Introduction
Of course,
atrocity propaganda is nothing new. It has
accompanied every conflict of the 20th century
and doubtless will continue to do so. During the
First World War, the Germans were actually
accused of eating Belgian babies, as well as
delighting to throw them in the air and transfix
them on bayonets. The British also alleged that
the German forces were operating a "Corpse
Factory," in which they boiled down the bodies
of their own dead in order to obtain glycerine
and other commodities, a calculated insult to
the honour of an Imperial army. After the war,
however, came the retractions; indeed, a public
statement was made by the Foreign Secretary in
the House of Commons apologising for the insults
to German honour, which were admitted to be
war-time propaganda.
No such
statements have been made after the Second World
War. In fact, rather than diminish with the
passage of years, the atrocity propaganda
concerning the German occupation, and in
particular their treatment of the Jews, has done
nothing but increase its virulence, and
elaborate its catalogue of horrors. Gruesome
paperback books with lurid covers continue to
roll from the presses, adding continuously to a
growing mythology of the concentration camps and
especially to the story that no less than Six
Million Jews were exterminated in them. The
ensuing pages will reveal this claim to be the
most colossal piece of fiction and the most
successful of deceptions; but here an attempt
may be made to answer an important question:
What has rendered the atrocity stories of the
Second World War so uniquely different from
those of the First? Why were the latter
retracted while the former are reiterated louder
than ever? Is it possible that the story of the
Six Million Jews is serving a political purpose,
even that it is a form of political
blackmail?
So far as
the Jewish people themselves are concerned, the
deception has been an incalculable benefit.
Every conceivable race and nationality had its
share of suffering in the Second World War, but
none has so successfully elaborated it and
turned it to such great advantage. The alleged
extent of their persecution quickly aroused
sympathy for the Jewish national homeland they
had sought for so long; after the War the
British Government did little to prevent Jewish
emigration to Palestine which they had declared
illegal, and it was not long afterwards that the
Zionists wrested ftom the Government the land of
Palestine and created their haven from
persecution, the State of Israel. Indeed, it is
a remarkable fact that the Jewish people emerged
from the Second World War as nothing less than a
triumphant minority. Dr. Max Nussbaum, the
former chief rabbi of the Jewish community in
Berlin, stated on April 11, 1953: "The position
the Jewish people occupy today in the world --
despite the enormous losses -- is ten times
stronger than what it was twenty years ago." It
should be added, if one is to be honest, that
this strength has been much consolidated
financially by the supposed massacre of the Six
Million, undoubtedly the most profitable
atrocity allegation of all time. To date, the
staggering figure of six thousand million pounds
has been paid out in compensation by the Federal
Government of West Germany, mostly to the State
of Israel (which did not even exist during the
Second World War), as well as to individual
Jewish claimants.
DISCOURAGEMENT
OF NATIONALISM
In terms
of political blackmail, however, the allegation
that Six Million Jews died during the Second
World War has much more far-reaching
implications for the people of Britain and
Europe than simply the advantages it has gained
for the Jewish nation. And here one comes to the
crux of the question: Why the Big Lie? What is
its purpose? In the first place, it has been
used quite unscrupulously to discourage any form
of nationalism. Should the people of Britain or
any other European country attempt to assert
their patriotism and preserve their national
integrity in an age when the very existence of
nation-states is threatened, they are
immediately branded as "neo-Nazis". Because, of
course, Nazism was nationalism, and we all know
what happened then -- Six Million Jews were
exterminated! So long as the myth is
perpetuated, peoples everywhere will remain in
bondage to it; the need for international
tolerance and understanding will be hammered
home by the United Nations until nationhood
itself, the very guarantee of freedom, is
abolished.
Richard
E. Harwood
|