An Introduction to Germar Rudolf

The story starts during the height of the 2020 pandemic when the TDS podcasters told their audience with some conviction that I was too much of a “fucking pussy” to ever tackle Germar or his book.

‘Right, so again… a guy loses his PHD politically, again, and you’re pretending you don’t know the politics of why he would lose his PHD? Fuck you! Now you’re even doubly a liar. If you’re not going to admit to me that you don’t understand why a man who is literally about to defend his PHD thesis, had it taken away from him, and then went to jail. Ok, he went to jail for 4 years, and if you’re going to pretend to me that you don’t understand, or that that is a valid political process that isn’t political repression, then isn’t it basically an affront to science that a man doing a scientific experiment had his PHD taken and went to jail – if you’re going to pretend that that’s ok, if you want to pretend that his methodology was wrong, if you want to tell me that Rudolf’s methodology was wrong, you read his book and you debunk his book. I fucking challenge you Myles Power and you won’t do it. You won’t do it because you’re a liar and a fucking pussy. You’ll never do it Myles. You’ll never fucking do it.’- Mike Enoch

Mike’s emotive chest-beating might have been enough to convince his dwindling fanbase of his convictions, but behind the scenes things were a little different. He and his fellow podcasters chose to ignore me when I reached out and expressed interest in their various challenges to refute revisionist media. I stated that my only stipulation was that I refuse to fund Holocaust denialism and therefore wanted them to pay for a physical copy of Germar Rudolf’s The Chemistry of Auschwitz. Eventually, I grew tired of being ignored and at the height of the COVID pandemic whilst growing a lockdown beard I bought myself a copy so I could begin my research. To offset my purchase one of my subscribers kindly donated the cost of the book to a holocaust charity. 

It has now been almost two years since I was challenged by Mike, Jesse and Alex of the TDS podcast to refute Germar Rudolf’s book, The Chemistry of Auschwitz. This has led some online to believe that I am unable to do so and therefore, somehow the Nazis did not systematically kill millions of people in their death camps. The truth however is that I simply don’t like being told what to do and rather childishly have been watching with great joy as revisionists claim victory online. Now that things have died down a little, I have decided it time to tackle this rather bland and unconvincing book, but before I do I would like to introduce you to the author, Germar Rudolf.  

Germar is a German chemist and convicted Holocaust denier who, after completing his military service, joined the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research at Stuttgart. Whilst there, he drew the attention of the Dusseldorf attorney and former Luftwaffe pilot, Hajo Herrmann after a newspaper published one of his letters discussing The Leuchter Report. Hajo who was infamous for defending neo-Nazis and genocide deniers while simultaneously promoting their views, believed that Germar could conduct experiments which could be used to support one of his clients. At the time Hajo was representing the former Wehrmacht officer, Otto Ernst Remer, who is best known for the role he played in stopping the July 20th assassination of Adolf Hitler. Otto, who ran a long campaign to end what he called the “Auschwitz lies”, was charged with inciting race hatred and thus Hajo commissioned Germar to conduct experiments which could be used to support Otto’s claims.

In the summer of 1991, Germar traveled to Auschwitz where he took samples from the walls of one of the gas chambers and one of the delousing facilities. Then using Max Planck stationary, he sent the samples to an analytical laboratory in Taunusstein, the Fresenius Institute. The analysis showed no detectable cyanide in the samples taken from the gas chambers, but detectable cyanide in the samples taken from the delousing chambers. Germar wrote a 120-page report where he concluded that large numbers of people may have died of typhoid, starvation, and murder, but none of them died in a gas chamber as gassings could not have taken place. He presented his report to the lawyer on the understanding that it would be used only in the court case and would not be distributed more widely. As it turned out, the report was not used as evidence in trial, but within weeks Otto had distributed the report, along with his own annotations to a wide circle of addresses in Germany, claiming that he had the support of the Max Planck Society. 

