The 1988 "Holocaust" testimony of Joseph Burg

[zgrams at zgrams.zundelsite.org]

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Intermittent ZGram -

The following is rather long but highly significant.  It is the 
condensed transcript of the testimony of German-Jewish author, Joseph 
Burg, who testified in the Second Great Holocaust Trial of Ernst 
Zündel some 20 years ago.

Like so much else, there is a personal story "attached" to this 
document. Ernst told it to me several times, but I will ask him to 
recall it for a future ZGram so that I get it right.  It has to do 
with the fact that because of this stunning testimony by a Jew 
demolishing the "Holocaust", Joseph [Ginz]burg was not allowed to be 
buried in a Jewish cemetery, and nobody of the tribe wanted to do his 
eulogy.

Ernst was in Germany at the time, visiting a dissident acquaintance, 
and the two volunteered to do the honors, because they respected 
Burg's courage and integrity.

The way Ernst always told this story is that he swears he heard a 
"rumbling in the coffin" because Burg, who was an avowed atheist, was 
honored in a Catholic church underneath the crucifix, with the 
reviled Ernst Zundel and a "Nazi" friend - it might have been Manfred 
Roeder (?) - sending him off with honors to the afterlife!

Another Zundel lore!

Please read this carefully.  There are nuances there I bet that most 
of you haven't ever been privileged to hear.

Ingrid Rimland

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The 'False News' Trial of Ernst Zündel -- 1988

Joseph G. Burg

Joseph G. Burg was the twelfth witness called by the defense. He 
testified on Tuesday, March 29 and Wednesday, March 30, 1988.

For an eight or nine year period prior to 1981, Zündel had been in 
communication by letter and in visits with Joseph G. Burg, a Jewish 
author who had written several books on the Second World War. These 
books included Guilt and Fate, Scapegoats, Zionist Nazi Censorship in 
the Federal Republic of Germany, National Socialist Crimes of Bad 
Conscience by Germans Against Germans under Zionist Direction and 
Major Attacks of Zionists against Pope Pius XII and the German 
Governments. Burg had discussed these books with Zündel and believed 
the latter had received them. (25-6824, 6825, 6835, 26-6896, 6897)

In his books, Burg dealt with the subject of the alleged Nazi 
extermination camps. Burg had spoken to hundreds of people who had 
been in Auschwitz and had visited the camp in the fall of 1945. Burg 
had wanted to see the crematoria, the hospitals, and in particular, a 
large new bakery. He also wanted to find the gas chambers although at 
that time gassings were not yet in fashion. He did not find any gas 
chambers. Burg formed the opinion that there were no "extermination" 
camps at all, that gas chambers had never existed and that there had 
been no plan to exterminate the Jews of Europe. These opinions were 
published in his books and in his correspondence with Zündel. 
(25-6825 to 6838)

Burg also visited Majdanek three times. He did find gas chambers in 
Majdanek, but testified that they were disinfection gas chambers for 
liquidating lice and fleas: bugs which caused epidemics. The chambers 
were standard in each camp and had the German words "Attention! 
Poisonous Gas!" under a death skull. Zyklon B was the new formula 
used to disinfect the clothing. It destroyed the bugs but not the 
fabric. (25-6839)

After the war, Burg heard a lot about the allegations that people 
were gassed at Auschwitz and Majdanek. He proved that it was either 
out of stupidity or propaganda. Up to now, he pointed out, no 
document had been found showing who gave the order for gassings, who 
built them and where they were built. The German authorities 
especially had been called the "super-bureaucracis." It therefore 
couldn't be that after all these years not a document could be found. 
(25 6840)

Burg testified that he spoke to hundreds of people who serviced and 
operated the crematoria but the people who operated gas chambers were 
impossible to find. Nobody had published anything in which it was 
claimed that he worked in a gassing institution for human beings. 
There was literature about gassing that was completely contradictory. 
Why? Because it was all made up. These opinions were published in his 
books. (25-6840)

