Raul Hilberg - The Destruction of the European Jews?

 

In the 1980s, the German-born Canadian writer and publisher Ernst Zündel came under attack by the Holocaust fundamentalists of Canada for his revisionist activity as a publisher and publicist. Unable to answer his valid and legitimate questions about the Holocaust, these powerful Jewish militants decided to exploit their influence on the Canadian judicial system and other organs of the Canadian government in order to silence Zündel.

Wiesel, who did not testify at this trial – there exists no evidence to prove that he was ever asked to testify – maintained a discreet silence on the subject. In Wiesel’s absence, Raul Hilberg, author of The Destruction of the European Jews, served as the state’s main expert witness. However, Hilberg’s testimony was thoroughly demolished by Zündel’s attorney, Douglas Christie, who was ably supported by Professor Faurisson, in charge of gathering and presenting Zündel’s historical evidence against the Holocaust. Time and time again Christie was able to employ advice from Faurisson, by his side throughout the trial, to devastating effect against Holocaust eyewitnesses and savants.474 The stakes were huge, for the confrontation between the Holocaust fundamentalists and their arch-enemies, Zündel and Faurisson, could not have been more direct. After the inevitable guilty verdict was reached by the judge, it was reversed on a legal technicality. So Zündel was tried anew.During the second Zündel trial in 1988, Raul Hilberg, seriously embarrassed and discredited as an utter incompetent when questioned under oath on the subject of the Holocaust during Round One in 1985, refused to return for Zündel II. Hilberg’s decision not to testify at the retrial was probably linked to two key assertions he had made under oath during Zündel I. The first was his claim to have discovered a written order from Hitler to unleash the Holocaust. Having been unable to produce such an order in the first edition of Destruction, he promised to publish this proof in the forthcoming second edition of the book. This new edition did indeed appear several months after the close of the trial, but it did not contain the promised material. As a result, if Hilberg had returned for Zündel II, he risked being exposed to ridicule (and possibly accusations of perjury) by Christie and Faurisson on this issue. Thus, not unlike another famous fibber, Falstaff, Hilberg came to the realization that “discretion is the better part of valor,” even in service to the Holocaust.

Prudently, he decided to stay home. His place was taken by the young non-Jewish conformist historian Christopher Browning. Like Hilberg, he had never inspected an alleged gas chamber before writing about the Holocaust, nor had he ever conducted research at an alleged extermination camp. Even worse, during the trial his knowledge and understanding of the German language proved to be embarrassingly shaky, at times even inadequate.475 As expected, however, the judge once again found Zündel guilty, and sentenced him to fifteen months in jail.476

[←474] For a summary of the proceedings see Michael A. Hoffman II, The Great Holocaust Trial (Torrance, Calif.: Institute for Historical Review, 1985; 2nd ed.: Coeur d’Alene, Idaho: Independent History and Research, 2010); for the complete transcript see Germar Rudolf (Hg.), The First Zündel Trial (Uckfield: Castle Hill Publishers, 2020).
[←475] For a compilation of the transcript see Barbara Kulaszka (ed.), The Second Zündel Trial (2nd ed., Uckfield: Castle Hill Publishers, 2019).
[←476] See Robert Faurisson’s inside story, “The Zündel Trials (1985 and 1988),” The Journal of Historical Review, Vol. 8, No. 4, winter 1988/89, 417-431; also in Rudolf (ed.), The First Zündel Trial, 14-20.

from the book Elie Wiesel, Saint of the Holocaust: A Critical Biography