In October, 1998, Lee Traynor, one of the leading German skeptics and organizer and publisher of German Skeptic events and literature, organized a seven-city lecture tour for me to speak on "Holocaust Denial: Attacks From the Right," a subject of considerable sensitivity and controversy in Germany. I lectured to a variety of audiences at university lecture halls and German Skeptic and Humanist meeting rooms (including a church in Aschaffenburg). Traynor is editor and translator, along with myself, of two collected readings on skepticism (taken from Skeptic magazine and other publications)--ARGUMENTE UND KRITIK and ENDZEITTAUMEL: PROPHETEN, PROGNOSEN, PROPAGANDA, with a third volume on pseudomedicine in the works for 1999.
Reactions to my Holocaust lecture were quite different from those of American audiences. Most Germans were amazed that anyone could question what they all recognize to be a tragic era in the history of their country. But they were also surprised to hear my spirited defense of the Holocaust deniers' freedom of speech. I argued that one should either ignore the deniers or debunk them, but to pass a law restricting their freedom of speech, or worse, to lock them up as criminals, was both immoral and impractical. Immoral because, in principle, once the constitutional apparatus is established to restrict speech, what would prevent someone else passing a law to restrict the freedom of speech in other matters? What if the Scientologists, another sensitive issue in Germany, were to gain political power and use the restricted-speech ("hate speech") laws to censor any criticism of Scientology? Impractical because, I explained from my experiences in dealing with the deniers, whenever a country censors, fines, or arrests a Holocaust denier they use that event as a means of raising money and gaining sympathy from supporters. Ignoring or debunking the deniers is the worst thing one can do to them. Censor, fine, or arrest them and they will make headlines out of it.
While in Germany, Traynor and I visited numerous German skeptical and humanist organizations, including the largest in the country (HVD -Humanistischer Verband Deutschlands - Humanist Union of Germany), located in Berlin, that handles a $30 million a year budget, most of which is used for teachers' salaries. In Germany there is no separation of church and state, so the country's three largest organizations are given equal time (about two hours a week) to instruct public school students in their beliefs. These three organizations include the Catholic Church, the Protestant Church, and the Humanistischer Verband Deutschlands! As shocking as this seems to Americans, humanists are actually given state money to present students every week with the doctrines that best represent a secular philosophy of life, including an ethical system that does not include God.
As part of a new German-American skeptic alliance, we will work closely with the German skeptics and humanists to bring the teaching methods and models from Germany to America through Skeptic and Jr. Skeptic magazine, and the Skeptics Society, to work toward the presentation of secular humanism and ethics to American adults and children. For further information contact Lee Traynor by e-mail at 100415.2365@CompuServe.Com and the German skeptics: Gesellschaft zur wissenschaftlichen Untersuchung von Parawissenschaften - Society for the Scientific Investigation of Parascience, (GWUP) at info@gwup.org
While in Berlin I visited the "Topography of Terror," located at the old bombed out site of the Gestapo headquarters. It is an amazing display of just how much control and power these guys had over the German people. There wasn't a town or village, indeed, probably a home in all of Germany that was not the domain of someone in the secret police to watch over. The Topography of Terror outlines this powerfully through visual displays of the staff pecking order from top to bottom.
We also visited the location of the Wannsee Conference, the famed meeting on January 20, 1942, in which Reinhard Heydrich, Adolf Eichman, and their underling thugs met to work out the details of the Final Solution. It is a beautiful two story, marbled-mansion located in a wealthy suburb of Berlin. You wind your way down lovely tree-lined streets, and the villa is nestled amongst trees on the shore of a beautiful river. Hard to believe that in this pleasant setting the mass murder of millions was arranged for and discussed. As a chilling thought, I give you the following statement from Eichman, recalling a hard day of work, that I am using as an epigram for my chapter on the Wannsee conference in my Holocaust book, DENYING HISTORY: WHO SAYS THE HOLOCAUST NEVER HAPPENED AND WHY DO THEY SAY IT, due out in 1999 from University of California Press:
"I remember that at the end of this Wannsee conference, Heydrich, Muller, and my humble self settled down comfortably by the fireplace, and that then for the first time I saw Heydrich smoke a cigar or a cigarette, and I was thinking: today Heydrich is smoking, something I have not seen before. And he drinks cognac--since I had not seen Heydrich take any alcoholic drink in years. After this Wannsee Conference we were sitting together peacefully, and not in order to talk shop, but in order to relax after the long hours of strain."
In today's parlance, it would be "We've just organized the murder of millions of innocent victims--Hey, it's Miller Time." Hard to believe and one leaves with a sick feeling in the pit of the stomach.
On a positive note, there is a terrific "Museum of German Resistance," located on Stauffenbergstr., named after the man who attempted to kill Hitler on July 20, 1944. A temporary exhibit featured the 1939 assassination attempt that just missed killing Hitler, at the Munich lecture hall where they were celebrating the anniversary of the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch. The bomb was planted in one of the pillars holding up the ceiling. It went off, but Hitler and most of his cronies had already left. The July 20, 1944 assassination, had it been successful, would not have changed much in the way of post-war Europe and the cold war, but a 1939 assassination would have changed everything! That's contingency!
We also visited Nuremburg and went to where the Nazis held their mass rallies. The structure still stands in front of a large soccer stadium, and kids play field hockey in the shadow of the very place Hitler addressed hundreds of thousands of his loyal followers. A very weird feeling standing there.
Lee Traynor also arranged for the editor of Psychologie Heute (PSYCHOLOGY TODAY) to interview me for the magazine. As the German version of my book, WHY PEOPLE BELIEVE WEIRD THINGS will be out next year, the interview, that also discusses Skeptic magazine and the Skeptics Society, will be a good introduction.