Fred A. Leuchter
Encyclopedia
Frederick A. Leuchter, Jr. is an American
Federal Court
qualified expert in execution technology and author of forensic Holocaust denial
material. He claims to have improved the design of instruments for capital punishment
and had execution equipment contracts with several states. Subsequently, Leuchter became known for his testimony
in defense of Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel
in 1988. His study for Zündel's trial is referred to as the Leuchter report
after it was published by Zündel as such and is often framed as a scientifically based work of Holocaust denial, though his research methods and findings have been refuted. An Errol Morris
documentary on the controversy, entitled Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr.
, was released in 1999.
in 1964 and later conducted post-graduate studies at the Harvard-Smithsonian Astronomical Observatory. Leuchter holds patents for a geodetic instrument and an electronic sextant. Leuchter has said he is not an engineer and misled people about his expertise. According to the New York Times, before selling execution equipment Leuchter was a former dealer in military surveillance equipment.
. His initial work was with electric chair
s, starting in Tennessee
. Leuchter's broader claims are that his work in this area is "humanitarian", providing greater respect for both guards and those to be executed. He also claims that he offered his services at considerable economy: off-the-shelf parts, labor, and a 20% profit. By his own account, consultation between state government agencies spread his reputation from Tennessee to other states, and further assignments followed. Leuchter "aggressively solicited business" and in 1985 the state of New Jersey
purchased Leuchter's proposal for a lethal injection
system for $30,000.
On October 24, 1990 The New York Times
described him as "self-proclaimed execution expert and manufacturer of death machinery" who "was charged today in a Middlesex County
District Court with fraudulently practicing engineering." It quoted Dr. Edward A. Brunner, chairman of the anesthesia
department at Northwestern University Medical School, as saying Leuchter's lethal injection system would indeed paralyze
a condemned criminal with Pavulon, but far from being humane this paralysis would merely stop the prisoner from screaming at the "extreme pain in the form of a severe burning sensation" caused by the potassium chloride
injection. (Potassium chloride is commonly used in judicial execution through lethal injection.) A subsequent article in the June 13, 1991 edition of New York Times details his agreement with prosecutors to "serve two years probation
for practicing engineering without a license."
reported Alabama
Assistant Attorney General
Ed Carnes calling Leuchter's views on the gas chamber "unorthodox" and alleging that "Leuchter was running a death row shakedown scheme: if a state didn't purchase Leuchter's services, he would testify at the last minute for the condemned man that the state's death chamber might malfunction." The Associated Press
quoted Carnes claiming that Leuchter made "money on both sides of the fence." In his memorandum to death penalty states, Carnes observed that in Florida and Virginia the federal courts had rejected Leuchter's testimony as unreliable. The court in Florida
had found that Leuchter had "misquoted the statements" contained in an important affidavit
and had "inaccurately surmised" a crucial premise of his conclusion.
In Virginia
, Leuchter provided a death row inmate's attorney with an affidavit claiming the electric chair
would fail. The Virginia court decided the credibility of Leuchter's affidavit was limited because Leuchter was "the refused contractor who bid to replace the electrodes in the Virginia chair."
, who was being tried in Canada
for publishing works of Holocaust denial
, to investigate and testify as an expert witness at his trial, at a salary of $30,000. Leuchter was recommended to Zündel by Bill Armontrout, warden for Missouri State Penitentiary
in Jefferson City, Missouri
. In his capacity as warden, Armontrout was personally responsible for carrying out executions by the use of cyanide
gas. Leuchter traveled to Auschwitz and Birkenau to examine the structures identified by guards, prisoners, and investigators, as gas chamber
s, and concluded that they could not have been used for mass murder
.
Zündel's Samisdat Publications published his findings as The Leuchter Report: An Engineering Report on the Alleged Execution Chambers at Auschwitz, Birkenau, and Majdanek Poland (published in England as Auschwitz: The End of the Line: The Leuchter Report - The First Forensic Examination of Auschwitz) which the court accepted only as evidentiary display and not as direct evidence; Leuchter was therefore required to explicate it and testify to the veracity of his findings under oath in the trial. His report was widely republished and translated by various denial organizations, and he has since lectured on it and his subsequent experiences. Protests were organized in response.
