If I am not mistaken, Werner Rademacher is a pseudonym of the political prisoner Germar Rudolf.

The Case of Walter Lüftl

Contemporary History and the Justice System

WERNER RADEMACHER

1. Introduction

In Germany, in the early spring of February 1992, many Austrian and German newspapers dailies[1] reported the resignation of the President of the Federal Austrian Chamber of Engineers, Walter Lüftl, who stepped down from his prestigious position after voicing doubts about the Holocaust. Things calmed down fairly quickly in Germany, while in Austria a fair-sized scandal ensued. The President of the Federal Chamber of Engineers, it was alleged, had expressed 'Nazi' sentiments, and cries for the public prosecutor were to be heard.

More sensible and aware persons, however, perked up their ears, since, after all, an engineer and many-thousand-time forensic expert witness from Austria's high society must surely have had his reasons if he questioned the technical feasibility of some aspects of the Holocaust.

Insiders had realized as early as winter 1991 that something was in the wind, since Lüftl had already published preliminary hints in the engineering paper Konstruktiv that not all was right with some historical eyewitness testimony. He did not at that time make reference to the Holocaust, leaving it up to the reader instead to make the connection based on the facts and questions raised.[2]

The basic legal principles of a state under the rule of law demand that subject experts sworn in by the state must accord greater significance to material evidence than to any eyewitness accounts. Lüftl, being such an expert and acting in accordance with this logical stipulation, was more than a little surprised to realize that the generally accepted qualitative hierarchy of evidence appears to be reversed where the Holocaust is concerned: historiography of the Holocaust is dominated by the eyewitness testimony which, he found, frequently does not stand up to expert criticism, but which is nevertheless accepted unquestioningly and is given precedence over the material findings of experts.

He was also surprised to find that the courts take "judicial notice" of the events of the Holocaust as described by eyewitnesses - i.e., they consider these accounts to be self-evident and proven facts - not only in order to obviate the need for their formal proof and thus to spare themselves the bother of bringing evidence for these events, but that they also make use of this "judicial notice" in order to deny the opposing side the right to bring evidence to the contrary. Lüftl considers this practice to be a violation of human rights, since judicial notice should be taken only of such matters as are also undisputed by both prosecution and defense - such as water is wet, fire is hot, and ice is cold. However, as soon as there is any justified and reasonable dispute of any point, such a point must be open to discussion.

Does someone hiding behind rulings of judicial notice not in fact reveal that he does not care to know the truth if it differs from the traditional version (that which is 'desirable from the perspective of public education'), and that he wishes to keep this truth, by whatever means, from those who would prefer to see actual knowledge replace blind faith? Surely someone who is truly convinced that the official truth corresponds to his truth has nothing to fear from any material evidence proffered, which after all he ought to be easily able to refute. But the forensic reality with respect to the Holocaust is that any and all dissenting evidence proffered is dismissed from the start as being "pseudo-scientific". Truth is the sole province of the status quo. 'Everything has been proved a thousand times over. Arguments to the contrary have been refuted ad nauseam', goes the hollow standard objection, which is simply not true. This arbitrarily assigned self-evidence is the muzzle that is put on truth.
2. Austria's Special Laws