Incriminating Statements?
Perhaps the most impressive evidence presented by Shermer to prove a German extermination policy were several wartime statements by high-ranking Third Reich officials. These included excerpts from the “service journal” of Hans Frank, governor of German-ruled Poland, passages from the diary of propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, and a portion of SS chief Heinrich Himmler’s well-known October 1943 Posen speech. (Shermer had already published these in the June 1994 “pseudohistory” issue of his Skeptic magazine, Vol. 2, No. 4, pp. 44-54.) In spite of what Weber had said earlier about it, Shermer also cited the postwar testimony of former Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Hss as important evidence of a German extermination program. Shermer offered no response to the specific points made by Weber about this, except to say that Hss’ testimony “has some funky things surrounding it,” and that Hss’ figures may be “way off.” Shermer also compared Hss’ postwar testimony with that of Perry Broad and cam
