Customer Reviews

Hoax of the Twentieth Century

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1 star:		(26)

 

 

The real issue here is not whether exactly six million Jews (and others) were deliberately put to death by National Socialist Germany, but whether books that we, on the surface, dislike, are to be permitted a reading audience.

How many of the reviewers who trashed this book actually read it? One, whose contribution is entitled "Vile Antisemiticism," has written a review of another book on the topic, by Bradley Smith, also entitled "Vile Antisemiticism" and also including the phrase "pathetic, offensive and slyly illogical."

How many members of the American Library Association, who sponsor Banned Books Week, went to the defense of David Irving when he was imprisoned in Austria for a politically unpopular opinion (the one in THIS book)? How many outlets of the chain booksellers would put this book and others like it on display for Banned Books Week?

You can obtain this title through Amazon and at independent bookstores. Try your local library, or the library of the nearest Institution of Higher Learning, or a chain bookstore.

A sister in law of mine, a graduate of Northwestern, discussed Dr. Butz (he is a prof there) and his work. His name gave her an expression of disgust. When I asked her whether she had actually read his book, the answer was, of course, no.

Every champion of liberty should read Marx's "The 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon."
Every Christian should read the works of the opponents (the Patristic Fathers quoted the Gnostics accurately and at length).

If you haven't done this things and if you attack books like this without reading them, you are no better than any other fanatic and demagogue.

This is one of those books which, whether you love it or hate it, truly stands apart from historiography, because the book itself makes history. Mainly, more than any other in the U.S. this is the classic, defining book of holocaust revisionism (or denial if you prefer).

Butz, a computer science prof. at Northwestern University near Chicago, builds an overwhelming case for his thesis, and presents it in the hard-nosed, academically sophisticated, rigorous, peer-reviewed style and forensic diction that make it a serious piece of work. No intelligent person can read this and not be impressed by his thoroughness, and also, not be deeply disturbed by the wider implications. But that's another story.

Rather than give you a tedious synopsis of it, I just want to post this review to point out a couple of things. (a) Butz has updatde the 25-year-old original with a new 2nd edition a few years ago, which I believe he makes available online as a pdf download. (b) Butz's book, good as it is, has been complemented by many others since, which have taken the discussion to the next level. I am not saying Butz's work is dated, but that it has been fleshed out and supported admirably by many others. I am thinking of Robt Faurisson and Germar Rudoph especially, but there are many many others. Of course the Institute for Historical Research, which was founded after Butz's first edition, has filled a small library with addition research on this subject. Butz was the ground-breaking inspiration for much that has followed, so again, this is history-making in itself.

None of this takes away from Butz's accomplisment in this early book, which I still regard as the single best introduction to revisionism in English; but I would have to say that,equally, The Rudolph Report ( a free download ), written within the past decade, is also now indispensable as a complement (emphasizing the forensic, architectural and operational issues at Birkenau, which are almost completely lacking in Butz's book, as I recall).

Although it can get a bit technical at times, Dr. Butz's book allows the reader to understand better alternative viewpoints regarding the treatment of Jewish deportees during the Second World War. Time will always allow a more objective treatment of historical events and this book, written in 1975, is an important contribution in this respect. Anyone with an interest in what really happened to the Jews during the Nazi era and willing to consider documented fact left out of the information mainstream owes it to him or herself a thorough study of this work. Highly recommended!!

Butz's book was first published in 1975, followed by a second edition in 1977. It seems to have been produced on an IBM compositor - a film ribbon proportional-spacing typewriter. Butz's methodology once his interest had been ignited, was to obtain documents and books, some in German and French, through the university inter-library loan system. (He is or was an electrical engineer, specialising, as I understand in pylons and electrical transmission). So far as I know, this was the first ever detailed book specifically on holocaust revisionism. As might be guessed, it's been the target of red-faced rage and indignation, but no point-by-point refutation has been written. It's far better known in the USA than Britain - look at the comments on amazon.com from about 2000 onwards, and the extreme distribution of 5-star and 1-star reviews, usually a sign of a 'controversial' book. An updated online version exists; in fact, of course, Internet now allows Butz to be read online. However, the 3rd edition (2003) exists as hard copy.

