Prof Raul Hilberg speaking on 22 February 22, 1983 at New York's Lincoln Center Avery Fisher Hall at a meeting organized by the Holocaust Survivors Foundation:

WHAT began in 1941 was a process of destruction not planned in advance, not organized centrally by any agency. There was no blueprint and there was no budget for destructive measures. They were taken step by step, one step at a time. Thus came about not so much a plan being carried out, but an incredible meeting of minds, a consensus - mind reading by a far-flung bureaucracy.

Newsday, New York, February 23, 1983, Part II, page 3.

David Irving notes:

WE consider Raul Hilberg to be one of the most objective 'Holocaust' historians of the age. One clue: his early interest in chemistry, an exact science.