In 1988, Leuchter traveled to several sites of structures identified as gas chambers, where, although he did not have permission to do so, he collected samples from walls, ceilings and floors, using a chisel and hammer to chip and scrape off pieces of the masonry. He took copious notes about the floor plans and layout, and all of his actions were videotaped by a cameraman. (Leuchter, who had been married for about one month before the trip, told his wife that the trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau was their honeymoon.) Leuchter then brought the samples back to Boston
, where he presented them to Alpha Analytical Laboratories, a chemical laboratory, for testing. Leuchter told Alpha only that the samples were to be used as evidence in a court case about an industrial accident. The lab tested them for exposure to cyanide
and found trace amounts in the crematoria, which Leuchter dismissed in his report:
Leuchter compares the low amounts in the Krema to the higher readings in his positive control sample.
Lab manager James Roth swore under oath to the results at the trial. It was only after he got off the stand that Roth learned what the trial was about. In an interview for Morris' film, Roth states that cyanide would have formed an extremely fine layer on the walls, to the depth of one-tenth of a human hair. Leuchter had taken samples of indeterminate thickness (he is seen in Morris' film hammering at the bricks with a rock hammer). Not informed of this, Roth had pulverized the entire samples, thus severely diluting the cyanide-containing layer of each sample with an indeterminate amount of brick, varying for each sample. Roth offers the analogy that the tests were like "analyzing paint on a wall by analyzing the timber that's behind it."
Leuchter did not examine the walls of the gas chambers until 50 years after they had been used; his critics note that it would have been virtually impossible to discover any cyanide at all using his method. In fact, tests conducted on ventilation grates immediately after the end of the war showed substantial amounts of cyanide. The chambers were demolished by the Nazis when they abandoned Auschwitz, and the facilities Leuchter examined were, in fact, partially reconstructed. Leuchter was unaware that part of the camp and chambers were reconstructed, so he had no way of knowing if the bricks he was scraping were actually part of the original gas chamber.
Many of Leuchter's conclusions are based on the assumption that it takes 20 to 30 hours to air a room disinfected with Zyklon-B; since far lower concentrations are required when gassing people than for delousing it actually takes 20 to 30 minutes to air out the room, and the forced ventilation systems used are more than adequate to allow the gas chambers to be operated without endangering the executioners. When questioned in court, Leuchter admitted he had not seen a document by the Waffen SS Commandant for construction issued when the gas chambers were constructed which estimated they had a 24-hour capacity of 4756 people, more than 30 times Leuchter's estimate of 156.
Leuchter's opposition to the possibility of gas chambers rests on the relatively low concentration of cyanide residue measured in his sample of the remains of the gas chambers in Auschwitz, compared to his sample of the "delousing chambers" in which clothes were deloused using the same gas, hydrogen cyanide. However, his report contains the assumption that lower concentrations are required for delousing than to kill humans and other warm blooded creatures; in fact, with their simpler structures and slower metabolisms, insects are more resistant to such gross metabolic poisons than mammals. Both toxicological
study and practical experience demonstrate that it takes a much higher concentration of cyanide (16,000 parts per million) to kill insects than to kill humans (300 PPM), as well as an exposure time of many hours rather than only minutes. Leuchter also fails to explain his belief that Zyklon-B was used for delousing, in view of his belief that the product would present technical difficulties in ventilating and decontaminating such as to make it impractical for use in a gas chamber.
, and near Leuchter's home in Malden, Massachusetts
. However, despite the bad publicity Leuchter remained active until 1990, when his lack of qualifications to practice was exposed. In the late 1980s, following the Ernst Zündel
trial, he was featured in both the Atlantic Monthly and Prime Time Live in items on capital punishment, neither of which mentioned his association with Zündel. Also following his involvement in the Zündel trial, Leuchter began giving lectures to Holocaust denial
groups such as the Institute for Historical Review
(IHR) about his research and continued belief in the conclusions to which he testified in the trial. A speech to the Eleventh IHR Conference in October, 1992, included the following remark:
In October 1990, the commonwealth of Massachusetts
brought criminal charges against Leuchter for representing himself as an engineer without a license. Leuchter not only lacks an engineering license but has neither an engineering degree nor any other relevant professional certification or recognized credential - his education consists of a BA in history, which he completed in 1964. In 1991, the case was settled under the agreement that he will serve two years' probation for practicing engineering without a license. He admits to having no formal training in toxicology
, biology
or chemistry
.
