Ernst Zündel's Flying Saucers
Ernst Zündel
has done extensive research into the theory that UFOs are really Nazi
airships flying reconaissance missions from a secret base at or near the
South Pole.
We are not making this up, honest.
The following web pages detail this research. Samisdat is the name of
Zündel's publishing company.
This page has turned out to be one of our more popular. Perhaps
a bit of background about these flying saucers is in order.
Zündel's real beliefs about UFOs are not clear. Frank Miele
summarized it well in his article
"Giving the Devil His Due,"
concerning Zündel's book UFOs: Nazi Secret Weapons?:
The book argued that what are usually described as flying saucers
from outer space are actually Nazi secret weapons, still being launched
from a hole in the ice in Antarctica. This may be why he jokingly told
me...that I was dealing with the "real lunatic fringe." In a
later phone conversation, Zündel told me that the UFO book was in
fact a ploy.
"I realized that North Americans were not interested in being
educated. They want to be entertained. The book was for fun. With a
picture of the Führer on the cover and flying saucers coming out of
Antarctica it was a chance to get on radio and TV talk shows. For about
15 minutes of an hour program I'd talk about that esoteric stuff. Then I
would start talking about all those Jewish scientists in concentration
camps, working on these secret weapons. And that was my chance to talk
about what I wanted to talk about."
"In that case," I asked him, "do you still stand by
what you wrote in the UFO book?" "Look," he
replied, "it has a question mark at the end of the title."
[...]
Zündel will dangle a reference to UFO's or the wisdom of the
ancient Atlanteans. If it has no effect, he just moves on. If it elicits
skepticism, he blows it off with a jovial "for whatever it's
worth." Given our early conversation on the UFO book, I'm still not
sure whether Zündel really believes any of this esoteric stuff or
whether he's just learned how effective pushing hot buttons is in
grabbing the media spotlight and perhaps bringing in donations.
It should be pointed out that one of Zündel's most popular
works,
"Did Six Million Really Die?,"
also has the terminal
question mark.
Michael Hoffman
described the flying saucer material in his book on Zündel thusly:
Zundel the advertising man and media manager went into high gear,
developing his controversial "Flying Saucer" line of
publications. Less imaginative potential allies did not understand the
tactic. They felt he should simply try and try and try again to pursue
more traditional paths to public recognition. Some of them are still
trying.
Hitler's Secret Antarctic Bases, Nazi Super-Weapons and
the mystic secrets of the Aryan Hindu prophetress Savitri Devi were
themes the public - and even their commissars - simply could not ignore.
The 1970's witnessed a tidal wave of renewed interest in all things
spiritual and Zundel was riding the wave for all it was worth. In
countless radio talk shows, he held forth on spaceships, spacecraft,
"free energies," electromagnetism, emergent technologies and
the occasionally positive contributions those otherwise condemned
Germans produced under the Third Reich in these fields.
Periodicals accepted ads for flying saucer books that would have
obstinately refused similar space for The Auschwitz Lie.
"When one door is closed, another will open." By this means,
Zundel established a mail order business combining several book titles
from revisionist and
Fortean
fields appealing to a broad base of free thinkers and truth seekers.
The Great Holocaust Trial, Hoffman, Michael A.,
Institute for Historical Review,
Torrance, California, 1985, p. 18.
Zündel's own web site says this:
In 1972 he published a book on UFO's which became a run-away
best seller marketed by direct mail and through advertisements,
mainly in large circulation U.S. magazines. The success of the
book convinced Zündel to enter the direct mail business
selling other books on UFO's and eventually original, uncensored
tapes of Nazi-era songs by German soldiers and SS (which contained
no annoying commentaries distorting the music), historical
speeches in their uncut form by
Adolf Hitler
and interviews he had done with various writers and historians on
Zionism and the developing area of Holocaust revisionism including
Dr. Robert Faurisson,
French expert in ancient texts and documents at the
University of Lyon II and Rabbi Elmer Berger, head of the American
Council for Judaism.
Please note that Nizkor is not claiming that, because
Zündel's ideas about UFOs are crazy, therefore his claims about the
Holocaust are wrong. That inference would be an example of the
poisoning the well
fallacy. Zündel is wrong regardless of his opinions about
flying saucers. Nizkor has much documentation of the errors of
Zündel and other Holocaust-deniers; a good place to start is the
QAR.
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