by Bernhard Schaub
The world stirs. The financial crisis has shattered our blind faith in the prevailing economic and political system. But the good thing about every crisis is: it makes you think. Many suspect that the alleged solutions proposed by government are no remedies at all, but merely measures intended to keep the system alive. With justification the idea is spreading that the whole thing actually is a gigantic redistribution of money and power into the hands of a small number of people.
Our system – like all systems – is supported by fundamental principles, that cannot be shaken without putting the whole in danger. Such principles are for that reason always taboo zones. He who wishes to make progress, or even merely be tolerated in our society does well to acknowledge, or at least not to openly dispute, certain core beliefs: To these belong devotion to the free market, as well as the interest based economy and the independence of the banking system, to so-called parliamentary democracy, including the attendant two-party left/right system, devotion to philosemitism, antiracism, homosexuality, and abortion together with the highest praises for the human rights to which one considers oneself part of. It is certainly permitted to belong to whatever religion or philosophy one wishes to – but subject to the tacit assumption that one doesn't really take it seriously. Otherwise, very quickly it begins to smell a bit like fundamentalism. In today's political and media environment, a fundamentalist is anyone who holds his Catholic, or Evangelical, or Islamic, or national perceptions – or whatever feelings of any kind – above those highest of values enumerated above. That is why fundamentalists cannot be tolerated under the ‘globalized’ New World Order that is the central theme of American politics. Incidentally, it is only a very small step that separates the fundamentalist from being maligned as a terrorist. And it is not necessary here to point out to you what sort of treatment awaits terrorists. That has been dealt with by 9/11.
The thoughtful European notes with puzzlement that the taboo zones, identified by Political Correctness and guarded by the judiciary and media, grow more numerous every day. The citizen is condemned to silence by all manner of gag laws and intimidated further by the threat of the grotesque EU arrest warrant. He no longer knows what is punishable by law, nor where, nor why. In 2007, it is said, nearly 14,000 "right-wing crimes"– whatever those might be – were committed in Germany, of which a few hundred were violent. After subtracting the latter group there remain some 13,000 politically motivated non-violent "crimes". That is remarkable, especially in light of the incessant reminders by self-righteous German politicians in China and elsewhere to "uphold human rights." Obviously, the much heralded rights of freedom of expression, academic freedom, freedom of religious or philosophical belief, etc., are valid only if they do not contradict any of the enshrined Stone Tablets of Western Values.
The greatest oddity of all these taboo zones is one of historical nature. And that is as soon as National Socialism or the so-called Third Reich is mentioned then contemporary thinking is abandoned completely. The brain is deprived of its function and quasi religious-like reflexes appear. All powers of reasoning cease, any doubting of the standard practise of ‘Judgement and Conviction’ is regarded as inappropriate, even malign. Here there is only one opinion allowed: the National Socialists – read the Germans - are perpetrators, and exclusively so, and the Jews are victims, and that forever. The uproar about Martin Hohmann and General Reinhard Guenzel, about Erika Steinbach and Eva Herrmann, or recently, Thilo Sarrazin illustrates this point well. For respectable people anyone who doubts this supreme doctrine is no longer a discussion partner, but instead a leper and a heretic rolled into one, subjected instantly to inquisitorial judgment, ostracism, and economic destruction. And everyone who has anything to do with such a person must immediately distance himself.
That is especially true for the Holocaust, the killing zone of this minefield. The never-ending media hype surrounding Bishop Richard Williamson brought this taboo to the forefront once again. Frau Merkel sees it as her duty to instruct the Pope, the Pope sees it necessary to ask the bishop to make a retraction and the German Justice Department was considering issuing an international arrest warrant against the churchman. Eventually, he was fined 12,000 Euro - why? Because he judges a historical fact differently from the way that is usual and permitted. This is heresy. This means nothing other than that part of the field of contemporary history has been removed from scholarly discussion, and is elevated into the sphere of religion, and indeed a kind of world religion that in Germany has unmistakably acquired the status of a semi-official state religion.