When he tried to sell parts of a lethal injection machine and other inventory from Fred Leuchter Associates, much of it items pending work for various states who refused to pay him for previously contracted or agreed work, he was again charged. Leuchter claims that the Massachusetts Attorney General had to explain that the sale of the offered equipment was not, in fact, illegal. His wife divorced him in this same period. Furthermore, states started to deny his contracts on the basis of his lack of qualifications.
Leuchter was arrested in and shortly thereafter deported from the United Kingdom
in November 1991. He had been banned from entering the country by the Home Office
and his entry and presence in the country was therefore considered illegal. Leuchter claimed that United States consulate personnel effectively refused him aid. He had been interrupted while giving an invited speech at Irving's instigation; his talk followed immediately one by Robert Faurisson
. Leuchter has blamed criticism of his work on an "international cabal... those who have unjustly attacked me and violated my rights... the Klarsfelds
, Shapiros, and Kahns of the world".
According to the Institute for Historical Review
, Leuchter subsequently took employment as a "telephone solicitor."
test was unreliable because it depended on the acidity of the environment, which was low in the gas chambers. Markiewicz and his team used microdiffusion techniques to test for cyanide in samples from the gas chambers, from delousing chambers, and from living areas elsewhere within Auschwitz. The living quarter samples (negative controls) tested negative, while cyanide residue was found in both the delousing chambers and the gas chambers. The amount of cyanide found had a great variability (possibly due to 50 years of exposure to the elements to varying degrees), but even so, the categorical results were that cyanide was found where expected in both the gas chambers and the delousing facilities, and not found in the living quarters, supporting the hypothesis that the gas chambers were exposed to high levels of cyanide like the delousing facilities, and not low levels for routine fumigation, like the living quarters.
, entitled Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. with Zündel and Irving.
Robert Jan van Pelt
, who appears in Mr. Death to specify some of Leuchter's scholarly failures (e.g. not consulting the large documentation archive available at Auschwitz), served as the primary expert witness against David Irving
at the libel trial of Deborah Lipstadt
in 2000, relating to the court the strength of the physical and documentary evidence supporting the use of that camp for gassing.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Federal Court
United States federal courts
The United States federal courts make up the judiciary branch of federal government of the United States organized under the United States Constitution and laws of the federal government.-Categories:...
qualified expert in execution technology and author of forensic Holocaust denial
Holocaust denial
Holocaust denial is the act of denying the genocide of Jews in World War II, usually referred to as the Holocaust. The key claims of Holocaust denial are: the German Nazi government had no official policy or intention of exterminating Jews, Nazi authorities did not use extermination camps and gas...
material. He claims to have improved the design of instruments for capital punishment
Capital punishment
Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...
and had execution equipment contracts with several states. Subsequently, Leuchter became known for his testimony
Testimony
In law and in religion, testimony is a solemn attestation as to the truth of a matter. All testimonies should be well thought out and truthful. It was the custom in Ancient Rome for the men to place their right hand on a Bible when taking an oath...
in defense of Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel
Ernst Zündel
Ernst Christof Friedrich Zündel is a German Holocaust denier and pamphleteer who was jailed several times in Canada for publishing literature which "is likely to incite hatred against an identifiable group" and for being a threat to national security, in the United States for overstaying his visa,...
in 1988. His study for Zündel's trial is referred to as the Leuchter report
Leuchter report
The Leuchter report is a pseudoscientific document authored by American execution technician Fred A. Leuchter. For the defense in the trial of Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel, Leuchter compiled the report in 1988 with the intention of investigating the feasibility of mass homicidal gassings at Nazi...
after it was published by Zündel as such and is often framed as a scientifically based work of Holocaust denial, though his research methods and findings have been refuted. An Errol Morris
Errol Morris
Errol Mark Morris is an American director. In 2003, The Guardian put him seventh in its list of the world's 40 best directors. Also in 2003, his film The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.-Early life and...
documentary on the controversy, entitled Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr.
Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr.
Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. is a 1999 documentary film by Errol Morris about execution technician Fred A. Leuchter.-Plot:...
, was released in 1999.
Education and career
Leuchter received a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from Boston UniversityBoston University
Boston University is a private research university located in Boston, Massachusetts. With more than 4,000 faculty members and more than 31,000 students, Boston University is one of the largest private universities in the United States and one of Boston's largest employers...
in 1964 and later conducted post-graduate studies at the Harvard-Smithsonian Astronomical Observatory. Leuchter holds patents for a geodetic instrument and an electronic sextant. Leuchter has said he is not an engineer and misled people about his expertise. According to the New York Times, before selling execution equipment Leuchter was a former dealer in military surveillance equipment.