Regardless of whether one agrees with Butz, one should support his right to express himself.

I read Mr. Butz's work several years ago, along with the works of other Holocaust revisionists/scholars such as David Irving and Ernst Zundel. I have to admit that many of the facts they present are compelling. For instance, no one can really pinpoint where the "six million" figure arose and the sheer logistics of murdering six million people (during a war where supplies and manpower were scarce) are hard to swallow.

The attacks on Mr. Butz are disturbing. This author is entitled to express his views. The Holocaust is the ONLY event in history that one is forbidden from questioning or probing. Why??? Why is this event any different from the many other genocides that have been committed in history? (For instance, the mass murder committed by Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolultion, to name only one.) In terms of numbers, Stallin killed a staggering twenty million individuals yet we are taught that the Holocaust is unique. Well, it isn't any more disturbing then other mass murders in history. If other historical events are open to scholarly debate and questioning, why should the Holocaust be treated any differently? If the facts about the Holocaust all have merit, they will be proven true in the marketplace of ideas -- why the need to censor Mr. Butz?

I applaud Arthur Butz for the courage to question the "facts" that have been force-fed on the world for the past fifty years. This book is a must-read.

I have read many books in my life, but this is the most interesting. The book is intelligently written and presents its case with powerful logic and evidence. You will be surprised how many holes Butz pokes into the holocaust story. Holocaust believers with no good arguments of their own, simply label it "hate" or in the case of Germany, Israel, and Canada ban the book outright. Read this book and decide for yourself. The politcally correct people would love to keep you deaf and dumb on this issue, but fortunately we (USA) live a free country, so use that freedom and buy this book before they manage to ban it here as well.

The Hoax Of The Twentieth Century was one of the earliest revisionist works and probably the hardest to refute ever since it was first published; indeed mainstream authors (cough) have always been wary of engaging Butz in any kind of controversy. The book is a sweeping examination of some of the finer details, in which we know the devil himself resides, of the "Jewish holocaust", covering so many different topics that it can rightly be considered a sort of miniature "holocaust" encyclopaedia; from Jewish population statistics to "war-crimes" trials to the industrial and economic role of prison camps to the reliability of the eyewitnesses to the history of the magic "6 million" number to the evolution of the propaganda stories to the aerial photography, and so on.

My only criticism is a very general one, the fact that it is so all- (or nearly all-)encompassing the treatment of many of the individual subjects is, whilst still impossible to refute and at the time of publication groundbreaking, sometimes relatively superficial. These have of course all been expanded upon in other works in the Holocaust Handbook series. The truth is that this should be the first book in the series; for anyone who generally reads series of books in order the knowledge gained after reading 6 heavyweight volumes preceding this one slightly dilutes its impact. Therefore the criticism probably should more rightly be aimed at the publishers of the series. Still highly recommended for anyone new to the subject - indeed, read this first! - and for any serious students who have not read it, it is certainly worth reading for completeness and to see the evolution of the revisionist case.

It should also be pointed out that anyone negatively reviewing such a technical work must of course give valid technical reasons why any part of the thesis is invalid. Without exception so far, negative reviewers have given the sum total of zero valid technical reasons for their negative reviews, going instead with emotion, preconception and ignorance of technical realities. It should also be stated that, again without exception, anyone in the future who negatively reviews this work quite categorically has not read it. I say this with total confidence - indeed, I challenge any naysayer to convincingly refute a single word Butz wrote - and for a very good reason: it is impossible to refute the truth.

