Gerstein Report: Gerstein Report at the International Military Tribunal

Was the Gerstein Report admitted as evidence at the International Military Tribunal for the Trial of German Major War Criminals in 1945/46?

Holocaust deniers claim:

The Gerstein Report was such a “clumsy forgery” that, when the French version was presented as evidence at the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg on January 30, 1946, the Tribunal refused to admit it into evidence.[1]

For example, Paul Rassinier, a French Holocaust denier, claims that although the Gerstein Report was rejected by the court, it nevertheless immediately became accepted as an “unquestionably authentic document.” Thereafter, it was used at other trials without question or proper authentication by a court of law.[2]

The facts are:

The International Military Tribunal did not reject the Gerstein Report. The judges had missed the certification of origin in the morning session. The matter was cleared up within hours and the Gerstein Report was read into the record that same afternoon.

The Gerstein Report and the International Military Tribunal:

The Gerstein Report was offered into evidence in the morning session on January 30, 1946 by Charles Dubost, the French prosecutor, together with Zyklon-B invoices Gerstein had attached to it. In fact, the judges did refuse to allow the Report to be read into the record in the morning session. They refused it not because it was “inconclusive” or an obvious “forgery” but because of a technicality. A certificate establishing its origin, required by the Tribunal for every piece of submitted evidence, was lacking.

In the afternoon of the same day, the British Assistant Prosecutor General reported to the court that the Gerstein Report was part of a bundle of documents of “which the origin and the filing were authenticated on November 22 by Commandant Coogan. The series of PS has been verified and when it is read to the Tribunal, it can be accepted.” The judges, satisfied that the certificate of authenticity had been overlooked in the morning session, apologized to Dubost and entered it into evidence.[3]

Conclusion

The Gerstein Report was not rejected by the court as the Holocaust deniers claim. The judges had missed the certification of origin in the morning session. The matter was cleared up within hours and the Gerstein Report was read into the record that afternoon.

NOTES

[1] Paul Rassinier, Debunking the Genocide Myth (“Chapter Thirteen: Witness, Testimonies, and Documents, IV. The Witness Kurt Gerstein”) at http://www.ihr.org/books/rassinier/debunking2-13.html. This is the Internet version of his original title, The Drama of the European Jews (Steppingstones Publications, 1975).

[2] Paul Rassinier, Debunking the Genocide Myth (“Chapter Thirteen: Witness, Testimonies, and Documents, IV. The Witness Kurt Gerstein”).

[3] Georges Wellers, “The Existence of Gas Chambers, The Number of Victims and the Korherr Report” in The Holocaust and the Neo-Nazi Mythomania, edited by Serge Klarsfeld (Beate Klarsfeld Foundation, 1978), pp. 126, 127.