witness wrote:Roberto wrote:
Smith wrote:The Morgenthau Plan was less Genocidal than the plans of Kaufmann and Schmitt,
A remark for my list of Smithsonian quotes. Guess why.
Because the sentence is not ...hmmm ( for politeness sake ) say reasonable. ?
To put it very mildly ?
The reason is that Smith usually makes a fuss about the term "genocide", claiming that it is a subjective political term without a precise meaning the application of which depends on "whose ox is being gored".
Yet in regard to the Jew Kaufman's ramblings about sterilizing Germans, he seems to have no problem in using the term with a capital "G", even though Kaufmann was a lonesome lunatic no one ever took seriously.
Theodore Kaufman
The ideology of Holocaust denial necessarily must deal in moral equivalencies. The Daily Express headline and Chaim Weizmann’s letter are two of the most salient examples. However, the most interesting and provocative figure is not a Nazi or even a prominent Jew. Rather, it is an obscure Jewish writer named Theodore Kaufman.
Very little is known about Kaufman. The information available on him suggests that he was a loner with no ties to any organization. Kaufman wrote a book entitled Germany Must Perish in 1941. The theme of his book is that most Germans were an inherently warlike and aggressive people who would forever be starting a war unless something was done to stop them. His solution was to sterilize the Germans so that they could not procreate. However, this sterilization plan did not apply to German-Americans.
Kaufman’s book does not appear to have been reviewed in any publications. It is not listed in the Book Review Digest for 1941 and 1942. This is not unusual since he had to publish the book under the Argyle Press, in Newark, New Jersey. The Argyle Press was a creation of Kaufman himself. Nevertheless, denier Paul Rassinier saw Kaufman’s book as constituting a major threat to Germany. Similarly, Wilhelm Stäglich cited Kaufman as justification for Germany’s anti-Jewish policies.
Both Kaufman and his book would probably have gone completely unnoticed if it had not been for a Time article on March 24, 1941. This is where David Irving, ever the inventor of historical desideratum, enters the Kaufman fiasco. Underneath a photograph of Kaufman, Irving states that Time “lauds the book.” Irving writes: “The [book’s] dust cover carried endorsements from Time magazine, the Washington Post and the New York Times. Irving gives Kaufman prominent attention in his Goebbels book. He even goes so far as to quote from Eichmann’s memoirs that “Kaufman ’s plan for the complete Ausrottung of the German people was known to us at the time when the first order was given for the physical destruction of the Jews.” Thus, there is an implication, subtly stated, that Germany’s destruction of the Jews was a defensive measure. Interestingly, here Irving uses the word ausrottung as meaning extermination.
The cover of the book that Irving reproduces states that this is “The Book that Hitler Fears.” However, this cover and the alleged endorsement cited by Irving on the back cover as not from the original book. Germany Must Perish was republished by Liberty Bell Publications in 1980, a printing arm of the neo-Nazi Liberty Lobby. On the inside of the book’s front cover we are told that “[t]his book so completely unnerved Dr. Goebbels that he denounced it on the front of every newspaper in Germany and over the entire German radio network.”
These claims will now be examined.
Time magazine was said to have called the theme of this book “a sensational idea”. Both the book’s back cover and an article by Irving quote this portion of the Time article. The reason for this is obvious: both Liberty Bell and Irving are attempting to give the impression that a significant American media outlet was endorsing Kaufman’s idea. However, not surprisingly, this quote is taken out of context. Time analogized Kaufman’s idea to that of an early 18th century writer, Dean Swift, who proposed that Ireland cure its economic ills by selling “its starving children as dressed meat.” Time also notes: “no less grisly than the Dean’s it [Kaufman’s idea] was not even supposed to be ironic.”
Time article on Kaufman’s book is totally derisive. Kaufman is subjected to ridicule and compared to Nazi Jew-baiter and publisher Julius Streicher. Kaufman’s book is stated to be “[s]trictly a one man job” and he informed Time that he did not have any organization or backers. He had done all of the legwork in promoting the book. However, the most significant part of the Time article deals with Kaufman’s first sterilization plan. In 1939 he advocated sterilizing “Americans so that their children might not become homicidal monsters. In step with the times, Sterilizer Kaufman had simply transferred his basic idea to the enemy.” Thus, any rational person reading this article would have understood that Kaufman was (1) mentally unbalanced (2) spoke only for himself and (3) had a morbid fascination with sterilization.
The so-called endorsement from the New York Times is non-existent. The back cover of the Liberty Bell edition of the book cites the Times as calling Kaufman’s idea “A plan for Permanent Peace Among Civilized Nations”! However, the New York Times only discusses Kaufman twice in 1941 and neither article speaks favorably of the book. As for the Washington Post “endorsement”, it is as apocryphal as that of the New York Times. Using the methodology of Liberty Bell and Irving one could argue that Irving endorsed the book because he calls it “extraordinary.”
Nevertheless, Irving does give some indication that the book was used for propaganda purposes. Irving notes that Goebbels “gleefully” wrote in his diary: “This Jew has done a disservice to the enemy. If he had composed the book at my behest he couldn’t have done a better job.” Goebbels also “issued the book with a photograph showing President Roosevelt apparently dictating the contents.” The German Press was also claiming that Roosevelt supported and inspired the book. At the time Germany and the United States were not at war. We may someday see a denier accusation that Germany’s declaration of war on the United States was because of Kaufman’s book.
[…]
For obvious reasons deniers prefer to ignore Streicher and focus on Kaufman. Thus, Rassinier goes so far as to claim that “Kaufman’s voice was the [sic] tocsin of the forthcoming entry of the United States into the war …” In an attempt to justify Hitler’s Jewish policies, Rassinier quotes Kaufman as stating the German Jews agreed with his sterilization plans. In fact, Kaufman wrote no such thing. Moreover, Kaufman’s book says very little about Jews under Nazi rule.
[…]
The Kaufman saga does not end with Germany Must Perish in 1941. In 1942 Kaufman wrote a pamphlet entitled No More German Wars. In this pamphlet Kaufman says nothing about sterilization. He offers a ten point peace plan for Germany after the war. Among his proposals were: a system of education to inculcate German youth with democratic ideals; a works program for German soldiers returning from the war; and an economic council to strike a balance between German imports and exports. For obvious reasons, no denier has even mentioned this pamphlet. However, these types of ideas, especially inculcation of democratic ideals, were responsible for the post war West German economic and political resurgence. It would seem only fair that if deniers want to blame Kaufman for having a hand in the events of World War II, they should also credit him with bringing about Germany’s post war emergence as a political and economic force in European affairs.
Source of quote:
John C. Zimmerman,
Holocaust Denial, pages 166-170.
