I came to the Revisionist struggle quite late, and I have always been jealous of the lucky participants who lived high drama in the Zündel-Haus in the two historical 1985 and 1988 Great Holocaust Trials - the absolute highlight and outcome of which was the Leuchter Report.

How I would have loved to have been there - to chronicle and to report how history was made by a valiant and dedicated few! I always felt that the Leuchter segment itself deserved fair and impartial professional movie or documentary treatment. It was truly live drama at its best!

Well, guess what happened finally? A controversial Jewish film maker, Errol Morris, has put together a telling documentary. It already premiered at Robert Redford's Sundance Festival in America and will be featured in a Toronto film festival this September. Afterwards, it will play continent-wide, both in Canada and the United States. Although we all expect that it will have the conventional Holocaust Promotion spin-doctoring, we know that his important documentary will be another link that will become a bridge between the dry science and cold statistics that are the backbone of Revisionism - and popular understanding that there is obviously more to the "Holocaust" story than Hollywood has been willing to tell - until now.

Spin back to January 18, 1988, the anniversary of the founding of Bismarck's empire. That was the day when the Canadian Second Great Holocaust Trial began against the German-Canadian, Ernst Zündel. As he had done in 1985, the world's most dogged, controversial Revisionist, was getting ready to fight his arch-foes, the powerful Canadian Holocaust Lobby. All the experiences gained in the 1985 trial now bore rich fruit. He and his team, the witnesses, attorneys, translators etc., were working round the clock. Everything ran like a well-oiled machine.

The "Toronto Star", genuflecting to the Jewish delegates, who had visited the Star to ask for quasi-censorship, had promised that it would print its Zündel court-reports always on the same place and page inside the newspaper, and that it would take the personal approval of one of the highest bosses of Toronto's largest daily to print an account of the Zündel trial elsewhere in the paper, much less on the front page. The outcome of this decision was that the 66 articles printed in the Toronto Star about the 1988 Zündel Trial appeared on the same page and at the same place every day - easy for all the readers to find! It was as if the Zündel Team had its own column in the Star each day. Once again Jewish censors had shot themselves in the foot.

The Jewish Defense League and its thugs were on duty again on the first court day of 1988, just as they had been during the 1985 Zündel Trial. Zündel's bodyguards were numerically stronger this time and soon had the situation under control. They steadily fought their way through to the entrance of the courthouse.

The Toronto Police was also better prepared than they had been in 1985, and after only a few minutes the ringleaders of the Jewish thugs were lying face-down in the slush on the sidewalk, while Toronto policemen knelt on them and held them down, clicking the steel handcuffs securely in place. The media couldn't have asked for anything better! Their cameras clicked and whirred, and the none-too-pretty picture of the Jewish terrorists lying handcuffed on the ground soon appeared on TV screens and newspaper front pages throughout the country.

In the courtroom itself, Judge Thomas quickly hid behind the principle of "judicial notice", which is unique in Canadian court tradition but which occurs routinely in Revisionist trials in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

"Judicial notice" is a legal term and indicates that certain matters are not open to challenge and doubt - such as, for example, that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, or that night follows day. This was to be the principle pertaining to the "Holocaust." By judicial decree, it was declared to have happened. Period. The only question left for the jury to consider was: Was Holocaust Denier Zündel "villainous" in questioning the Holocaust - or was there a screw loose in his head?

To apply such a legal principle in such a serious historical court case in Canada, where so many issues were disputed, violated the Anglo-Saxon tradition of freedom of speech and civil rights. Defense attorney Doug Christie had to fight with the Judge over every word and every sentence. Christie was able to tone down the Judge's "judicial notice of the Holocaust"; unfortunately he could not prevent it entirely.

This was important: it meant that Zündel was not to be allowed to defend himself with all the facts at his disposal. The Judge forbade it. The only question that remained was whether he was ". . . too dumb to understand the self-evident", or whether he acted ". . . with malicious intent against the Jews" when he dared to raise his questions about the "Holocaust"! After all, the "self-evident" nature of the Holocaust could be shown and "proven" with hundreds of books, written by witnesses and historians and freely available in any library!

