Buchenwald: Legend and Reality

Institute for Historical Review Buchenwald: Legend and Reality By Mark WeberBuchenwald is widely regarded as one of wartime Germany's most notorious "death camps." In fact, though, this carefully cultivated image bears little resemblance to reality. Today, more than forty years after the end of the Second World War, the camp deserves another, more objective look. History and Function The Buchenwald concentration camp was located on a wooded hill outside of Weimar, in what is now East Germany. It was opened in July 1937. Until the war years, almost all the inmates were either professional criminals or political prisoners (most of them ardent Communists). Some 2,300 Buchenwald inmates were pardoned in 1939 in honor of Hitler's 50th birthday. At the outbreak of war in September 1939 the camp population was 5,300. This grew slowly to 12,000 in early 1943, and then increased rapidly as many foreign workers, especially Poles, Ukrainians and Russians, were brought for employment in war production. (note l) During the war years Buchenwald was expanded into a vast complex of more than a hundred satellite factories, mines and workshops spread across a large portion of Germany. The most important of these was probably the Dora underground plant, which produced V-2 missiles. In October 1944 it became the independent Nordhausen (Mittelbau) camp. (note 2) Many thousands of Jews arrived at Buchenwald from Hungary and various eastern camps in 1944 and 1945. Most had been evacuated by railroad from Auschwitz and other camps threatened by the advancing Red Army. (note 3) The number of inmates increased enormously during the final months of the war: 34,000 in November 1943, 44,000 in April 1944, and 80,000 in August 1944. A monthly peak was reached at the end of February 1945, when 86,000 inmates were crammed into the severely overcrowded camp. Almost 30,000 inmates were evacuated from Buchenwald during the week before the U.S. Army takeover on 11 April 1945. Altogether a total of 239,000 persons were interned in the camp between 1937 and April 1945. (note 4) The Commandant and his wife The first Commandant, Karl Koch, ran Buchenwald from 1937 until early 1942, when he was transferred to Majdanek. He proved a notoriously brutal and corrupt administrator who enriched himself with valuables stolen from numerous inmates, whom he then had killed to cover up his thefts. The camp physician, Dr. Waldemar Hoven, murdered many inmates in cooperation with Koch and the Communist underground camp organization. Koch was eventually charged by an SS court with murder and corruption, found guilty and executed. (note 5) His wife, Ilse Koch, was involved in many of her husband's crimes, but the fantastic charge that she had lamp shades and other items manufactured from the skins of murdered inmates is not true. This allegation was made by the United States prosecution team at the main Nuremberg trial. (note 6) General Lucius D. Clay, Commander in Chief of U.S. Forces in Europe and Military Governor of the U.S. Occupation Zone of Germany, 1947-49, carefully reviewed the Ilse Koch case in 1948 and found that, whatever her other misdeeds, the lampshade charge was baseless. He commuted her sentence from life imprisonment to four years and informed the Army Department in Washington "There is no convincing evidence that she [Ilse Koch] selected inmates for extermination in order to secure tatooed skins or that she possessed any articles made of human skin." (note 7) During a 1976 interview Clay recalled the case: We tried Ilse Koch ... She was sentenced to life imprisonment, and I commuted it to three [four] years. And our press really didn't like that. She had been destroyed by the fact that an enterprising reporter who first went into her house had given her the beautiful name, the "Bitch of Buchenwald," and he had found some white lampshades in there which he wrote up as being made out of human flesh Well, it turned out actually that it was goat flesh But at the trial it was still human flesh. It was almost impossible for her to have gotten a fair trial. ... The Germans picked her up and gave her 12 years for her treatment of her own people. But it wasn't really a war crime in the strict sense of the word. And those are the kinds of things that we had to deal with all the time. (note 8) The Inmates: Life and Death There is no question that many atrocities were committed against Buchenwald inmates. However, at least a very large portion of them were committed, not by the German SS guards, but by the underground Communist camp organization that gained almost total internal control after 1943. This remarkable situation was confirmed in a detailed U.S. Army intelligence document of 24 April 1945 entitled Buchenwald: A Preliminary Report. (note 9) This confidential analysis remained classified until 1972. In a short preface, Army intelligence chief Alfred Toombs called this secret report "one of the most significant accounts yet written on an aspect of life in Nazi Germany" because it "tells how the [Buchenwald] prisoners themselves organized a deadly terror within the Nazi terror." The general accuracy of the report had been independently confirmed, Toombs added. As large numbers of foreigners began arriving at the camp during the war years, the confidential report noted, the understaffed SS found it necessary to turn over an ever larger share of camp administration to the inmates themselves. In practice this meant that by 1943 the well-organized and