Keen to publish his report without Otto’s political comments, he began to seek a publisher and finally sold the rights to Rudiger Kammerer, a right-wing extremist. In 1993, his work was reported in the media and he was told not to enter the Max Planck Institute again without permission. When he did so, his employment was terminated without notice, with the Institute stating that he was wrong to use the institute’s facilities for work which would bring it into disrepute. However, Germar argues that several people at the institute had known of his work for more than a year before the dismissal, including his supervisor Hans Georg von Schnering, who he claims was sometimes supportive. He says that work was done in his free time and the Frescius institute knew from a telephone conversation that his work was independent. 

At the time of his dismissal, Germar was a doctoral candidate at Stuttgart University. As holocaust denial is illegal in Germany, and German law allows universities to deny or withdraw academic degrees where the candidate has used their academic credentials to commit a crime, they asked Germar to withdraw his application for a final PhD examination or it would be denied, rendering it worthless. 

Angry that the University of Stuttgart is refusing to consider his submitted thesis and the publicity around his dismissal from the Max Planck Institute which has made it impossible for him to find a job, Germar began working with his new allies within the extreme right to publish his report in several other languages. As Holocaust denial is a criminal offence in Germany Germar was charged with “inciting racial hatred”. Following a seven month trial, the Superior-Lomt in Stuttgart sentenced Germar, who changed his name to Scheerer after he got married, to fourteen months imprisonment for “spreading premeditated, offensive, mendacious and racist propaganda”. During the trial, it was discovered that Scheerer was not the only alternative name that Germar would use. Germar has a history of using pseudonyms to fraudulently reinforce his credibility. For example, in many of his reports he cites the work of “Dr Ernst Gauss”, who he was forced to admit during the trial was one of his many aliases. He also pretended to be the doctor of law Werner Kretschmer, the historian Christian Konrad NDr the pharmacologist, Rainer Scholz. After the trial, Germar avoided prison by fleeing to Spain via France. 

After the death of Otto, who had also fled German justice by fleeing to Spain, Germar moved to the United Kingdom under yet another false name. There he founded Castle Hill Publishers in Hastings in 1998 and published work by the Swiss Holocaust denier, Jürgen Graf. This drew the attention of the Sunday Telegraph and forced Germar to flee again out of fear of being extradited to Germany. 

Gemar moved to the United States where he married a US citizen and applied for political asylum, or at least for the right not to be expelled. However, this was rejected on the basis that the application had no merits and was a case of frivolous litigation. 

In 2000, Germar was contacted by fellow Holocaust denier, David Irving who asked him to write yet another report on Auschwitz to help his appeal following his conviction in the lawsuit he had brought against the historian Deborah Lipstadt. However an actual doctor of chemistry, Dr Richard J. Green, produced a scathing critique of Germar’s Report leading to David not submitting any work by Germar to the judge.

In 2005, Germar was extradited to Germany where, on arrival he was arrested in order to serve his outstanding 14 months. Whilst there, he was sentenced to a further two years and six months in prison for again inciting hatred in his book, Lectures on the Holocaust and a promotional Holocaust denial brochure. He was released in 2009 and after spending time in England, Mexico, and Panama, Germar moved back to the States where he resides with his wife and three children. 

Since his release Germar has continued to produce revisionist material and has appeared on several podcasts including the TDS. Recently he has been causing waves in the movement after publicly criticising Fred Leuchter and his report on Jim Rizoli’s internet show. There he stated that the report contained such egregious errors that they can’t have come from someone claiming to be an engineer. 

‘This statement in the Leuchter report showed me that the person who wrote this has no understanding of the technical issues. No technician, no engineer would ever make that mistake. But it is very common among people who don’t understand the concept of concentration. It’s very common from non-technicians and laypersons.’ – Germar Rudolf

Fred’s former good friend Jim also took this opportunity to distance himself from The Leuchter Report and Fred, stating that on several occasions Fred has continued to promote outdated revisionist theories that have been proven to be incorrect. Jim also took issue with Fred comparing himself to the Pope, something which he found inaccurate and distasteful. 