All this in 1988!

Christie told Zündel that, given Judge Thomas's "judicial notice", he could not possibly win the case for his client. He advised Zündel to restrict his defense to a minimum, not to waste his time and energy, and to save the money required for the enormous costs entailed in the defense. Christie kept beseeching Zündel: "Before this Judge, in this courtroom, in this court, the battle is hopeless! I can't win it for you!"

Zündel requested time to think it over. A few days later he called his team together, outlined the situation and told them: "We're going to go on! This time I am not fighting for myself. I'm fighting for the honor of my country and my people. I want to have our extremely important witness testimony recorded in the Canadian court transcripts and the history books for all time."

The outcome was now a foregone conclusion - or so it was believed.

The media pressure and the threats of violence against Zündel diminished markedly after the Judge has taken "judicial notice" of the Holocaust. The uniformed policemen, who to date had accompanied Zündel's every step, even in the courthouse and on his way to the washroom, disappeared. Zündel and Christie took hours-long walks through the snowy parks near the Zündel-Haus and discussed in detail all the possibilities that were still open to them. On the discussion agenda were the specialists, witnesses and court experts who had come from all parts of the world to help.

Zündel sounded out their attitudes, and in the end he himself set the course for the trial: in spite of his attorneys' and some of his foremost advisors' recommendations, he would see the trial through as planned - in-depth and as tough as it had been envisioned. Salami tactic all the way!

He declared that it would be attorney Christie's task to block, to bypass, to ignore the Judge's "judicial notice", to hollow it out and to cut it down to size, bit by bit, with a kind of "policy of small steps", until in the end the Zündel Team would be able to demolish or at least invalidate a large part of the government's evidence. The witnesses for the defense would attempt to have all their documents submitted and discussed in court - regardless of the outcome.

In this way the Zündel Team dug down into the subject matter in a kind of judicial trench warfare - much like many battles were fought in the First and often in the Second World War!

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The Zündel-Haus became the Command Bunker extraordinaire. Phone calls, fax letters and press releases were fired out into the world - daily and sometimes hourly. A second house was rented to accommodate the guests and the additional bodyguards, witnesses, lawyers, secretaries etc. Everywhere, important documents were analyzed, sorted, classified, and reproduced on five photocopiers, to be produced and submitted in court at the right time. The psychic energy was high; production was spectacular.

Soon everything was running smoothly.

In the course of the trial, cooks prepared almost 6,000 meals, which were eaten jointly in two large canteen-like dining rooms. Carpenters reconstructed "Auschwitz beds" exactly as per the design of the bunk beds of Auschwitz - and witnesses, advisers and typists slept right there in the building, crowded like sardines, in bunks stacked up to four high.

Inside the courtroom, day in, day out, Zündel's team of lawyers and advisors now revised and rewrote Germany's recent history - "judicial notice" or no "judicial notice"! The Crown attorney and the Judge could hardly believe their eyes and ears, clearly frustrated by the happenings. Slice by slice and day by day, the old Holocaust version was dissected, scrutinized, debunked!

In the midst of the legal proceedings, electrifying news hits the Zündel-Haus much like a lightning bolt! The Warden of one of the largest American prisons, Bill Armontrout, who was to serve as Zündel-witness and to testify about the complicated technical requirement of gassings, suggested his expert, Fred Leuchter from Boston, as witness for the defense in questions pertaining to gas chambers!

Fred Leuchter, he said, was the man who was currently the only expert and consultant in the entire United States on matters of execution equipment, including electric chairs and gas chambers! Armontrout even had the address and telephone number of this potential expert witness on hand!

What a sensation! The legal team had not even known that such an expert existed!