Fred Leuchter Associates
Leuchter started Fred Leuchter Associates in which he sold services to several states to help them maintain, improve, document, and ascertain the effectiveness of their equipment for administration of capital punishmentCapital punishment
Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...
. His initial work was with electric chair
Electric chair
Execution by electrocution, usually performed using an electric chair, is an execution method originating in the United States in which the condemned person is strapped to a specially built wooden chair and electrocuted through electrodes placed on the body...
s, starting in Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
. Leuchter's broader claims are that his work in this area is "humanitarian", providing greater respect for both guards and those to be executed. He also claims that he offered his services at considerable economy: off-the-shelf parts, labor, and a 20% profit. By his own account, consultation between state government agencies spread his reputation from Tennessee to other states, and further assignments followed. Leuchter "aggressively solicited business" and in 1985 the state of New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
purchased Leuchter's proposal for a lethal injection
Lethal injection
Lethal injection is the practice of injecting a person with a fatal dose of drugs for the express purpose of causing the immediate death of the subject. The main application for this procedure is capital punishment, but the term may also be applied in a broad sense to euthanasia and suicide...
system for $30,000.
On October 24, 1990 The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
described him as "self-proclaimed execution expert and manufacturer of death machinery" who "was charged today in a Middlesex County
Middlesex County, Massachusetts
-National protected areas:* Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge* Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge* Longfellow National Historic Site* Lowell National Historical Park* Minute Man National Historical Park* Oxbow National Wildlife Refuge...
District Court with fraudulently practicing engineering." It quoted Dr. Edward A. Brunner, chairman of the anesthesia
Anesthesia
Anesthesia, or anaesthesia , traditionally meant the condition of having sensation blocked or temporarily taken away...
department at Northwestern University Medical School, as saying Leuchter's lethal injection system would indeed paralyze
Paralysis
Paralysis is loss of muscle function for one or more muscles. Paralysis can be accompanied by a loss of feeling in the affected area if there is sensory damage as well as motor. A study conducted by the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, suggests that about 1 in 50 people have been diagnosed...
a condemned criminal with Pavulon, but far from being humane this paralysis would merely stop the prisoner from screaming at the "extreme pain in the form of a severe burning sensation" caused by the potassium chloride
Potassium chloride
The chemical compound potassium chloride is a metal halide salt composed of potassium and chlorine. In its pure state, it is odorless and has a white or colorless vitreous crystal appearance, with a crystal structure that cleaves easily in three directions. Potassium chloride crystals are...
injection. (Potassium chloride is commonly used in judicial execution through lethal injection.) A subsequent article in the June 13, 1991 edition of New York Times details his agreement with prosecutors to "serve two years probation
Probation
Probation literally means testing of behaviour or abilities. In a legal sense, an offender on probation is ordered to follow certain conditions set forth by the court, often under the supervision of a probation officer...
for practicing engineering without a license."
Detractor of capital punishment
In 1990 NewsweekNewsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
reported Alabama
Alabama
Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
Assistant Attorney General
Attorney General
In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general, or attorney-general, is the main legal advisor to the government, and in some jurisdictions he or she may also have executive responsibility for law enforcement or responsibility for public prosecutions.The term is used to refer to any person...
Ed Carnes calling Leuchter's views on the gas chamber "unorthodox" and alleging that "Leuchter was running a death row shakedown scheme: if a state didn't purchase Leuchter's services, he would testify at the last minute for the condemned man that the state's death chamber might malfunction." The Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
quoted Carnes claiming that Leuchter made "money on both sides of the fence." In his memorandum to death penalty states, Carnes observed that in Florida and Virginia the federal courts had rejected Leuchter's testimony as unreliable. The court in Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
had found that Leuchter had "misquoted the statements" contained in an important affidavit
Affidavit
An affidavit is a written sworn statement of fact voluntarily made by an affiant or deponent under an oath or affirmation administered by a person authorized to do so by law. Such statement is witnessed as to the authenticity of the affiant's signature by a taker of oaths, such as a notary public...
and had "inaccurately surmised" a crucial premise of his conclusion.
In Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
, Leuchter provided a death row inmate's attorney with an affidavit claiming the electric chair
Electric chair
Execution by electrocution, usually performed using an electric chair, is an execution method originating in the United States in which the condemned person is strapped to a specially built wooden chair and electrocuted through electrodes placed on the body...
would fail. The Virginia court decided the credibility of Leuchter's affidavit was limited because Leuchter was "the refused contractor who bid to replace the electrodes in the Virginia chair."
Zündel trial and investigation at Auschwitz
In 1988 Leuchter was hired by Ernst ZündelErnst Zündel
Ernst Christof Friedrich Zündel is a German Holocaust denier and pamphleteer who was jailed several times in Canada for publishing literature which "is likely to incite hatred against an identifiable group" and for being a threat to national security, in the United States for overstaying his visa,...
, who was being tried in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
for publishing works of Holocaust denial
Holocaust denial
Holocaust denial is the act of denying the genocide of Jews in World War II, usually referred to as the Holocaust. The key claims of Holocaust denial are: the German Nazi government had no official policy or intention of exterminating Jews, Nazi authorities did not use extermination camps and gas...
, to investigate and testify as an expert witness at his trial, at a salary of $30,000. Leuchter was recommended to Zündel by Bill Armontrout, warden for Missouri State Penitentiary
Missouri State Penitentiary
The Missouri State Penitentiary, also known as "The Walls", was a prison in Jefferson City, Missouri that operated from 1836-2004. It was a prison of the Missouri Department of Corrections. Before its closure it was named the Jefferson City Correctional Center . Before its closure it was the oldest...
in Jefferson City, Missouri
Jefferson City, Missouri
Jefferson City is the capital of the U.S. state of Missouri and the county seat of Cole County. Located in Callaway and Cole counties, it is the principal city of the Jefferson City metropolitan area, which encompasses the entirety of both counties. As of the 2010 census, the population was 43,079...
. In his capacity as warden, Armontrout was personally responsible for carrying out executions by the use of cyanide
Cyanide
A cyanide is a chemical compound that contains the cyano group, -C≡N, which consists of a carbon atom triple-bonded to a nitrogen atom. Cyanides most commonly refer to salts of the anion CN−. Most cyanides are highly toxic....
gas. Leuchter traveled to Auschwitz and Birkenau to examine the structures identified by guards, prisoners, and investigators, as gas chamber
Gas chamber
A gas chamber is an apparatus for killing humans or animals with gas, consisting of a sealed chamber into which a poisonous or asphyxiant gas is introduced. The most commonly used poisonous agent is hydrogen cyanide; carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide have also been used...
s, and concluded that they could not have been used for mass murder
Mass murder
Mass murder is the act of murdering a large number of people , typically at the same time or over a relatively short period of time. According to the FBI, mass murder is defined as four or more murders occurring during a particular event with no cooling-off period between the murders...
.
Zündel's Samisdat Publications published his findings as The Leuchter Report: An Engineering Report on the Alleged Execution Chambers at Auschwitz, Birkenau, and Majdanek Poland (published in England as Auschwitz: The End of the Line: The Leuchter Report - The First Forensic Examination of Auschwitz) which the court accepted only as evidentiary display and not as direct evidence; Leuchter was therefore required to explicate it and testify to the veracity of his findings under oath in the trial. His report was widely republished and translated by various denial organizations, and he has since lectured on it and his subsequent experiences. Protests were organized in response.
In 1988, Leuchter traveled to several sites of structures identified as gas chambers, where, although he did not have permission to do so, he collected samples from walls, ceilings and floors, using a chisel and hammer to chip and scrape off pieces of the masonry. He took copious notes about the floor plans and layout, and all of his actions were videotaped by a cameraman. (Leuchter, who had been married for about one month before the trip, told his wife that the trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau was their honeymoon.) Leuchter then brought the samples back to Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
, where he presented them to Alpha Analytical Laboratories, a chemical laboratory, for testing. Leuchter told Alpha only that the samples were to be used as evidence in a court case about an industrial accident. The lab tested them for exposure to cyanide
Cyanide
A cyanide is a chemical compound that contains the cyano group, -C≡N, which consists of a carbon atom triple-bonded to a nitrogen atom. Cyanides most commonly refer to salts of the anion CN−. Most cyanides are highly toxic....
and found trace amounts in the crematoria, which Leuchter dismissed in his report:
Leuchter compares the low amounts in the Krema to the higher readings in his positive control sample.