While the media campaign against Williamson was in full swing, the revisionist and lawyer Horst Mahler was sentenced in Munich as well as in Potsdam to a total of over twelve years' imprisonment for having denied the Holocaust and for having examined the Yahweh religion. Mahler's assistant, the lawyer Sylvia Stolz, was sentenced in 2007 to 3 ½ years in jail and there and then immediately conducted out of the courtroom. The reason: she defended the German-Canadian publicist Ernst Zündel in court in Mannheim and attempted to prove that the defendant was right. Zündel himself received five years, whereby the two years' detention while awaiting trial in most shameful conditions [in Canada] were not counted. Thus Zündel got seven years because he distributed material over his Internet site that appeared to show there was evidence against the argument of the mass gassing of Jews.
Shortly after Zündel was imprisoned the chemist and author of several books Germar Rudolf, originally a scientist at the Max Planck Institute in Stuttgart, received a jail sentence of 2 ½ years because, on the basis of his personal research in Auschwitz, he believed he had come the same conclusions as other researchers before him, for example, the Frenchman Robert Faurisson, a university professor for documentary research and textual criticism in Lyon and at the Sorbonne in Paris. Faurisson has several times been fined astronomical sums in France, and had suffered bodily injury by unidentified thugs. One of the best-known revisionist researchers and writers, is the Swiss teacher of languages and literature and Scandinavian studies Jürgen Graf, sentenced to 15 months' imprisonment in Switzerland for denying the Holocaust. By absconding to Russia and exile he avoided captivity. Also on the run is the French chemical engineer Vincent Reynouard who is the father of seven children. In Austria, the legal expert Dipl Ing Wolfgang Frohlich is in jail for the second time because he does not accept the official version of the Holocaust. Where is Amnesty International? Where the European Court of Human Rights? Where the outcry from the media? Where the student protests? Where the church?
All these men and women and many others, for example, Ursula Haverbeck, Dipl. Pol. Udo Walendy, Gerd Honsik, Dr. Max Wahl, Siegfried Verbeke, Gaston Amaudruz have committed no offence other than to have arrived at conclusions from their research and analysis that diverge from the official line – and that they admittedly then addressed detailed questions to those who disseminated the alleged false information around the world.
It is the pride of Western science – ever since the Renaissance, and in particular since the Enlightenment – to allow nothing to be sacrosanct, to have no taboos, and to accept nothing short of absolute objectivity. Revision – that is examination, verification and questioning, is a basic principle of science. All else is dogmatism. Science cannot accept religious, political or other social premises. In the sense of the natural sciences, there is no Christian reality nor Unchristian reality, no moral nor immoral truth. The researcher therefore has a right to err, since no one is in possession of absolute truth. Science has replaced the era of confession with an age of knowledge. Applied to research into the Holocaust this means: Research may not be distorted by philo-Semitic nor by anti-Semitic reactions, any more than it may by philo-Germanic or anti-Germanic ones. Whether one likes the Jews or the Germans, or dislikes them is, as far as research is concerned, not a deciding factor and may not be allowed to influence it in any way.
Frau Merkel said in her message to Pope Benedict XVI: There can be no denial of the Holocaust. What does this mean: There “can” not be? Does this mean after all – contrary to all scientific method – that there are global political forces influencing the decision making of both the Germany head of state as well as the highest Churchman of Christendom? At least comments have been made that suggest this. As early as 21 May 1979 Professor William Rubinstein of the University of Melbourne, Australia, wrote in the "Nation Review”: If it was ever proven that the Holocaust was a Zionist myth, Israel would lose its number one propaganda weapon. And after the German lecturer and revisionist Günther Deckert was sentenced to several years in prison, the Feuilleton editor of the Frankfurter newspaper FAZ Bahlers said on 15 August 1994: If Deckert’s view of the Holocaust was correct, then the Federal Republic of Germany was founded on a lie. Each presidential speech, every minute of silence, every history book would be a lie. In denying the murder of the Jews, he disputes the legitimacy of the Federal Republic of Germany. If that’s not enough there would seem to be larger issues at stake: The memory of the Holocaust is central to the New World Order. So wrote Ian J. Kagedan, Director of the Canadian B'nai B'rith in the "Toronto Star" on 26.11.1991.