In every camp there were crematoria. It was a practical issue. People 
died. When the Germans occupied the eastern territories, the huge 
camps were established and there were larger and more crematoria as 
the war progressed. Epidemics broke out causing an increased number 
of deaths. The question of crematoria was one of hygiene: the process 
was more hygienic than burial and took less space. (26-6897, 6898)

Like all other activities in the camp, the inmates looked after the 
crematoria. It was the most difficult work because of the heat and 
the lifting of corpses into the ovens. The inmates worked very often 
in three shifts around the clock. (26-6998) These workers did it 
voluntarily. They were asked by the Jewish council or the Jewish 
police. It was important to ask how the Jewish council or police 
co-operated with the German SS. (26-6900)

When they were in full operation, the chimneys had an increased 
amount of smoke. So, logically, depending on the weather or the time 
of day, the colour of the flames was different. People invented 
stories that inside devilish things were going on. They said living 
human beings were being burned. They invented the story that every 
crematorium was a gas chamber. It had even gotten to the point that 
the authors had such large imaginations that when they saw the blue 
colour of the smoke, they knew that Jews were being burned. (26-6898, 
6899)

Others invented the story that living Jews were being pushed in to be 
burned. Burg testified that he would like to see a Jew who had given 
such statements during a trial. He said such a Jew should be forced 
to take an oath under the rabbi rites with the skull cap, without 
pictures of Christ, with the Hebrew Bible, in the presence of a rabbi 
or a pious religious Jew. Then he should swear an oath that he had 
seen something like that. Then these false statements, these sick 
statements, would go down by 99.5 percent because the superficial 
oath was not morally binding for these Jews. (26-6900)

At the time he was in a displaced persons camp, Burg spoke to thirty 
or forty people about gas chambers and to about five to ten people 
about the crematoria. He had a special permit allowing him to visit 
the different areas where Jewish displaced persons were. He tried to 
get interviews from various ghettos and camps because at that time he 
had already checked various false statements. (26-6901)

In 1946 Burg attended the Nuremberg trials at times when matters 
involving Jews were being raised. During one of these attendances he 
met Ilya Ehrenburg and a Jewish publisher who had been in Auschwitz 
for several years. Burg asked the publisher whether he had seen any 
gassing institutions for human beings and he said no. Ehrenburg, who 
had been the head of propaganda for the Red Army during the war, told 
Burg he had been to Auschwitz but he too had not seen anything of 
gassings. Burg had discussed this information with Zündel in general. 
(25-6857, 6858) Burg could not understand the emphasis on gassings. 
(26-6904)

Burg himself was the son of Jewish parents and spent the war years in 
Transnystria, an area set aside by the Germans for banned people such 
as Jews. The Jews were banned because they had greeted the Red Army. 
The people in this area lived in small villages and towns but had to 
fend for themselves and were therefore worse off than those who were 
in the concentration camps. In the camps the German authorities 
looked after the inmates because, on average, they were used for 
work. There were attacks on the Jews in this area by foreign ethnic 
groups, but no attacks organized by the Germans. (25-6837, 6838, 
26-6874, 6875)

In 1946 and 1947, Burg lived in Freising, a camp for Jewish displaced 
persons near Munich in the American Zone. The director was a 
Jewish-American officer. Burg served as a factotum: he organized the 
police, the prison, the newspaper, cultural affairs. He organized 
groups and drove them around Bavaria to show them the sights, the 
museums and castles. His experiences in the camp were included in the 
book Guilt and Fate. (25-6841)

Burg was read a passage from Did Six Million Really Die?:

The first Nazi proposals for a Madagascar solution were made in 
association with the Schacht Plan of 1938.