Lab manager James Roth swore under oath to the results at the trial. It was only after he got off the stand that Roth learned what the trial was about. In an interview for Morris' film, Roth states that cyanide would have formed an extremely fine layer on the walls, to the depth of one-tenth of a human hair. Leuchter had taken samples of indeterminate thickness (he is seen in Morris' film hammering at the bricks with a rock hammer). Not informed of this, Roth had pulverized the entire samples, thus severely diluting the cyanide-containing layer of each sample with an indeterminate amount of brick, varying for each sample. Roth offers the analogy that the tests were like "analyzing paint on a wall by analyzing the timber that's behind it."
Leuchter did not examine the walls of the gas chambers until 50 years after they had been used; his critics note that it would have been virtually impossible to discover any cyanide at all using his method. In fact, tests conducted on ventilation grates immediately after the end of the war showed substantial amounts of cyanide. The chambers were demolished by the Nazis when they abandoned Auschwitz, and the facilities Leuchter examined were, in fact, partially reconstructed. Leuchter was unaware that part of the camp and chambers were reconstructed, so he had no way of knowing if the bricks he was scraping were actually part of the original gas chamber.
Many of Leuchter's conclusions are based on the assumption that it takes 20 to 30 hours to air a room disinfected with Zyklon-B; since far lower concentrations are required when gassing people than for delousing it actually takes 20 to 30 minutes to air out the room, and the forced ventilation systems used are more than adequate to allow the gas chambers to be operated without endangering the executioners. When questioned in court, Leuchter admitted he had not seen a document by the Waffen SS Commandant for construction issued when the gas chambers were constructed which estimated they had a 24-hour capacity of 4756 people, more than 30 times Leuchter's estimate of 156.
Leuchter's opposition to the possibility of gas chambers rests on the relatively low concentration of cyanide residue measured in his sample of the remains of the gas chambers in Auschwitz, compared to his sample of the "delousing chambers" in which clothes were deloused using the same gas, hydrogen cyanide. However, his report contains the assumption that lower concentrations are required for delousing than to kill humans and other warm blooded creatures; in fact, with their simpler structures and slower metabolisms, insects are more resistant to such gross metabolic poisons than mammals. Both toxicological
Toxicology
Toxicology is a branch of biology, chemistry, and medicine concerned with the study of the adverse effects of chemicals on living organisms...
study and practical experience demonstrate that it takes a much higher concentration of cyanide (16,000 parts per million) to kill insects than to kill humans (300 PPM), as well as an exposure time of many hours rather than only minutes. Leuchter also fails to explain his belief that Zyklon-B was used for delousing, in view of his belief that the product would present technical difficulties in ventilating and decontaminating such as to make it impractical for use in a gas chamber.
Aftermath
Protests were organized outside the court house in CanadaCanada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, and near Leuchter's home in Malden, Massachusetts
Malden, Massachusetts
Malden is a suburban city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 59,450 at the 2010 census. In 2009 Malden was ranked as the "Best Place to Raise Your Kids" in Massachusetts by Bloomberg Businessweek Magazine.-History:...
. However, despite the bad publicity Leuchter remained active until 1990, when his lack of qualifications to practice was exposed. In the late 1980s, following the Ernst Zündel
Ernst Zündel
Ernst Christof Friedrich Zündel is a German Holocaust denier and pamphleteer who was jailed several times in Canada for publishing literature which "is likely to incite hatred against an identifiable group" and for being a threat to national security, in the United States for overstaying his visa,...
trial, he was featured in both the Atlantic Monthly and Prime Time Live in items on capital punishment, neither of which mentioned his association with Zündel. Also following his involvement in the Zündel trial, Leuchter began giving lectures to Holocaust denial
Holocaust denial
Holocaust denial is the act of denying the genocide of Jews in World War II, usually referred to as the Holocaust. The key claims of Holocaust denial are: the German Nazi government had no official policy or intention of exterminating Jews, Nazi authorities did not use extermination camps and gas...
groups such as the Institute for Historical Review
Institute for Historical Review
The Institute for Historical Review , founded in 1978, is an American organization that describes itself as a "public-interest educational, research and publishing center dedicated to promoting greater public awareness of history." Critics have accused it of being an antisemitic "pseudo-scholarly...
