Fred Leuchter

Rothe sells the "Leuchter report" in his store, a book purporting to be an engineer's refutation of the existence of gas chambers in Poland. (David Irving also uses Leuchter's report to support his claims.) What Rothe will not tell you, however, is that Fred Leuchter is not an engineer. Rothe also won't tell you that, according to the Boston Globe, Leuchter admitted to illegally collecting 20 pounds of building and soil samples in Poland, and that Leuchter's "analysis" has been thoroughly rebutted in a report by French pharmacist Jean-Claude Pressac. Pressac "noted that Leuchter never looked at documents in the Auschwitz Museum, and failed to study German blueprints of the gas chambers."

Leuchter is a self-described expert in the construction of execution machines. With his false credentials, he convinced authorities in several states in the U. S. to let him construct execution machinery for their prisons. But in 1990, according to the New York Times, his misrepresentations began to unravel.

The Attorney General of Alabama questioned his expertise. Illinois terminated his contract after determining that his machine for injecting cyanide would cause prisoners unnecessary pain.

Then, in October 1990, Leuchter was charged with fraud in Massachusetts. It was revealed that he had only a bachelor's degree in history, and was not licensed to practice engineering in Massachusetts. In June 1991, to avoid a trial in which he would surely have been convicted, Leuchter admitted that, "I am not and have never been registered as a professional engineer", and that he had falsely represented himself as one. Under the consent agreement, Leuchter agreed to stop "using in any manner whatsoever the title "engineer", and to stop distribution of the Leuchter report. Despite the agreement, one can still obtain copies of the report from Rothe's store in Kitchener.

According to the Boston Globe, Leuchter was deported from Britain in 1991. Leonard Zakim, a spokesperson for the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai Brith, said, "Leuchter's admissions of lying to promote his business in violation of Massachusetts law should serve to discredit Leuchter wherever he travels."

The original plaintext version of this file is available via ftp.

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