
weekly national news magazine Insight of July 2, 1990, called Leuchter, „the
nation’s leading expert in the mechanics of execution.“ Finally, Leuchter’s
expertise was acknowledged on the ABC television news program „Prime Time Live,“
broadcast on May 10th, 1990, and by The New York Times in a prominently
featured article in its issue of October 13, 1990, which was accompanied by a
front-page photo of Leuchter.
No matter what
the long-term outcome of the still unfolding Leuchter affair may be, the
indisputable fact will remain, that on the basis of a careful on-site
inspection, the man who is America’s acknowledged foremost expert on gas
chamber technology has categorically declared under oath that the alleged mass
extermination gas chambers were never used, and never could have been used, as
execution devices.
With regard to
the third charge – that Leuchter lied under oath in the 1988 Zuendel trial – it
might first be pointed out that the laws of physics have not been suspended for
the sake of the Holocaust story. To repeat: If Leuchter is wrong, it should not
be difficult to prove it. And if he is right, his work and his findings will
stand the test of time, and his courage will be vindicated.
At the 1989 IHR
Conference, Leuchter dramatically called for a neutral, international
commission of engineers, historians and scholars to go to Auschwitz and the
other camps, and to either confirm or repudiate his findings. Not surprisingly,
those who have been trying so hard to silence and discredit Leuchter have
ignored his challenge. Indeed, the very nature of this insidious campaign,
including the unwillingness of his adversaries to seriously come to grips with
his work, implicitly confirms the soundness of Leuchter’s findings.
In this regard,
it is highly significant that Leuchter’s findings have recently been
authoritatively corroborated and confirmed:
First, the
Institute of Forensic Research in Krakow, Poland, corroborated Leuchter’s
findings in a confidential September 1990 forensic report. Although it was not
meant to be made public, Revisionists were able to obtain a copy. An
English-language translation of the complete text was published in the Summer
1991 issue of the IHR Journal.
Second,
Austrian engineer Walter Lueftl explicitly endorsed Leuchter’s findings in a
March 1992 report, which appears elsewhere in this issue of the Journal.
Third, German
engineer Germar Rudolf, a highly qualified professional, has thoroughly
supported Leuchter’s findings in an exhaustive report that will probably be
published in 1993.
Another German
engineer, Wolfgang Schuster (Dipl.Ing.), pointedly defended the validity of
Leuchter’s findings against the criticisms of French pharmacist Jean-Claude
Pressac in a five-page essay published in the German quarterly journal Deutschland
in Geschichte und Gegenwart (Tuebingen, June 1991).
Finally, it is
worth noting that Dr. William B. Lindsey, an American research chemist (now
retired) who was employed for 33 years by the Dupont Corporation, anticipated
Leuchter’s findings during testimony given in the first Zuendel trial in 1985.
Based on his own careful on-site examination of the alleged extermination gas
chambers at Auschwitz, Birkenau and Majdanek, and on his years of experience as
a chemist, Lindsey declared under oath: „I have come to the conclusion that no
one was willfully or purposefully killed with Zyklon B [hydrogen cyanide gas]
in this manner. I consider it absolutely impossible.“ (The Globe and Mail,
Toronto, Feb. 12, 1985, p. M3.)
In spite of the
vicious campaign against him, Leuchter has remained defiant and confident of
ultimate vindication. As he has put it:
I have been
vilified by the caretakers of the Holocaust dogma whose desperate tactics prove
the failure of their arguments. My livelihood has been destroyed, my character
has been impugned and my life turned upside down. But I will not bend the knee:
Not now, not tomorrow, not ever. Time and reason will vindicate the Leuchter
Report.
One day, after
the dogmatic passions of our era have given way to open-mindedness on this most
emotion-charged of issues, Fred Leuchter will be admired as a most remarkable
man of integrity and courage who defied powerful forces of bigotry and
close-mindedness. He will be remembered as a man who, in striking a mighty blow
for historical truth and understanding, has himself made history.
From The
Journal of Historical Review, Winter 1992-93 (Vol. 12, No. 4), pages
421-428. This essay is based on the introduction of Fred Leuchter at the
Eleventh IHR Conference, October 1992.
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