⚠️ Historical Documentation Notice
This document is part of a historical archive and is presented for scholarly research and educational purposes.
The content reflects historical perspectives and should be understood within its historical context.
Index to the Traditional Enemies of Free Speech Alphabetical index (text) your Letters Index your Heinrich Himmler Index your Wannsee Conference Index your Adolf Hitler Index your Adolf Eichmann Index your your Rudolf Hoess Index your Hans Aumeier Index your Robert Jan Van Pelt Index today’s ” AR-online” again Letters to David Irving on this Website Unless correspondents ask us not to, this Website will post selected letters that it receives, and invite open debate.
Philip Mathews remarks on the national origins of Auschwitz guards, and of George Stein, October 18, 2004 Nationality does matter A LETTER from Frank Lowe published on your website suggests a mistake in a David Olère drawing because of the presence of SS “runes” on the uniform of an SS guard at Auschwitz .
He writes: “According to all contemporary sources, including Austrian/American Jewish history professor George Stein of the State University of New York, the majority of SS guards in the camps of Poland were Latvian and Ukrainian.” I’m afraid Mr. Lowe is confused. While Ukrainian and perhaps Latvian SS were well represented at the Aktion Reinhardt camps, this was not the case at Auschwitz.
The sociologist Aleksander Lasik has studied the makeup of the Auschwitz SS from SS personnel files. [ Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp. Historical-Sociological Profile of the Auschwitz SS, pages 274 and 281, Indiana University Press, 1998]. He tells us that approximately seven thousand SS served at the camp, ranging from seven hundred in 1941 to 4,500 just before evacuation in January 1945.
At no time throughout the camp’s history did the percentage of SS who were German/Austrian constitute less than 50 percent of the entire SS contingent. So David Olère was in a position to see many SS with the SS “runes” during his stay at Auschwitz. I’d like to bring something else to your attention. Mr. Lowe identifies Professor Stein as a “Jewish” history professor. I can only imagine he believes this accords his source the highest credibility.
I’m sure you would join me in condemning the implication that race, ethnicity, or religion has any correlation to scholarly achievement, and in affirming the proposition that Catholic, Lutheran, and Armenian scholars are no less deserving of credibility.
Philip Mathews Our dossier on Auschwitz The Olère sketches controversy Rebuttal evidence in the Lipstadt Trial George Vel asks questions about David Olère’s alleged ‘eye-witness’ sketches of Auschwitz Free download of David Irving’s books Bookmark the download page to find the latest new free books David Irving comments: FRANK Lowe is one of my better correspondents, and I think the point he makes about George Stein being a Jew (assuming that he is) is valid: in our experience they are likely
to be more emotional and less objective about their Holocaust history — less skeptical, less able to “think sideways.” That is common sense too — just as Catholics are likely to be less objective about, say, the Pope or the Inquisition; or revisionists about Hitler, for that matter. C’est la guerre, and we are all in a war for truth. It has taken non-Jews like Prof.
Christopher Browning (and myself) to establish for example that Adolf Hitler probably had little part in the decision-making process, or at least that that there is zero evidence that he had. I have not seen a single Jewish historian making (or even accepting) this fact. 2004 David Irving
See Also
- The Holocaust (Document)
- It appeared in Holocaust and Genocide studies (Document)
- the Death Toll at Auschwitz (Document)
- Why They Did Not Call Auschwitz Survivors as Witnesses (Document)
- Real History and Propaganda Stories about Auschwitz (Document)