Q. And you are, I understand, a graduate of Boston University, with a B.A. in a field that entitles you to function as an engineer. Is that right?
A. Yes, sir.{41}
That field was history.
Leuchter was also less than candid about his methodology. He repeatedly asserted that he obtained the “bulk” of his research material on the camps—including maps, floor plans and “original blueprints” for the crematoria—from the official archives at Auschwitz/Birkenau and Majdanek. He testified that these drawings and blueprints played a far more important role in shaping his conclusions than the samples he collected at the camp.{42} After the trial Kazimierz Smolen, the director of the Auschwitz museum, unequivocally denied that Leuchter had received any plans or blueprints from the museum.{43} He may have procured tourist materials sold in the official souvenir kiosks in the camps. (It may have been the same material thousands of visitors, myself included, have bought during visits to these sites.)
Irrespective of who gave him the materials, he acknowledged that he “didn’t see any necessity” to reveal to camp officials that he was asking questions in order to gather material for a scientific report or legal action.{44} Anyone who had visited a heavily frequented tourist site, which—for better or for worse—Auschwitz/Birkenau has become, knows that the caliber of the answers one receives from officials varies markedly. If they believe that they are speaking to someone who has a professional expertise pertaining to the site they tend to be more precise. Nor, for that matter, did he see any necessity to ask permission to violate the Polish law against defacing national monuments and memorials.{45}
As citations from Leuchter’s report were read, the judge’s impatience intensified. He characterzed Leuchter’s methodology as “ridiculous” and “preposterous.”{46} Ruling that “this report is not going to be filed,” the judge dismissed many of his conclusions as based on “second-hand information.” He refused to allow Leuchter to testify about the impact of Zyklon-B on humans because he was neither a toxicologist nor a chemist and had never worked with the gas.{47} Again and again the judge kept coming back to Leuchter’s capabilities and credibility:
THE COURT: His opinion on this report is that there were never any gassings or there was never any exterminations carried on in this facility. As far as I am concerned, from what I’ve heard, he is not capable of giving that opinion…. He is not in a position to say, as he said so sweepingly in this report, what could not have been carried on in these facilities.{48}
On the question of the functioning of the crematoria, despite the defense attorney’s opposition, the judge’s decision was unequivocal. He could not testify on this topic for a simple reason.
THE COURT: He hasn’t any expertise.{49}
The judge might have been even more irritated had he known that Leuchter misrepresented the extent of his familiarity with the operation of hydrogen cyanide. He told the court that he had discussed matters relating to the gas with the largest U.S. manufacturer of sodium cyanide and hydrogen cyanide, Du Pont, and that such consultation was “an on-going thing.” Leuchter was again being less than accurate. He may have obtained Du Pont’s published guidelines about the care needed in using hydrogen cyanide or any other of the myriad of substances the company manufactured. But Du Pont, denying Leuchter’s claims of ongoing consultations, stated that it had “never provided any information on cyanides to persons representing themselves as Holocaust deniers, including Fred Leuchter. Specifically, Du Pont has never provided any information regarding the use of cyanide at Auschwitz, Birkenau, or Majdanek.”{50}
But it was not only Leuchter’s scientific expertise, or lack thereof, which was questioned by the court. The judge also expressed serious doubts about Leuchter’s historical knowledge, which, as it emerged at the trial, was limited and often flawed. Leuchter was unaware of a host of documents pertaining to the installation and construction of the gas chambers and crematoria. He did not know of a report filed in June 1943 by the Waffen-SS commandant of construction at Auschwitz on the completion of the crematoria. The report indicated that the five crematoria had a total twenty-four-hour capacity of 4,756 bodies.{51} Leuchter had stated that the crematoria had a total capacity of 156 bodies in the same period of time.{52} Even if the SS’s calculation was overly “optimistic,” the difference between it and Leuchter’s was staggering. He also had to admit that he did not know that there existed correspondence and documentation regarding powerful ventilators installed in the gas chambers to extract the gas that remained after the killings. After hearing these and other admissions by Leuchter, Judge Thomas expressed his dismay that Leuchter had reached his conclusions despite the fact that he had only a “nodding acquaintance” with the history of the gas chambers. To suggest that he had any more than that, the judge declared, would be an insult.{53}
Leuchter told the court that his findings regarding Auschwitz were based on the supposition that the physical plant at the camps was the same today as it had been throughout the war.{54} He did not seem to know or take into account the fact that certain areas at Auschwitz had been rebuilt after the war. At Majdanek, Leuchter reached his conclusions knowing that he was looking at something that had been completely reconstructed. Hearing this, the judge dismissed the credibility of Leuchter’s analysis of the Majdanek facility.
THE COURT: We have no plans; we have a reconstruction. This witness is in no better position than I will be to give evidence on this point. He went to Majdanek; he has seen something and it is really just speculation. This is creating a tourist attraction. I’m not going to have evidence in this court about tourist attractions.{55}
Leuchter claimed that his scientific conclusions were based, in great measure, on the residue left by Zyklon-B. In addition to being used by the Nazis to murder people, the gas was used to delouse clothing and combat insects and rodents.{56} The samples Leuchter took from the delousing chambers contained a far higher residue of hydrogen cyanide than those from the homicidal gas chambers. The bricks of the delousing chambers generally showed far more of the blue coloration often left by hydrocyanic acid than did those in the homicidal gas chambers. Leuchter argued that this lower-level residue and stain were conclusive proof that the structures presented to visitors as homicidal facilities could not have been used for that purpose.
But both Faurisson and Leuchter either ignored or did not know a number of critically important facts. Lice, which were destroyed in the delousing chambers, have a far higher resistance to hydrogen cyanide than do humans. It takes a more concentrated exposure to cyanide gas over a longer period of time to kill lice than to kill humans, hence the more intense blue stain. When the Crown Counsel asked Leuchter about this, he declined to answer because it was an area about which he was not qualified to testify.{57} Yet he used the delousing chamber as a “control” for his findings.