disciplined Communist inmate organization had taken virtually total control of the camp's internal operation. As the report explained: The trusties had wide powers over their fellow inmates. At first they were drawn almost exclusively from the German criminals. This period lasted until 1942. But gradually the Communists began to gain control of this organization. They were the oldest residents, with records of 10-12 years in the concentration camps ... They clung together with remarkable tenacity, whereas the criminal elements were simply out for their own individual welfare and had little group cohesiveness. The Communists maintained excellent discipline and received a certain amount of direction from outside the camp. They had brains and technical qualifications for running the various industries established at the camp. Their advances were not made without resistance from the criminals, but gradually the criminals were eliminated from power, partly by intimidation, partly with the aid of the SS. Numbers of the criminals were killed by beatings, hangings or injections of phenol into the heart or of air or milk into the veins. The injections were a specialty of the camp doctor [Hoven], who became a partisan of the Communist faction. Besides the top positions in the trusty organization, there were a number of key Communist strongholds in the administration of the camp. One was the food supply organization, through which favored groups received reasonable rations while others were brought to the starvation level. A second was the hospital, staffed almost exclusively by Communists. Its facilities were largely devoted to caring for members of their party ... Another Communist stronghold was the Property Room ... Each German trusty obtained good clothing and numerous other valuables. The Communists of Buchenwald, after ten or twelve years in concentration carnps, are dressed like prosperous business men. Some affect leather jackets and little round caps of the German navy, apparently the uniform of revolution. As a result of all this: ... lnstead of a heap of corpses or a disorderly mob of starving, leaderless men, the Americans [who captured the camp] found a disciplined and efficient organization in Buchenwald. Credit is undoubtedly due to the self-appointed Camp Committee, an almost purely Communist group under the domination of the German political leaders. ... The trusties, who in time became almost exclusively Communist Germans, had the power of life and death over all other inmates. They could sentence a man or a group to almost certain death ... The Communist trusties were directly responsible for a large part of the brutalities committed at Buchenwald. Communist block chiefs, the report stated, would personally beat their charges and "sometimes forced whole blocks to stand barefoot in the snow for hours, apparently on their own initiative." The Communists killed "large numbers" of Polish inmates who refused to submit to their rule. They forced French inmates to give up thousands of Red Cross parcels. The report mentioned several particularly brutal Communist camp leaders by name. It confirmed that the camp physician, Dr. Hoven, had been an important Communist ally who killed numerous criminal and anti-Communist political prisoners with lethal injections. An SS investigation team uncovered his activities during the war and sentenced him to death for murder. However, because of the critical wartime shortage of doctors, he was reprieved after 18 months in jail. After the war the Communists tried to protect their ally, but Hoven was sentenced to death for a second time by a U.S. military tribunal and executed in 1948. Camp Communists maintained close relations with the well- organized underground Communist party on the outside. "From Buchenwald an inmate went out regularly to establish contact with a Communist courier bringing news and instructions. Bound by his loyalty to the Party, the contact man never made use of his opportunity to escape personally." The Communist camp military organization had three machine guns, fifty rifles and a number of hand grenades. The German Communists lived better than any other group. "Even now," the report noted, "they may be distinguished from the rest of the inmates by their rosy cheeks and robust health, though they have been in concentration camps for much longer than the others." Finally, the report's authors warned against the simplistic and naive notion that former inmates should be trusted and helped just because they had been interned in German camps. "Some are in fact 'bandits,' criminals from all Europe or foreign workers in Germany who were caught stealing ... They are brutalized, unpleasant to look on. It is easy to adopt the Nazi theory that they are subhuman." A book published in 1961 by the Communist-run "International Buchenwald Committee" of East Berlin proudly describes the wartime activities of the camp's Communist underground. It ran an underground camp newspaper, an illegal radio transmitter, an inmate orchestra (which played Communist songs), a large library and even a military organization. It held Communist ceremonies and political meetings, and carried out extensive sabotage of German war production. (note 10) Former Buchenwald inmate Emst Federn, a Jew, explained after the war how the Communist camp organization cooperated with the SS to increase its own power and eliminate opponents and undesirables. He recalled that the leader of the Jewish section of the Communist camp organization, Emil