This is Chapter X of Alexander Werth’s excellent book – ‘Russia At War’ – entitled ‘A Short Chapter On A Vast Subject: German Crimes in the Soviet Union’ (Pages 700-709). This is a ‘1964’ First Edition (hardback) which I acquired in person from a bookshop in Hay-on-Wye – probably around 2007. Later additions possess various ‘Forewords’ and ‘Introductions’ added by Publishers and designed to add a pro-US Cold War atmosphere that is simply NOT present in the original. Alexander Werth was born in Russia but was brought up as a middle-class British child when his parents migrated when he was very young. As a BBC Journalist who could read, write and speak the Russian language – he was placed in the frontline (or there abouts) of the Soviet Red Army and witnessed first-hand what many historians can only speculate about, fabricate and distort! Nowhere does Alexander Werth use the term ‘Holocaust’ when discussing Nazi German barbarism!
The post-1945 ‘Cold War’ era saw the anti-intellectualism that defines the internal workings of American society expanded to dominate and define the historical processes occurring in the outside world. Since 1991 and the collapse of the USSR – many ethnic Russians take advantage of the huge sums of money being offered by US Publishers to write false narratives that support the ahistorical narratives the Americans have been peddling for years! One such Russian claims to be the son of Alexander Werth and has been busy since 1992 (but not before) going around stating that his father took his own life following the Soviet Red Army action in Czechoslovakia in 1968! As if a man who had witnessed the Nazi German Army, SS and SD in action in the Soviet Union would be bothered by a legitimate act of ‘anti-fascism’ designed to crush the very Hitlerite ideology he knew the very real danger of!
Although i have my issues with David Irving – the British historian – when I was young his history books regarding WWII and Nazi Germany were on every library shelf. The problem he has had is that he has been unable to distance his right-wing political views from the objective historical narratives he has been able to get published in the mainstream press. Indeed, as he got older David Irving has become ever more vocal about his beliefs and this has ultimately led to his books being pulled from all mainstream Publishers and libraries, etc. He has also been imprisoned in Austria – found ‘Guilty’ of ‘Holocaust Denial’. Irving, true to form, blames the Jewish lobby for this reaction. Irving seems to think that it is only Jewish people who find Hitlerism repulsive – but this is obviously not true, This is has been compounded by the US propaganda offensive which routinely states that there was NO difference between the USSR and Nazi Germany – even though 41 million Soviet men, women and children were killed and maimed entirely due to this ‘difference’ – which very much existed!
David Irving has written good narrative history that is sometimes spoilt by his misinterpretations and misrepresentations due to his political bias. On the other hand, some of his insights cannot be ignored. An interesting point that David Irving does makes is that until 1970, the term ‘Holocaust’ did not appear in the Western historical record. According to Irving, the term ‘Holocaust’ only started to appear from 1971 onwards. I have tested this observation in three ways by investigating the following historical sources:
1) Editor-in-Chief David J Hogan, The Holocaust Chronicle – A History in Words and Pictures, Publications International (Louis Weber), Ltd, (2003)
Although the term ‘Holocaust’ is used (and ‘etymologically’ explained) all the way through this massive A-Z compendium of Nazi German criminality – there does not exist an entry under ‘H’ specifically examining the ‘historicity’ of the term ‘Holocaust’. On the face of it, this seems a strange omission. The term is now so common that it seems almost like common-sense to refer to this Nazi German criminality as comprising the ‘Holocaust’. However, the Publisher – Louis Weber – has this to say at the beginning of his ‘A Message from the Publisher’:
‘A booklet published in Jerusalem in 1940 by the United Aid Committee of the Jews in Poland termed the extermination of Europe’s Jews sho’ah, a Hebrew word for mass slaughter. In the 1950s the word ‘Holocaust’ came into common usage to describe the catastrophe that befell the Jews during the wars years.’ (Page 3)