Burg testified that the emigration of Jews from Nazi Germany who did 
not go to Palestine was hindered by the Zionists. The Zionists 
prevented the Jews from going to other countries because their 
interest was in making the Jews go to Palestine. Furthermore, most 
countries blocked entrance to Jewish emigration. (25-6842)

The German Reich wanted to get the Jews out: how and where were 
secondary questions. The people under Göring dealing with the Jewish 
question picked up a plan which came from the founder of the Zionist 
movement, Theodor Herzl, which involved moving the Jews to Uganda or 
Madagascar. Both of these colonies belonged to France. The plan did 
not work out, but the existence of the plan alone proved logically 
that a liquidation of the Jews did not exist. Their labour was needed 
as well. Burg emphasized there was no liquidation of the Jews by the 
Germans. (25-6842, 6843, 6844)

The Transfer (Haavara) Agreement of 1933 was one of the most 
important incidents in the Holocaust framework. Under this agreement 
some 2.5 million Jews were to be traded for trucks. The agreement 
never came to fruition because the Zionists could not take that 
number of Jews to Palestine. (25-6853, 6854)

Burg had discovered that the German Zionist leaders requested as 
early as 1933 that the Jews be required to wear the yellow star. The 
Zionists saw it not as an insult but as a heroic gesture, just like 
the SS wore the swastika. In 1938 the director of the Zionist 
movement in the Third Reich brought about the wearing of the yellow 
star by the Jews against the wishes of both Göring and Goebbels. 
(25-6850)

Burg wrote in his books about the co-operation which existed between 
the Zionist leadership, including David Ben-Gurion, with the Nazi 
regime prior to the war. (26 6877) Several days after Hitler had been 
named Chancellor, Rabbi Leo Baeck, a leader of the Zionist 
organizations in Germany, announced publicly that the interests of 
Jewry were identical with the interests of National Socialism. Burg 
testified that Baeck meant "Zionism," not "Jewry." The Zionists at 
that time in Germany constituted one and a half percent of the Jewish 
population. A few days later another Zionist leader made a similar 
declaration. The sense of these declarations, testified Burg, was as 
follows: 'We nationalist Jews, meaning Zionists, are in agreement 
with this regime. We are not ashamed of our nationalist thoughts.' 
The Germans who had to deal with the Jewish question co-operated 
immediately with this minority of Jews in order to prove to the whole 
world that they were not anti-Jewish but were co-operating with the 
Jews. (26-6878, 6879)

In the early 1930s, as result of this co-operation between the Nazis 
and Zionists, some 120,000 Jews emigrated from Germany to Palestine. 
Difficulties began, however, when Britain, which administered 
Palestine, refused to issue any more immigration permits because of 
Arab unrest. (26-6879, 6880)

Zionists in Germany worked at organizing schools for children in the 
Jewish language, workshops for young people, etc., to help prepare 
people to emigrate at some point to Palestine. The Zionists were 
interested only in emigration to Palestine and did everything they 
could to make sure that outside of Palestine no Jews were admitted. 
The Nazis were interested in getting the Jews to emigrate wherever 
they could. Nevertheless, co-operation continued between the Zionists 
and the Nazis, such people as Adolf Eichmann, Golda Meir and David 
Ben-Gurion, until 1942 when the Zionist leaders were of the opinion 
they had reached their goal. Burg stated that even at that point 
Germany's defeat could be seen and the Zionists became like "rats 
leaving a sinking ship." (26-6880 to 6884)

Burg discussed the topic of Nazi and Zionist co-operation often with 
Zündel. Burg believed that the Zionists were the guilty party and 
that the Germans had been trapped. To brush everything over, the 
Zionists behaved like the cunning thief who runs ahead of the police 
screaming "Stop the thief!" It was Zündel's duty to fight against it 
and Burg stated he would help. Why? "Because otherwise it will never 
come to a reconciliation of the people. The truth is slowly coming 
out, and this is how, provoked by the Zionist leaders, a hatred 
against the Jews is growing." (26 6885)