These nondescript newspaper reports enable us to understand why Frau Merkel has not convened her own International Holocaust Conference in Berlin and subjected the assertions of the revisionists to public discussion and appraisal. If she did the ‘sorry affair’ would once and for all be laid bare and the "pseudo-scientific shambles" of the Holocaust deniers would be exposed for all to see – and indeed by scientists, not merely by journalists. But this would require argument and counterargument to be discussed. Is it to be feared that such a discussion might produce results other than those that are politically desired? Is this why revisionists are doing time in jail? Is this why their books are banned? Is this why the public is being denied the means of evaluating the state of revisionist arguments? Courtroom practice has apparently suffered a similar fate that “government approved science” has. Thus nowadays in court – something that the public regretfully never learns – is that there is never an inquiry into whether the accused may be right. The judge does not accept the admission of evidence and if the accused should try to explain his position, he is liable to additional charges, as is his lawyer! A judicial monstrosity. The fact of the genocide of millions in gas chambers is simply assumed to be "manifestly obvious" and the court has then only to decide whether the defendant has denied this manifest obviousness – and then to determine his sentence. A historical event is simply raised to the status of common knowledge, i.e. a verifiable natural law, while at the same time, factual verification of it is forbidden!
Is somebody here afraid of the truth?
The voices are becoming more numerous that advocate ending this appalling situation. After Martin Walser criticized the "Auschwitz club" more than ten years ago, now according to the Frankfurter newspaper FAZ on 10.07.2008, the former federal judge Wolfgang Hoffmann-Riem has declared: As a lawmaker I would not make denying the Holocaust a punishable offence. And 10 June 2008, the Süddeutsche Zeitung quoted a statement by Winfred Hassemer, former Vice Chairman of the Federal Constitutional Court: I am not a supporter of the criminalization of Holocaust denial. This means in plain text: The notorious § 13 paragraph 3 of the German Criminal Code “Volksverhetzung“ (Incitement of the Masses), as well as the Swiss "Antirassismusgesetz” (Law against Racial Discrimination) and the Austrian "Wiederbetätigungsgesetz" (Law against the Return to National Socialism) should be deleted entirely as anti-democratic special laws.
In 2007 Prof. Karl Albert Schachtschneider, (University of Erlangen), gave a brilliantly clear answer in a lecture in Salzburg. To the question: Do we have freedom of speech here? He answered: A country in which free speech is suppressed by severe punishments is not a free country. The great Immanuel Kant said about freedom of speech that one must be free to say anything, whether it is true or untrue. Regarding the Holocaust, this or that may be true or not true; I wasn't there. But the reason I don't discuss it, is because it is forbidden. One is not allowed to discuss it, not even scientifically. The offence as defined by „Volksverhetzung“ (Incitement of the Masses) prevents that. This is not a free country.
(YouTube link to Prof. Dr. Schachtschneider)
If we are not free, then we must free ourselves. We should not greet Gessler’s hat [part of Swiss “William Tell” tradition]. Free speech - free country! The first step is to examine the central historical and judicial taboos of the "New World Order", according to the principle "Where everyone condemns, one must verify; where everyone praises, too.” One can only free oneself from an enemy who is identified.
How true the sentence: Thought Sets You Free!
Bernhard Schaub is Swiss. He was a teacher of German and history at Waldorf schools in Switzerland before was dismissed in 1993 due to the publication of a book in which he had called for a neutral investigation of the Holocaust. He also lost a later position as academic dean of an adult education school for similar reasons. In December 2006 he participated as a speaker at the Holocaust Conference convened by President Ahmadinejad in Tehran. In the autumn of 2007 he was convicted by a Swiss court for a renewed call for research into this subject to three months imprisonment on probation. Bernhard Schaub is active as a speaker and writer in the whole German-speaking world.
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