From rcgraves@ix.netcom.com Mon Oct 21 07:23:57 PDT 1996
Article: 76072 of alt.revisionism
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From: Rich Graves 
Newsgroups: alt.revisionism
Subject: That Kaufman book that Irving and Goebbels lie about
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 1996 00:12:46 -0800
Organization: Fans of Nizkor, http://www.nizkor.org/objectives.html
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Searching the outstanding JSTOR, www.jstor.org (unavailable to you 
unless you're at one of a few select universities -- nyah nyah), I found 
what seems to be the *only* reference to Theodore Kaufman's ghastly book 
on "the German problem" in a peer-reviewed academic journal. It is a 
*fascinating* bibliographical survey of books, articles, and government 
reports concerning what the Allies should do with Germany after the war. 
While there is certainly fodder here for "revisionists" out to prove 
that the Allies had it in for the German people, the survey clearly 
shows that Goebbels' and Irving's claims about the Kaufman book *Germany 
Must Perish* and the reception it got are untrue. The article is 17 
pages of relatively small type, so I won't try to give you a feel for 
the whole article (which you should read if you have access to JSTOR or 
a very well-stocked library -- it has a lot to say about the issue of 
"collective guilt"), but I can give you what it says about Kaufman.

For more about Kaufman's kookiness -- he hand-made little coffins that 
he mailed, unsolicited, to reviewers -- see the Time Magazine review and 
followup letters, 
http://ftp.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi?people/k/kaufman.theodore
in file press/time-review-perish-4203

David Irving, apparently believing Goebbels uncritically, says that Time 
Magazine's review and the general reception in the US was positive. 
Nothing could be further than the truth, with the possible exception of 
several other assertions in Irving's books.

Donald F. Lauch. "What *they* would do about Germany." *The Journal of 
Modern History*, Vol. 17, No. 3 (Sep. 1945), pp. 227-243.

[Page 228]

"Even before America's entry into the war there appeared Theodore N. 
Kaufman's *Germany must perish!* As the title implies, Kaufman proposes 
the death sentence for Germany as a nation. He justifies his radical 
proposal by contending that Germany has forced a total war upon the 
world and hence must suffer a total penalty. He does not attribute the 
war to the Nazis or to Hitler but insists that the guilt rests squarely 
upon the German people and the "inbred lust of the German nation for 
conquest and mass murder" (p. 2). The author grants, for the sake of 
argument, that up to 20 per cent (or 15,000,000) of Germany's population 
might be guiltless. He does not believe, however, that the welfare of 
this 20 per cent can be allowed to divert attention from the fact, as he 
contends, that Germany has involved 300,000,000 people in two world 
wars. Quickly dismissing proposals that Germany continue to exist as a 
nation under some international plan, Kaufman presents a haphazard map 
of Europe in which Germany is partitioned among the surrounding 
countries. Then he suggests a plan of systematic sterilization to 
prevent the German people from reproducing their kind. He calculates 
that all Germans -- male and female -- could be sterilized within three 
years or less! Once their reproductive abilities are eliminated, he 
would force the German soldiers into labor battalions for the 
reconstruction of damaged cities and areas. The civilians remaining 
would be obliged to become active citizens of the country to which they 
had been annexed, and they would be compelled to adopt the language and 
traditions of the annexing state. It is not remarkable that Goebbels was 
able to use so effectively a translation of this book to bolster 
Germany's wavering morale after the disasters in Russia. Kaufman's 
attitude of unlimited *revanche* is fortunately not characteristic of 
the other works here reviewed. His apparent belief that elimination of 
Germany as a nation would be a positive step toward the abolition of war 
(p. 19) is presented without logical or historical data to give it 
substance. The book leaves the impression of being little more than 
indulgence in dire vituperation by a man who sees Germany as the sole 
cause of the world's woes."

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