Zündel had told Burg that thanks to his book Guilt and Fate, 
published in 1962, Zündel had become what he now was, a fighter for 
the truth, a fighter against the false accusations made against his 
people. (26-6885)

Burg testified that there was no liquidation in the concentration 
camps. The healthier people were used for free labour. Burg pointed 
out that even a golden cage was a limitation of freedom and even a 
crime, but the invention of gassings came from sick minds. Burg 
wanted to prove that even at Birkenau, where gassings allegedly 
occurred, Jewish men and women could get special treatment. An 
example was Benedikt Kautsky, a Jew who was a spiritual personality 
in the Socialist-Marxist world movement. Kautsky was in Birkenau 
during the war doing office work. His mother, aged 79, was also sent 
to Birkenau. When she became sick she got a separate room and a 
special diet ordered by the doctor. This was "special treatment," 
given so the woman's life could be prolonged if not cured. She died 
when she was 80 years of age. When he was liberated, Dr. Kautsky 
returned to Vienna, Austria where he continued his scientific work. 
(26- 6893, 6894) In 1946, immediately after the liberation, Dr. 
Kautsky was one of the first to publish a book. It had the German 
title Teufel und Verdammte (Devil and Damned). Burg testified that 
the book was the truth and had historical value. However, the whole 
edition was burned. One and a half years later, he published another 
edition in which he rewrote portions and made changes. But he didn't 
completely rewrite it. There was no documentation about gas chambers 
and Kautsky himself admitted he never saw a gas chamber himself. 
(26-6902)

In Schuld und Schicksal (Guilt and Fate) Burg dealt with the Warsaw 
and Lodz ghettos. When the German troops occupied Warsaw, they wanted 
to concentrate the Jewish population. Real ghettos had been there for 
centuries but the assimilated or emancipated Jews had lived far way 
from the ghettos. Now the Germans wanted to have the Jews all 
together. In a practical sense, the ghetto was also organized for the 
protection of the Jewish population. (26-6885, 6886)

The Zionists were happy with this arrangement. An appointed Jewish 
Council was the governing body of the ghetto. They had their own 
police, jails and everything else. Naturally, there were some who 
were cruel. One of these was the vice president of the police, who 
was later executed. In Burg's eyes, this execution was evidence that 
Jews defended themselves against the minority of Zionists who were 
using the majority of Jews for their own purposes. (26-6886, 6887)

In the Lodz ghetto there was a Jewish police force, a Jewish bank, 
Jewish money, a Jewish post office, stamps only for Jews. There were 
workshops for Jews. If there was a German plan to liquidate the Jews, 
why were there workshops?, asked Burg. Why those expenses? Why train 
children for jobs? Thanks to Berlin, Burg testified, the Jews 
practiced a small Israel. These things could not be said today, 
however, because it was now said that there was a "Holocaust" and the 
Jews were murdered. (26-6888, 6889)

The German people, not just the Nazis, had been blamed falsely; and 
not just Germans living in Germany but Germans living throughout the 
world. Burg had an interest in this because he believed it provoked 
hatred against Jews. Zionist leaders even today had a interest in the 
origination of pogroms against the Jews and Burg was testifying to 
prevent this. (26-6889)

In 1982 Zündel wrote to Burg twice asking him for help against the 
Zionists in Toronto who were creating problems for him, and for a 
recommendation. Zündel had been of the opinion that this could be 
helpful for him. (26-6891)

Burg had frequently discussed the subject of German restitution with 
Zündel. In Burg's opinion, if the Holocaust hadn't been invented, the 
Germans wouldn't be paying restitution and, he pointed out, "they are 
paying." He dealt with the subject in his book Guilt and Fate which 
Zündel read in the 1960s. (25-6850, 6851) Israel was created in 1948 
and in 1951 still had no diplomatic ties with the Federal Republic of 
Germany. In that year, Israel gave Dr. Nahum Goldmann, a 
representative of the World Jewish Congress, authority to negotiate 
with Dr. Adenauer, the Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, 
concerning Germany's guilt. Israel, under Ben Gurion, wanted money 
from the "damned Germans" but didn't want to sit down at a table 
together with them to negotiate. The negotiations between Goldmann 
and Adenauer resulted in a recognition by Germany that it had 
committed a holocaust against the Jews. (26-6904, 6905)