He calls himself the ‘Pope of the Holocaust’, um, uh, you know, like everything he says is one hundred percent true and you can’t go against it. Like he’s the Pope, ok? Uh, and I, I, uh, I just have a problem with it.’ – Jim Rizoli’

The most damning revelation from Germar and Jim’s conversation was the reveal that Fred did not write the Leuchter Report in the first place. According to Germar…

‘And the next thing Robert Faurisson said on the phone was “Do you know I wrote the Leuchter report?”. Came out of the blue and I was stunned into dead silence and you could hear the wheels in my head were working, rotating and the gears just…

And then I saw these two things falling into place. These stunning errors that a technician engineer would never make in the Leuchter report, and the way of… it is argued there that it’s just incorrect. And then, the similar way of arguing and making mistakes that were observed in those ten years in Robert Faurisson’s writing, then this stunning admission on the phone and these things fell into place, and that’s when I knew, that’s how I can explain how such dreadful errors can appear in a report that’s allegedly written by an engineer.’- Germar Rudolf

Germar goes on to raise a good point with regards to the legality of Fred fraudulently pretending to be the author of The Leuchter Report. 

‘I don’t even know legally speaking if that would be a legally actionable situation where you put the signature under a document that you didn’t write but you claim you wrote, and you testify under oath that it is mine when it isn’t, er… would that be fraud? – Germar Rudolf

Yes Germar, that would be fraud!

In 2020, Germar was found guilty of open lewdness and indecent exposure after he was discovered by a police officer at a children’s playground naked from from the waist down. Germar, unhappy about the court decision, has taken to social media to protest his innocence and has since started a GoFundMe page. The donations from the crowdsourcing site are to be used towards a defence fund to help to quench his conviction, allowing him to one day successfully apply for American citizenship.

He believes, at least according to the blurb on his GoFundMe page, that he is a victim of an American puritan society and their fashion police, who have a disdain for cheeky yet practical European work-out clothing. He believes their draconian rules – which don’t apply to women – are putting his life at risk by forcing him to wear “drab, dark-coloured clothes” along with the horror of wearing shorts that don’t rise higher than a little over the knees. 

“Women have no problems finding clothes fulfilling these basic criteria, for instance semi-sheer tank-tops and skimpy shorts in flamboyant colors and patterns.

But I am a man, and I refuse to commit suicide by wearing what U.S. society expects me to wear: drab, dark-colored clothes, and shorts that don’t rise higher than a little over my knees.

My survival during those early morning hours outdoors absolutely depends on wearing clothes that many people don’t tolerate on a man. They irrationally associate colors with sexual orientation or even perversion. They call the police, who in turn press trumped-up charges of “open lewdness” and “indecent exposure” because they don’t want males with short, neon-colored clothes working out outdoors in their neighborhood.

In the U.S., women can wear sexy, vibrantly colored clothes. Men can do so only at the risk of being harassed, persecuted and prosecuted.” – Germar Rudolf

Germar also uploaded a video to his GoFundMe page where he explained how it was impossible for the arresting officer to see him from his police car, as his view would have been obstructed by a childrens climbing frame and therefore he was the victim of a miscarriage of justice. He also claims that he was not naked from the waist down, but was in fact wearing a pair of skimpy running shorts.

The reason I bring attention to Germar’s lewdness is not just because it is hilarious, but because it is a perfect example of how he and his fellow revisionists construct their arguments. They like to get bogged down in the minutiae whilst purposely ignoring the bigger picture. Here, Germar’s entire counter argument centers on the arresting officer’s rough estimate of where he was relative to Germar at the children’s playground. What he does not mention is that the policeman testified that he physically saw Germar’s genitals, that Germar originally told the officer that it’s “OK to exercise naked in public in Germany”, that his original defence was that he was caught whilst changing into his running shorts, and that he had a bottle of baby oil on him when he was arrested. He also does not mention to the 188 people who parted $13,452 on his GoFundMe page that he was banned from the park in 2014 after previously being caught “exercising” naked. What I am basically saying is that cyanide-based residue is not the only evidence we have of homicidal gas chambers and by allowing ourselves to get bogged down on the insignificant, we miss the bigger picture. 

But more on that next time when I finally review Germar’s book.