(IHR) about his research and continued belief in the conclusions to which he testified in the trial. A speech to the Eleventh IHR Conference in October, 1992, included the following remark:
In October 1990, the commonwealth of Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
brought criminal charges against Leuchter for representing himself as an engineer without a license. Leuchter not only lacks an engineering license but has neither an engineering degree nor any other relevant professional certification or recognized credential - his education consists of a BA in history, which he completed in 1964. In 1991, the case was settled under the agreement that he will serve two years' probation for practicing engineering without a license. He admits to having no formal training in toxicology
Toxicology
Toxicology is a branch of biology, chemistry, and medicine concerned with the study of the adverse effects of chemicals on living organisms...
, biology
Biology
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
or chemistry
Chemistry
Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....
.
When he tried to sell parts of a lethal injection machine and other inventory from Fred Leuchter Associates, much of it items pending work for various states who refused to pay him for previously contracted or agreed work, he was again charged. Leuchter claims that the Massachusetts Attorney General had to explain that the sale of the offered equipment was not, in fact, illegal. His wife divorced him in this same period. Furthermore, states started to deny his contracts on the basis of his lack of qualifications.
Leuchter was arrested in and shortly thereafter deported from the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
in November 1991. He had been banned from entering the country by the Home Office
Home Office
The Home Office is the United Kingdom government department responsible for immigration control, security, and order. As such it is responsible for the police, UK Border Agency, and the Security Service . It is also in charge of government policy on security-related issues such as drugs,...
and his entry and presence in the country was therefore considered illegal. Leuchter claimed that United States consulate personnel effectively refused him aid. He had been interrupted while giving an invited speech at Irving's instigation; his talk followed immediately one by Robert Faurisson
Robert Faurisson
Robert Faurisson is a French academic who is a Holocaust denier. Faurisson generated much controversy with a number of articles, published in the Journal of Historical Review and elsewhere, as well as various letters he has sent to French newspapers , which deny various aspects of the Holocaust,...
. Leuchter has blamed criticism of his work on an "international cabal... those who have unjustly attacked me and violated my rights... the Klarsfelds
Serge and Beate Klarsfeld
Serge and Beate Klarsfeld are activists known for engaging in Holocaust documentation and anti-Nazi activism...
, Shapiros, and Kahns of the world".
According to the Institute for Historical Review
Institute for Historical Review
The Institute for Historical Review , founded in 1978, is an American organization that describes itself as a "public-interest educational, research and publishing center dedicated to promoting greater public awareness of history." Critics have accused it of being an antisemitic "pseudo-scholarly...
, Leuchter subsequently took employment as a "telephone solicitor."
Repetition of Leuchter's examination
In February 1990, Professor Jan Markiewicz, Director of the Forensic Institute of Cracow, redid the analysis. Markiewicz decided that the Prussian bluePrussian blue
Prussian blue is a dark blue pigment with the idealized formula Fe718. Another name for the color Prussian blue is Berlin blue or, in painting, Parisian blue. Turnbull's blue is the same substance but is made from different reagents....
test was unreliable because it depended on the acidity of the environment, which was low in the gas chambers. Markiewicz and his team used microdiffusion techniques to test for cyanide in samples from the gas chambers, from delousing chambers, and from living areas elsewhere within Auschwitz. The living quarter samples (negative controls) tested negative, while cyanide residue was found in both the delousing chambers and the gas chambers. The amount of cyanide found had a great variability (possibly due to 50 years of exposure to the elements to varying degrees), but even so, the categorical results were that cyanide was found where expected in both the gas chambers and the delousing facilities, and not found in the living quarters, supporting the hypothesis that the gas chambers were exposed to high levels of cyanide like the delousing facilities, and not low levels for routine fumigation, like the living quarters.
Documentary
Leuchter is the subject of a 1999 documentary by Errol MorrisErrol Morris
Errol Mark Morris is an American director. In 2003, The Guardian put him seventh in its list of the world's 40 best directors. Also in 2003, his film The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.-Early life and...
, entitled Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. with Zündel and Irving.
Robert Jan van Pelt
Robert Jan van Pelt
Robert Jan van Pelt is an author, architectural historian, professor at the University of Waterloo and University of Toronto in Ontario and a Holocaust scholar. One of the world's leading experts on Auschwitz, he regularly speaks on Holocaust related topics, through which he has come to address...
