British historian Martin Gilbert is a falsifier. While he is best
known as the official biographer of Winston Churchill, he has
also written several widely-lauded works on the "Holocaust."
Gilbert, who is Jewish, staunchly defends the thesis of the so-called
extermination of the Jews, an extermination allegedly carried
out in particular by means of homicidal "gas chambers"
and homicidal "gas vans." To defend this thesis he falsifies
and invents.
Falsifying the 'Gerstein Document'
In his distortion of the "Gerstein Document" in 1979
and 1986, Gilbert showed that he is capable of falsification.
The various postwar confessions of SS officer Kurt Gerstein, known
collectively as the "Gerstein Document" are completely
devoid of any scholarly value, as Paul Rassinier showed in the
1960s and as the studies of Henri Roques in France (with my collaboration)
and Carlo Mattogno in Italy established in 1985. (See: H. Roques,
The "Confessions" of Kurt Gerstein, published by the
IHR.) But just like French Jewish historian Léon Poliakov,
Martin Gilbert used these confessions to support his thesis. Here
I will show how he did that and, for the sake of clarity here,
I am adding emphasis to some of the figures mentioned.
Speaking about the alleged gas chamber at Belzec, Kurt Gerstein wrote:
Die Menschen stehen einander auf den Füssen, 700-800
Menschen auf 25 Quadratmetern in 45 Kubikmetern ... 750 Menschen
in 45 Kubikmetern. ("The people stand on each other's feet,
700-800 people on 25 square meters in 45 cubic meters ... 750
people in 45 cubic meters.") (Source: page 5 of Nuremberg
document PS-2170, as Gilbert indicates.)
It is obviously impossible for 700 to 800 people to stand on a
surface of 25 square meters and inside a space of 45 cubic meters.
That would be the same as trying to fit 28 to 32 persons in a
space that is one square meter in surface area, and 1.8 meters
high. The fact that Gerstein made such a statement to the Allies,
who held him as their prisoner, shows what his mental condition
was. He always used these same figures, repeating them on several
occasions. But Gilbert completely changed these numbers in an
effort to make Gerstein's tale believable. He even changed them
in one way in 1979 and in another way in 1986.
In his 1979 book, Final Journey: The Fate of the Jews in Nazi
Europe (New York: Mayflower Books, p. 91), here is how Gilbert
quoted Gerstein: "The naked people stand on each other's
feet. About seven to eight hundred people in an area of about
a hundred square meters."
Among other distortions, Gilbert quadrupled the surface of the
gas chamber, removed the mention of the cubic meters and likewise
left out the number 750. Finally, he left out the repetition by
Gerstein of the mention of cubic meters. If he had retained the
mention, made twice, of the 45 cubic meters, we would have had
a gas chamber of around 100 square meters and of 45 cubic meters,
that is to say a room containing around 700 to 800 persons standing
that would have been less than a half meter high.
In a 1986 work, though, Gilbert revises this, quoting Gerstein
as saying: "Seven to eight hundred people in ninety-three
square meters." (Source: The Holocaust: The Jewish
Tragedy, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, p. 427. On
page 864 Gilbert indicates as his source: "Kurt Gerstein,
statement of May 6, 1945, Tübingen: International Military
Tribunal, Nuremberg, document PS-2170.")
In this case, the number 25 has been replaced with the number
93. A precise figure was apparently chosen to give the impression
of exactitude and rigor. Once again, all references to cubic meters
have disappeared.
For this reason alone we must conclude that Gilbert deliberately
falsified the writings of Gerstein. He falsified them in a number
of other ways as well, most notably by editing the text so as
to hide other nonsensical things Gerstein said. (That's also the
method used by Léon Poliakov.)
Inventing 'Gassing' Figures
In his effort to sustain the invented story that masses of
Jews were gassed at Belzec, Treblinka and elsewhere, Gilbert engages
in a deceitful manipulation of figures. In his 1981 book, Auschwitz
and the Allies (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, p. 26),
he wrote:
The deliberate attempt to destroy systematically all of Europe's Jews was unsuspected in the spring and early summer of 1942: the very period during which it was at its most intense, and during which hundreds of thousands of Jews were being gassed every day at Belzec, Chelmno, Sobibor and Treblinka.
For the moment, let's not concern ourselves with the fact that
no one was ever gassed at those camps, nor in any other camp either.
Instead, let us focus on Gilbert's use of figures. Let us suppose
that "hundreds of thousands" means only 200,000. That
would make 200,000 Jews gassed per day, and therefore 1,400,000
each week. If during the spring and the early summer we have four
months, or 17 weeks -- that makes 1,400,000 a week, times 17 weeks,
for a total of 23,800,000 Jews gassed in just those four small
camps, and during a period of just four months!
More can be said about Martin Gilbert, about his ignorance of
history, his dishonesty and even his empty productivity. On December
3, 1986, I wrote to him to ask for some explanations about the
way he reproduced the Gerstein texts. He never answered.
-- March 4, 1987
See original text in French, published as "L'historien juif
anglais Martin Gilbert est un falsificateur", in Ecrits
révisionnistes, tome II, 1999, p. 654-657.
First displayed on aaargh: 2 April 2001.
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