Zündel reacted with lightning speed, even though he was already in the midst of the actual trial proceedings. Without hesitation he sent his foremost adviser, Professor Robert Faurisson, to Boston to check Leuchter out.

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At that time the Great Holocaust Trial of 1988 took place, Fred Leuchter was a highly respected professional in the United States "execution industry". He was regarded as the Number One Expert in the designing and operating of execution equipment for criminals sentenced to die for their crimes. As he later admitted, even though he should have known better, he had never given any thought to the technical impossibility of what was claimed so noisily and repeatedly as having been the "genocidal gassings" of millions of Jews by the Germans. Prior to getting involved and entangled in the Revisionist movement - largely much against his will, since he was thoroughly apolitical and certainly without any inkling of the serious consequences to his reputation and career - Leuchter's expertise and integrity had never been questioned. Little did he know what was awaiting him.

Dr. Faurisson, Europe's most noted Revisionist and Zündel advisor, flew to Boston to engage Fred Leuchter as an expert witness for the defense in this historical struggle. He soon found out that Leuchter believed in the Holocaust and that he did not doubt the gas chambers, insofar as he had heard about them. However, everything else about Leuchter indicated that here was a man who knew what he was doing, that he understood his job - and that he was honest and professionally ethical.

Leuchter was asked to come to Toronto to meet with Doug Christie and speak with the other experts - to analyze and to familiarize himself with the documents and testimony of both sides, especially Dr. Raoul Hilberg's trial transcripts of the 1985 trial and the statements in his books. The models of Auschwitz and Birkenau, which the Zündel team had constructed to scale from German blueprints, discovered by Dr. Faurisson, were also shown and explained to him.

Zündel asked Leuchter for a cost estimate for his expert report and testimony. The price was steep; but the testimony was extremely important.

Now what to do?

Zündel made a bold decision. Leuchter would not merely testify. He would go after evidence first-hand! But from where was the extra money to come for Leuchter's trip to Auschwitz, the on-site inspection, the taking of samples and their subsequent analysis in a US laboratory?

Zündel examined bank statements and current income from donations. He compared the constantly accruing expenses and considered tapping his strategic financial reserve. He sounded out his supporters to see whether any extra donations might be obtained. It was tough going - the funds were just not there.

Meanwhile, Leuchter flew back to Boston.

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Time was of the essence, since the trial was already approaching half-time. Zündel spent entire nights on the telephone and explained the situation to donors both large and small. In the end, some larger contributions from several elderly German women and men became the deciding factor in this historically so exceedingly important decision.

Together with a small, quickly-assembled group of translators, draughtsmen, video- and cameramen, Leuchter would fly to Auschwitz and Majdanek in what was then still Communist Poland. He would examine and measure the facilities and draw up precise technical building and construction plans. Working meticulously to prevent contamination, he would take material samples, wrap them up carefully, and smuggle them back to the United States, where a well-known laboratory would examine and analyze them for their Zyklon B content. This dramatic expedition was to be carried out clandestinely while the trial still continued in Toronto.

At the Zündel-House it felt like at the General Staff's Headquarters during wartime! People were busy planning, testing, measuring, weighing, packing. Work plans were drawn up. Visas, passports and plane tickets were arranged in a great hurry.

And then the word was: "Silence!"

The Zündel-Leuchter-Holocaust-Expedition left North America and Europe at different times and via different airports. Friendly Poles awaited them to be of assistance at the other end. Everything went off without a hitch.

The rest is Revisionist history!

Leuchter's investigation was first rate pioneering work! It has since been replicated and expanded on three times - in the Lüftl Report, the Rudolf Report, and the Cracow Report - with virtually the same results. Today millions of people around the world know that the forensic evidence of Leuchter's report and Professor Roth's sample analysis have acquitted Germany of the genocide of the Jews by means of "gas chambers."

Later this year, the Leuchter Saga will be shown in American theaters under the title: "Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred Leuchter."

Watch for the truth beneath the Holocaust Enforcers' spin.

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