, who appears in Mr. Death to specify some of Leuchter's scholarly failures (e.g. not consulting the large documentation archive available at Auschwitz), served as the primary expert witness against David Irving
David Irving
David John Cawdell Irving is an English writer,best known for his denial of the Holocaust, who specialises in the military and political history of World War II, with a focus on Nazi Germany...
at the libel trial of Deborah Lipstadt
Deborah Lipstadt
Deborah Esther Lipstadt, Ph.D. is an American historian and author of the book Denying the Holocaust and The Eichmann Trial. She is the Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies at Emory University...
in 2000, relating to the court the strength of the physical and documentary evidence supporting the use of that camp for gassing.
Material by Leuchter
- Fred A. Leuchter, The Leuchter Report: The First Forensic Examination of Auschwitz, With a Foreword by David IrvingDavid IrvingDavid John Cawdell Irving is an English writer,best known for his denial of the Holocaust, who specialises in the military and political history of World War II, with a focus on Nazi Germany...
, London, Focal Point Publications, 1989 (ISBN 1-872197-00-0). - Fred Leuchter & Robert FaurissonRobert FaurissonRobert Faurisson is a French academic who is a Holocaust denier. Faurisson generated much controversy with a number of articles, published in the Journal of Historical Review and elsewhere, as well as various letters he has sent to French newspapers , which deny various aspects of the Holocaust,...
, The Second Leuchter Report, The Journal of Historical Review, Vol. 10, No.3 Fall, 1990. - Fred Leuchter, The Third Leuchter Report: A Technical Report on the Execution Gas Chamber at Mississippi State Penitentiary Parchman, Mississippi, Toronto, Samisdat PublishersSamisdat PublishersSamisdat Publishers, Ltd. was a small Canadian publishing house owned and operated by Ernst Zündel, a noted Holocaust denier, during the 1980s and 1990s...
. - Fred A. Leuchter Jr., The Fourth Leuchter Report: An Engineering Evaluation of Jean-Claude Pressac's Book Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers Hamilton, Ontario, History Buff Books and Video.
- Fred A. Leuchter, Robert FaurissonRobert FaurissonRobert Faurisson is a French academic who is a Holocaust denier. Faurisson generated much controversy with a number of articles, published in the Journal of Historical Review and elsewhere, as well as various letters he has sent to French newspapers , which deny various aspects of the Holocaust,...
, Germar RudolfGermar RudolfGermar Rudolf is a German chemist and Holocaust denier.-Background:Rudolf was born in Limburg an der Lahn, Hesse. After finishing secondary education in 1983 in Remscheid, Rudolf studied chemistry in Bonn, completing his studies in 1989. As a student, he joined A.V. Tuisconia Königsberg zu Bonn...
, The Leuchter Reports: Critical Edition, Chicago, Theses & Dissertations Press, 2005 (ISBN 1-59148-015-9).
External links
- Mr Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, the complete Errol Morris documentary on Google Video.
- The Chemistry of Auschwitz, an essay by Richard J. GreenRichard J. Green (chemist)Richard J. Green is an American chemist known for his work against Holocaust denial. He is a member of The Holocaust History Project....
of the The Holocaust History ProjectThe Holocaust History ProjectThe Holocaust History Project is a non-profit corporation based in San Antonio, Texas. Its website offers a comprehensive archive of documents, recordings, photographs, and essays regarding the Holocaust, Holocaust denial and antisemitism...
debunking Leuchter's claims. - The Leuchter Report, Holocaust Denial and the Big Lie at the Nizkor ProjectNizkor ProjectThe Nizkor Project is an ongoing Internet-based project run by B'nai Brith Canada which is dedicated to countering Holocaust denial. It was founded by Ken McVay as a central Web-based archive for the large numbers of documents made publicly available by the users of the newsgroup alt.revisionism...
, a site containing large amounts of information about Holocaust deniers. - Mr. Death synopsis at, the film's director, Errol MorrisErrol MorrisErrol Mark Morris is an American director. In 2003, The Guardian put him seventh in its list of the world's 40 best directors. Also in 2003, his film The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.-Early life and...
' page. - Chemistry is Not the Science:Rudolf, Rhetoric & Reduction An analysis debunking the Rudolf Report from holocaust-history.org
- Jean-Claude Pressac. Les carences et incohérences du Rapport Leuchter, Jour J., la lettre télégraphique juive, December 12, 1988