This clearly contradicts the assertion of David Irving (although no evidence of this ‘booklet’ is provided) – which relies upon some type of Jewish cabal holding a secret meeting in 1970 – before disseminating the resulting decision throughout the world’s academia! Although much of the data contained within this encyclopaedia is verifiable – there is obviously a pro-US, pro-capitalist and anti-Socialist agenda at work. I am of the opinion that not all of its pontifications are correct. For instance, whilst speaking in glowing terms about the history of ‘Zionism’ – the authors fail to mention the UN (1975) Declaration which states that ‘Zionism’ is a form of ‘White Supremacy’ devised by ‘White’ (middle-class) Jews in late 19th century Germany. Furthermore, the authors of this encyclopaedia take the 1943 Nazi German ‘Report’ (written by Josef Goebbels) as their supposed factual ‘standard’ for what happened in the ‘Katyn’ Forests:
‘April 8-11, 1940: Soviet troops massacre 26,000 Polish officers in Katyn near Smolensk, Russia. Many jews are among the victims.’ (Page 193)
Despite the editors stating that ‘fact checking’ is in operation throughout this ‘Holocaust Chronicle’ – the above is obviously incorrect and constitutes ‘disinformation’. This ‘fake news’ is taken entirely from Josef Goebbels’ (Nazi German) ‘Committee of Enquiry’ (1943)! Fortunately, Alexander Werth explains just how the Soviet government explained Goebbels’ latest set of lies to the Soviet population. This constitutes a far more reliable ‘fact checking’ than can be observed operating in the ‘Holocaust Chronicle’:
‘The news was sprung on a startled Russian public in an official communique on April 16, 1943:
“Goebbels’s gang of liars have, in the last two or three days been spreading revolting and slanderous fabrications about the alleged mass shootings by Soviet organs of authority in the Smolensk area, in the spring of 1940. The Germans statement leaves no doubt about the tragic fate of the former Polish war prisoners who, in 1941, areas west of Smolensk, engaged on building, and who, together with many Soviet people, inhabitants of the Smolensk Province, fell into the hands of the German hangman, after the withdrawal of the Soviet troops from Smolensk… In this clumsy fabrication about numerous graves which the Germans are supposed to have discovered near Smolensk, Goebbels’s liars mention the village of Gnerzdovaya; but they deliberately omit to mention the fact that it was precisely here, near Gnerzdovaya, that archaeological excavations were in progress on the so-called Gnerzdovaya Tumulus… With this faking of facts, and these stories of Soviet atrocities in the spring of 1940, the Germans…are trying to shift on to the Russians the blame for their own monstrous crime…
These professional German murderers, who have butchered hundreds of thousands of Polish citizens in Poland, will deceive no one with such lies and slander…”
The position became a little clearer a few days later; or, at least, one thing now became perfectly clear – and that was that Goebbels had engineered a first-class diplomatic row.
On the 19th, the Pravda editorial indignantly wrote:
“Goebbels’s fabrication has been taken up not only by his German scribes, but, to everybody’s amazement, by the ministerial circles of General Sikorski… The Polish Ministry of Information knows perfectly well the purpose of this German provocation, for it says itself: ‘We are used to the lies of German propaganda, and can understand the purpose of its latest revelations.’ Yet, in spite of this, the Ministry of Information can think of nothing better than to appeal to the International Red Cross with the request to ‘investigate’ something that never existed, or, rather, had been fabricated by the hangman of Berlin, who are now trying to attribute their crime to the Soviet organs [i.e. the NKVD]. They have been caught by this German bait. It is not surprising that Hitler should also have appealed to the International Red Cross. Yet this is not the first case of its kind: already in Lwow in 1941 they staged ‘The victims of Bolshevik Terror.’ Hundreds of witnesses then showed up the German liars. [The article then referred to Sovinformbureau’s statement on the subject of August 8, 1941.]
