Letters to David\nIrving on this Website

Unless\ncorrespondents ask us not to, this Website\nwill post selected letters that it\nreceives, and invite open\ndebate.

Henry\nBarth\nchallenges\nMr Irving, Monday, January 10, 2005, on “new\ndocuments” the BBC claims tohave discovered about\nAuschwitz. Huh.

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What\nabout the new discoveries by the BBC television\nprogram on Auschwitz?

The BBC is beginning a six-part\ndocumentary on Auschwitz on Tuesday (11 January).\nThese TV programs are needed because (as The Times\nalleges) “45 per cent of Britons have never heard\nof Auschwitz….”

I read in The\nTimes TV magazine on Saturday that the author\nof this series, Laurence Rees, has “accessed\ndocuments not previously seen by researchers in the\nWest.”

He used Soviet archives which are now open to\nresearchers:

“Thus Auschwitz is the\nfirst documentary to include the blueprints for\nthe gas chambers and the plans for the layout of\nthe camps.”

Mr Rees has also, according to The Times,\nuncovered “Himmler‘s\nappointments diary.”

How have you managed to avoid these documents,\nproving the existence of gas chambers, in your\nresearch?

Henry\nBarth

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\nOur dossier\non Auschwitz

\nYad\nVashem website

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David\nIrving replies:

I am shocked\nthat Rees is making these statements. The\nblueprints are well known, and were used in the\nLipstadt\ntrial.

They show in fact however:\n

• either the underground\nmortuary, which was being converted for\nemergency use as a gasproof air raid shelter,\nhence the steel gastight doors and\npeepholes\nthat were standard fixtures on all such doors;\nor
• the gassing chambers\nfor fumigating clothing etc., which all sides of\nthe debate willingly agree existed, and the\nwalls of which are impregnated with large\nquantities of cyanide residue in consequence.\n

As for the Himmler\nappointments diary which Mr Rees has “uncovered”:\nmost of Himmler’s appointment diaries have been\navailable on US microfilm or in the Hoover Library\nat Stanford, California, for over forty years; the\nRussians have a small number of additional sections\nof the diary and telephone logs, and these\n(covering 1941-1942) were published by Peter\nWitte and Peter Dyass two or three years\nago.

I had already used them in the 1960s and 1970s\nwhile writing Hitler’s\nWar.

So much for the new facts.\nI don’t bother myself with propaganda like this\nlatest BBC effort, as I find the whole Holocaust\nsubject intensely boring (and drenched through and\nthrough by now with so much Jewish institutional\nmoney that the truth will become increasingly\ndifficult to establish).

Have a look at my website,\nhttps://fpp.co.uk/Himmler/Kalender1941_2.html\nand the links on that page (since 1999).