Leuchter Report - Report

Report

The compiled report was published as The Leuchter Report: An Engineering Report on the Alleged Execution Gas Chambers at Auschwitz, Birkenau, and Majdanek, Poland, by Zündel's Samisdat Publications, and as Auschwitz: The End of the Line. The Leuchter Report: The First Forensic Examination of Auschwitz by Focal Point Publications, David Irving's publishing house. However, the court accepted the report 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.

Before Leuchter could do this, he was examined by the court. It soon became apparent that Leuchter's credentials were seriously lacking. He admitted that he was not a toxicologist and dismissed the need for having a degree in engineering, to which the judge responded abruptly:

THE COURT: How do you function as an engineer if you don't have an engineering degree?

THE WITNESS: Well, I would question, Your Honour, what an engineering degree is. I have a Bachelor of Arts degree and I have the required background training both on the college level and in the field to perform my function as an engineer.

THE COURT: Who determines that? You? —Exchange between Leuchter and Judge Thomas, Her Majesty the Queen vs. Ernst Zündel, District Court of Ontario 1988, p. 8973.

Leuchter admitted under oath that he only had a bachelor of arts degree and implicitly suggested that an engineering degree was unavailable to him by saying that his college did not offer an engineering degree during his studies. Boston University actually offered three different kinds of such qualification when he was a student there. The defence continued to obfuscate Leuchter's credentials. When asked by the court if the B.A. he obtained was in a field that entitled him to operate as an engineer, he confirmed that this was so, even though his degree was in history. Similarly, Leuchter claimed that he obtained most of his research material on the camps (including original crematoria blueprints) from the Auschwitz and Majdanek camps' archives, and testified that these documents had a far more important role in shaping his conclusions than the physical samples he collected did, yet after the trial the director of the Auschwitz museum categorically denied that Leuchter had received any plans or blueprints.

Judge Ronald Thomas began to label Leuchter's methodology as "ridiculous" and "preposterous", dismissing many of the report's conclusions on the basis that they were based on "second-hand information", and refused to allow him to testify on the effect of Zyklon B on humans because he had never worked with the substance, and was neither a toxicologist nor a chemist. Judge Thomas dismissed Leuchter's opinion because it was of "no greater value than that of an ordinary tourist", and in regards to Leuchter's opinion said:

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. —Judge Thomas, Her Majesty the Queen vs. Ernst Zündel, District Court of Ontario 1988, p. 9049-9050.

When questioned on the functioning of the crematoria, the judge also prevented Leuchter from testifying because "he hasn't any expertise". Leuchter also claimed that consultation relating to sodium cyanide and hydrogen cyanide with DuPont was "an on-going thing". DuPont, the largest American manufacturer of hydrogen cyanide, stated that it had "never provided any information on cyanides to persons representing themselves as Holocaust deniers, including Fred Leuchter", and has "never provided any information regarding the use of cyanide at Auschwitz, Birkenau or Majdanek."