Feeling the indignation of the whole of progressive humanity over their massacres of peaceful citizens, and particularly of Jews, the Germans are now trying to rouse the anger of the gullible people against the Jews: for this reason they invented a whole collection of mythical ‘Jewish Commissars’ who, they say, took part in the murder of the 10,000 Polish officers. For such experienced fakers it was not difficult to invent a few names of people who never existed – Lev Rybak, Avraam Borisovich, Paul Brodninsky, Chaim Finberg. No such persons ever existed either in the ‘Smolensk Section of the OGPU,’ or in any other section of the NKVD. In the light of these facts, the request made by the Polish Ministry of National Defence to the International Red Cross can be regarded only as a demonstration of their desire to give direct aid to Hitler’s forgers and provocateurs.‘
Alexander Werth: Russia At War 1941-1945, Barrie and Rockliff, (1964) Chapter VI The Technique of Building a New Poland – Pages 645-647
Interestingly, whilst the ‘Holocaust Chronicles’ falsely states that ‘26,000’ Polish officers were found at Katyn – the general number given is usually ‘10,000’ – but the Polish government in exile in London contested that the mass grave contained only ‘4,000’ bodies. During January, 1944, the Soviets led an Enquiry at Katyn to establish the facts. This included a large number of Western correspondents amongst whom was ‘Kathie Harriman’ – the daughter of US Ambassador – Averell Harriman. The Soviets proved that all the victims were shot with a single German-made pistol bullet in the back of the head whilst kneeling with their hands tied behind their backs – ‘SS’ style. Not only this – but this Nazi German massacre took place in ‘1941’ – when the Soviet Red Army was not in the area, etc. After the war, the US government buried the 1944 Russian Report it participated in – and instead emphasised the ‘1943’ Goebbels’ Report – just as the ‘Holocaust Chronicle’ chose to do in 2003. If the ‘Holocaust Chronicle’ can ‘lie’ about ‘Katyn’ – have the authors also ‘lied’ about the history of the term ‘Holocaust’?
2) Earl F Ziemke and Magna E Bauer: Moscow to Stalingrad – Decision in the East, Military Heritage Press (New York), (1988) – Volume 1
Earl F Ziemke: Stalingrad to Berlin – The German Defeat in the East, Center of Military History United States Army, Washington DC, Dorset Press, (1968) – Volume II
Oddly, I have this two-volume set in my library despite the fact that volume I is from 1988 (a later edition) and volume II is from a 1968 (an earlier edition). These were the only two copies available in the (antique) London bookshop at the time I discovered them. This two-volume set carefully documents the Nazi German invasion of the Soviet Union – and all the battles that then unfolded between 1941-1945 – until the final defeat of Nazi Germany (and the fall of Berlin). This study includes every theatre of operation – including Finland and Norway, etc, and yet at NO time do the authors use the term ‘Holocaust’. This does not deny that the ‘Holocaust’ happened – but rather suggests that at this time (the 1960s) – this extraordinary ‘mass killing’ was referred to by other names such as ‘Final Solution’, ‘Special Treatment’, ‘Transportation’ and ‘atrocity’, etc. In this case, this observation would support the assertion of David Irving.
3) Alexander Werth: Russia At War 1941-1945, Barrie and Rockliff, (1964)
In fact, having looked through all the Alexander Werth books I possess in my library – NONE use the term ‘Holocaust’ – despite the fact Werth wrote extensively about the atrocities committed by the Nazi Germans. He was the first BBC Correspondent to make a report (in 1944) when he encountered the ‘Majdanek’ Death Camp in Poland. As a Journalist ‘Specialising’ in the USSR – Werth made a point of carefully examining the Hitlerite murder and maiming of the 41 million Soviet men, women and children which suffered during WWII. Nowhere does Werth use the term ‘Holocaust’. Finally, David Irving’s book regarding the biography of Josef Goebbels states that 26 high-ranking Nazi German Military Officers were captured by the Soviet NKVD – and whilst under intense interrogation – all admitted participating in the ‘1941’ mass execution of Polish officers at Katyn! Goebbels was concerned that his carefully crafted ‘lie’ about the Soviets committing this crime would now be undermined! He need not had worried as in 2003 the so-called ‘Holocaust Chronicle’ would repeat his ‘lie’ in a book designed to ‘Remember’ the Nazi German crimes that Goebbels himself helped to design and perpetuate! Again, not one mention about the millions of people killed in the world by US and Western military action since 1945 – designed to enforce predatory capitalism upon any population! This demonstrates the ‘politics’ of the ‘Holocaust’ industry and business!
SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 