Dr. Butz' book is an avalanche of forensic data that demands attention and defies "denial" - that is, by those of honest nature. The work is only a threat to those who have something to lose and thus something to hide but is an incredible bastion of information for those who have something to gain, and that something is called THE TRUTH, which Dr. Butz has presented in fool-proof fashion. I have read and re-read the impressive scholarly work and will doubtless read it again and encourage every brave thinker to do the same; and after each reading, I stand never more amazed but moreover, not surprised at the media blackout from the mainstream Jewish-controlled media (a fact that even they have admitted). The kindergarten taunt "Holocaust Denier" is only a fright to those with a kindergarten mentality; such as refuse to read the book itself: insisting, as the maxim dictates: "Don't confuse me with the facts, my mind's already made up." The book is only for grown ups and those able to break through the brainwash barrier and undeniable denial of the modern era or better: modern error. It is one of the most precisely researched and well documented books I have ever read, and I proudly recommend, yea "urge" all lovers of the truth to read it -- all of it, and afterward formulate an educated opinion - based on fact - not media hysteria and hyperbole.

The common ground with received opinion here is that the German Jews were persecuted from 1933 to 1939, and that up to a million European Jews died in camps and ghettos from typhus, malnutrition and in ruthless partisan warfare and shootings from 1939 to 1945. The argument concerns three key components of the 'presumed extermination of European Jewry'. Butz discusses mostly Auschwitz, where perhaps a million people died in gas chambers, but also the three 'Action Reinhardt' extermination camps (Treblinka, Belzec and Sobibor in Poland) and the 'Einsatzgruppen' death squads further east that together account for another three million dead. He thus takes on Gerald Reitlinger's The Final Solution (1953), early editions of Raul Hilberg's The Destruction of the European Jews (1961, 1968) and the studies of Levin, Poliakov and Dawidowitz.

Butz uses a moral compass according to which lies are more likely than killing. He thinks the Allies and Zionist groups had strong motives to distort the record (to excuse their own actions and maintain morale) and traces several atrocity stories back to these sources. He makes a variety of reasonable points: e.g. belief in an unwritten German policy of using euphemistic language lends sinister significance to otherwise innocuous documents; and the Nuremberg trials admitted into evidence confessions gained by torture (as established at later trials held under English law). However, Butz also cites at length International Red Cross and other reports and statements by Himmler and Hitler that indicate exterminations took place, though not where or on what scale. His attempts to explain these away are at times implausible. He concludes that about four million supposed victims survived in Soviet-controlled Europe from where many emigrated, through displaced person camps, to the USA, Israel and other countries. The chilling 2.7 million reduction in the number of Jews in Poland he attributes to the transfer of Eastern Poland, where the Jews had congregated, to the USSR in 1945.

Stylistically, the chapters are poorly structured and some have unhelpful titles ("Et Cetera" and "Remarks"). Whilst the term "Hoax" causes gratuitous offense, there is no obvious 'anti-semitism' on display: he does not caricature or generalize and his tone throughout is factual rather than emotive. The book has very narrow margins and the long, reproduced documents are in annoyingly small type. One reason to 'remember the Holocaust' is to prevent the repetition of its strangely boundless cruelty, so at odds with everyday experience. Butz helps us to look critically at the evidence for such irrational behavior and at its scale, though his 'case against' is at times a whitewash.
Note: this is a review of the 1992 blue paperback edition.

I first read Butz' work some ten years ago; without doubt it has go down as one of the landmark works in contemporary history. One can excuse the poor layout and typeset, a problem faced only because the work has never found itself being released by one of the many well-funded international publishing houses. To use this to scoff at the author is somewhat puerile. As a historical researcher and student of the Nazi holocaust - everyone involved in the subject has his or her unique this idea on what this may mean - I feel that Butz' work is a good starting point, in that it both points out the pertinent facts and encourages the reader to actually go away and seek out standard mass-published works. As the book can be classified as being pre-Leuchter, it is best read in conjunction with more contemporary revisionist works and articles; nevertheless, it serves its purpose well enough for one to call it an informative and at times even shocking read - shocking in that the reader is genuinely shocked when he or she takes note of verifiable facts that have been either hidden or distorted by contemporary commentators. All in all, 'Hoax' is well worth the money, and provides a powerful and concise counterpunch to the prevailing school of thought.