Burg testified that it was important to distinguish payments to the 
state of Israel. Israel did not exist during the war. It was 
Palestine then and belonged to the British administration. During the 
whole of the Second World War, not one single German soldier was in 
Palestine. What was there to make good again, to repair?, asked Burg. 
(26-6905)

Israel submitted a document to Germany stating that of four European 
Jews, three had been killed and for those dead people Israel demanded 
restitution. The document did not claim that 6 million died. Neither 
gassings nor murder were obvious from the document. The word used was 
"killed." The initial sum of 3.5 million marks had grown and not only 
today's Germans would pay but also the newborns. The sums were 
justified by inventions that 40 million Jews were gassed, then 25, 
then about 6 million, the level at which it had stayed. (26-6907)

Burg testified that the reason for the continuation of war crimes 
trials in both the Federal Republic of Germany and the United States 
was to prove to everybody that the Germans, even the ones born in 
America and Toronto, were to be blamed for the murdering and gassing 
of Jews. (26-6907)

Israel existed on the basis that a Holocaust happened. The German 
people of the Federal Republic paid money honestly earned by work to 
Israel, a barrel without a bottom. (26-6916)

Goldmann also negotiated for those who had been liberated from the 
concentration camps. These were the ones who had suffered, said Burg, 
who had their homes and apartments taken away from them, who had left 
everything behind. Special offices for restitution were set up around 
the world where Germany had representations. (26-6906)

Burg discussed with Zündel who was responsible for the upset in the 
world between Germans and Jews. He told Zündel that the First World 
War had brought the Zionists a homestead in Palestine but not a 
nation. This was much too little and everything had to be done to 
create a state of Israel. This was only possible by war activity. A 
world war had to come about. The Zionists therefore co-operated with 
what was known as Wall Street. Wall Street brought about the Second 
World War, just as they had brought about the First World War. Burg 
noted that the Hitler regime had also been supported because it was 
supposed to fight the Communists. Like the National Socialists, the 
Communists did not want to subordinate themselves to Wall Street. The 
plan of Churchill, together with the Zionists and the Americans of 
Wall Street, was to ensure that the National Socialists and 
Communists "knocked each other out." Chaim Weizmann had stated that 
he was willing to sacrifice German Jewry in the interest of a state 
of Israel. (26- 6912, 6913, 6915)

Burg agreed that Zündel had shown a sincere curiosity about the 
Jewish question. Zündel was a German and he was defending his 
country, said Burg. Zündel had told him that he saw it as his life's 
work to defend his people because they were being defamed. Burg 
himself believed the German people were being defamed. He had 
expressed this view in his books "again and again" and suffered 
personally as a result. Burg was happy that Zündel had learned a 
little from him, by not talking automatically of "Jews" but instead 
emphasizing "Zionists." (25-6848 to 6851)

If the Holocaust story went on the way it was going, said Burg, there 
would never be a sincere relationship between the Jews and the 
Germans. The Zionist leaders would see to that. Burg had told Zündel 
that films such as Holocaust and Shoah were fortifications of a 
falsification of history, made for the purpose of showing Germans why 
they had to pay and that the paying would go on for another few 
generations. (25-6851, 6852)

Burg testified that if Zündel had gone along with the current, he 
wouldn't have the problems he did. It would have been a much easier 
life for him. It was Burg's opinion that if there were another two or 
three Zündel's, it would be better for Jews as well. (26-6892, 6893)

The Crown chose not to cross-examine Burg.

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