Respected Academic Journal Assailed by Wiesenthalcenter for Carrying Revisionist Ad

The prestigious academic journal, German Quarterly, has been criticized by the Wiesenthal Center at Yeshiva University for running a full-page advertisement for the Institute for Historical Review (IHR), a group the Center had identified as being dedicated to the denial of the Holocaust.

In a letter dated March 14, Wiesenthal Center director Dr. Gerald Margolis demanded that the German Quarterly publish a “complete retraction of the ad and a repudiation” of the IHR. He added that the Center “considers the inclusion of this advertisement in your significant publication to be offensive and an unwholesome statement to the academic community.”

The German Quarterly is published by the American Association of Teachers of German and is supported, in part, by a grant from the Ohio State University German Department and College of the Humanities, the Center said.

AD PROMOTES A NEW REVISIONIST BOOK

The ad, which appeared in the journal’s winter 1984 issue, promoted the IHR’s new book, “The ‘Holocaust’ — 120 Questions and Answers,” by Charles E. Weber. The text of the ad described the “extensive Jewish mortality during the Second World War” as “allegations.”

It labelled the death of six million Jews in the Holocaust “the extermination thesis … derived from Zionist sources.” The ad concluded by proclaiming the book “a series of lucid, well organized questions and answers suited for classroom use and stimulation of further research.”

CENTER IDENTIFIED BOOK’S AUTHOR

Wiesenthal Center officials identified Weber as the former head of foreign languages at the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma and a member of the editorial advisory committee of the IHR. Center officials noted that in the summer 1982 issue of the IHR Journal, Weber wrote: “As a result a heavy Jewish influence in the American news media, especially in television, few typical American political figures would dare to question the ‘Holocaust’ material although many of them are aware of the reasons for doubting its validity.”

In its current newsletter, the IHR is selling bumper stickers with the slogan “Nazi Gassing a Myth?” with proceeds of the sales to go towards the mailing of their new book to “121,979 educators in the U.S.”

In his letter to the German Quarterly, Margolis stated that the Wiesenthal Center hoped that the journal would move rapidly to remove “the sheen of academic legitimacy” that it has bestowed upon these “neo-Nazi apologists.”