Letter by Ernst Zundel January 6, 2006 

Letter by Ernst Zundel January 6, 2006

An Ernst Zundel letter from the German Gulag

This letter was written to Yvonne, sister of Dr. Robert Faurisson of
France, both long-time intimate friends of Ernst's who understand
certain topics without having to have them spelled out.

For a more general audience, it needs to be explained that when Ernst
writes of forbidden topics, he is of course referring to topics
pertaining to the Holocaust - a word he is apparently not allowed to
mention critically in « democratic » Germany!

The « footnote in history » comment refers to a comment by French
nationalist leader Le Pen, who found himself in very hot political
water a few years ago for this disparaging description of the
Holocaust.

Here is Ernst's letter, as always edited and slightly shortened by me
to sharpen readability:

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Ernst Zündel
JVA Mannheim
Herzogenriedstr. 111
68169 MANNHEIM
Germany

6 Jan. 2006

As to letters - one Christmas letter, which came just a few days
before Christmas, was confiscated. I do not know its content - it
was signed R.F. During the second week of Christmas, 31 letters or
pieces of mail were received at the prison in one day! I was given
11 pieces, most of which were greeting cards. Only two were what I
call substantial letters, one from my brother and one from Ingrid, my
brave wife - the rest were just two, three words, a few sentences at
most, Christmas greetings, New Year's wishes. All enclosures of any
mentally stimulating or interesting nature are rigorously withheld
from me. That tells me more about the German mind-set than could a
thousand treatises about the state of human freedom in my pitiful
homeland!

Here is my answer, emphatically stated: Whatever else you do, do not
come to Germany, not under any illusion of safe conduct! This
entity, and its population, has had 60 years to free itself from its
mental shackles. [The Germans] are not in this situation for lack of
knowing what the facts are - they are, to one degree or another,
willfully blind out of cowardice, not out of ignorance of the facts!
More truth will not make me, or them, more free - it will only make
them more afraid, increasing their cowardice exponentially! Fear and
cowardice have their own rules. Fearful people are in a labyrinth of
terror, usually of their own making!

The Americans have a very deep, meaningful saying: «The coward dies
a thousand deaths - the brave man only once.»! I have often wondered
about my own people, out of whose [midst] I was born. Why this fear?
How can one explain the heroism of these people in war - and their
abject and continued cowardice when confronting the facts of their
own history?

I have no degree in psychology, I have no files here and no medical
books to prove my theory, but I am sure that there must be a medical
condition called «Schuld-und-Sühne Complex». [Transl. : A craving
for guilt and redemption.] Like any such affliction - like gambling
addiction, alcoholism, drug dependency - the patient first has to
admit that he has a problem - if he does not, all therapies will
fail. No amount of sacrifice [on my part] for decades, almost a half
century, has generated a ground-swell of meaningful self-liberation -
I am afraid that to expect any change in this situation would be a
cruel self-delusion.

How do I know? How can I be so sure? That's easy to answer. I was
afflicted by the same condition. I also know how difficult it is to
heal oneself through auto-detoxification or self-deprogramming. I
remember what terrible withdrawal symptoms I had to cope with - and,
yes, I had numerous relapses along the way. And I was young - my
«Weltbild», my picture of the world and history, was not yet very
deeply engrained, as it would be with others who by now have had 61
years of this incessant bombardment with only one version of an
event, to which ever fewer remaining eyewitnesses exist. Our
witnesses, that is!

I want you to understand that I will not discuss the topics that will
activate a Pavlovian response because I want you to receive this
letter. All letters are highly scrutinized, analyzed and mined; all
are combed for things I may express, which then will be used in court
against me. But one thing is really already clear - a spin-off side
effect to my persecution has started, unforeseen by my pursuers! It
surprises even me in its scope - and especially in its intensity.
That is far more important and far more fundamental, and that
spin-off side effect is [the scrutiny of] the legitimacy of the
system - never mind the legitimacy of the process [in my court case]
being employed!

Internationally, very few people outside a very, very narrow
specialty in international law, paid much attention to the «footnote
of history» as J. M. Le Pen would say, of just how this entity came
into being, who were its fathers, mothers. (We know the midwivesŠ)
This «footnote in history» is one of the founding myths [of post-war
Germany] which is now suddenly being examined - in the full light of
the publicity of [my court] proceedings. It's almost like future
doctors sitting in an amphit theater watching a forensic pathologist
or a professor of anatomy dissect a corpse or cadaver - this time a
state - to see what its background and political history are! And
that process was very rarely discussed or examined by a larger public
- now it is!

That's the last thing these forces [in the background] would have
liked to take place - for it is an issue which is fraught with a
comet's tail of judicial, legal, political and diplomatic
implications. Compared to that problem, the other issue is
peripheral. It really has been settled in 1988 [with the Leuchter
Report].

So I am looking forward with interest as to how this «wild card» in
the game will be dealt with. This surprise spin-off result is a bit
like a steel ball in one of the old American arcade pin ball
machines. Once the lever is pulled, the ball becomes unpredictable
as to where it will hit, what bells and lights it will set off, as it
winds itself through that confined [court room] where the action will
take place!

Suddenly, what [used to be] an obscure topic of a few specialists in
international law and international affairs becomes the subject of
heated discussions on websites the world over. Tens of millions of
visitors to websites like rense.com, whatreallyhappened.com and
others are awash in a debate everybody thought had been settled a
long, long time ago!

This debate is [our] victory! And my role in all this is to be
quietly sitting in the eye of the hurricane and watch in amazement as
the fireworks go off all around me!

Amazing development!

That's a short overview of what's up! My own fate is of peripheral
interest only to Ingrid, me, and my friends. There are few variables
possible, because [the outcome] is really only a matter of routine
performance to a foregone conclusion. But since I had no illusions,
only the naive and the uninformed will be surprised. I am not, and
will not be!

That brings me to the comments coming out of Iran in the last few
weeks and months. I was utterly stunned, but not by what was
allegedly said. What surprised me far more was the absolutely, out
of all proportions to the content, reaction in the Western world.
Nowhere else!

Please note - nowhere that I am aware of did anybody say anything,
much less do anything, to rein in their friend or ally, Iran.
Putin's Russia, a big arms supplier and trading partner, did not say
a peep! China, which has signed an enormously big oil exploration
resources agreement with Iran, worth between 35 to $50 billion, said
nothing, not a word of criticism. Neither did India, Pakistan, any
Arab (Moslem) country, Africa, or Latin America.

I think the deafening silence from around the world from the most
populous states and regions to the Iranian leader's outburst spoke
very loudly. In politics it is very often not as important what the
facts of any issue are - far more important is the perception of the
facts!

«In politics», Charles de Gaulle was fond in saying, «Nations know
no friends - only interests.»

The erosion of the old world order is accelerating. New power
centers, new super-powers with vast populations are forming. They
could not care less about a «footnote to history», a mere blip on the
radar screen of their ambitions! Oil is an interest of great
importance. So are markets for arms and industrial goods. Of what
worth, real worth, or strategic value are the temper tantrums of a
spoiled beggar client state on a small sliver of rocks and dust in
that area of the world?

I was, and am, like the biblical Samson!