Carlebach, declared quite frankly that for him only his [Communist] friends counted, that everybody else might as well perish." Federn reported that he personally witnessed two acts of brutality by Carlebach, who was a Block Senior from 1942 until 1945. In one case he ordered the death of a fellow Jewish inmate for allegedly mistreating inmates at another camp. On another occasion Carlebach personally beat an elderly Jewish inmate from Turkey to death because he had unavoidably relieved himself in the barracks. (note 11) Similarly, an Englishman who spent 15 months in Buchenwald reported after the war that the Communist camp organization did not consider the Jewish inmates particularly worth trying tokeep alive. (note l2) In recent years some homosexual organizations have claimed that thousands of homosexuals were "systematically exterminated" in the German concentration camps. While it is true that many were interned as criminals, no homosexual was ever killed by the Germans for that reason alone. It is also worth recalling that during the 1930s and 1940s, homosexual behavior was considered an odious crime in most of the world, including the United States. A former Buchenwald inmate recalled in 1981: "... Homosexuals were oppressed by the Nazis because of their social mores ... In Buchenwald, a great number of them were not killed by the Nazis, but by political prisoners [Communists], because of the homosexuals' aggressive and offensive behavior." (note l3) Day-to-day conditions were much better than most portrayals would suggest. Inmates could both receive and send two letters or postcards monthly. They could receive money from the outside. Inmates were also paid for their labor with special camp currency, which they could use to purchase a wide variety of items in the camp canteen. They played soccer, handball and volleyball in their spare time. Soccer matches were held on Saturdays and Sundays on the camp playing field. A large camp library offered a wide range of books. A motion picture theater was very popular. There were also variety shows, and musical groups put on regular concerts in the central square. A camp brothel, which employed 15 prostitutes when the Americans arrived, was available to many inmates. (note l4) Extermination factory? The Americans who arrived at Buchenwald in April 1945 found hundreds of sick inmates and many unburied corpses in the camp. Horrific photos of these gruesome scenes were immediately circulated throughout the world and have been widely reproduced ever since, giving the impression that Buchenwald was a diabolical mass killing center. The American government encouraged this impression. A U.S. Army report about Buchenwald prepared for the Supreme Allied Headquarters in Europe and made public at the end of April 1945 declared that the "mission of the camp" was "an extermination factory." (note 15) And two weeks later a U.S. Congressional report on German camps, later used as a Nuremberg trial document, was issued which likewise described Buchenwald as an "extermination factory." (note l6) This superficially plausible description is, however, completely wrong. The great majority of those who died at Buchenwald perished during the chaotic final months of the war. They succumbed to disease, often aggravated by malnutrition, in spite of woefully inadequate efforts to keep them alive. They were victims, not of an "extermination" program, but rather of the terrible overcrowding and severe lack of food and medical supplies due to a general collapse of order in Germany during the tumultuous final phase of the war. Along with these indirect victims of the war were many healthy inmates. B.M. McKelway inspected Buchenwald shortly after the U.S. takeover as one of a group of American newspaper editors and publishers. He reported that "many of the hundreds of inmates we saw appeared to be healthy while others suffering from dysentery, typhus, tuberculosis and other diseases were living skeletons." (note 17) One striking indication that Buchenwald was not an "extermination" camp is the fact that some of the internees were children too young to work. An estimated one thousand boys, aged two to 16, were housed in two special children's barracks. Train transports of Jewish children arrived from 1942 to 1945. Some arrived from Auschwitz in 1943. Other Jewish children came from Hungary and Poland. (note 18) The confidential U.S. Army report of April 24, 1945, noted the "most remarkable sight of the children" who "rush about, shrieking and playing." (note l9) Thirty years after the war, even famed "Nazi hunter" Simon Wiesenthal conceded that "there were no extermination camps on German soil." (note 20) The gas chamber lie Perhaps the most vicious lie circulated after the war about Buchenwald is the charge that the Germans exterminated inmates there in gas chambers. An official French government report submitted to the Nuremberg tribunal as a prosecution exhibit imaginatively stated: "Everything had been provided for down to the smallest detail. In 1944, at Buchenwald, they had even lengthened a railway line so that the deportees might be led directly to the gas chamber. Certain [of the gas chambers] had a floor that tipped and immediately directed the bodies into the room with the crematory oven." (note 21) The chief British prosecutor at the main Nuremberg trial, Sir Hartley Shawcross, declared in his closing address that"murder [was] conducted like some mass production industry in the gas chambers and the ovens" of Buchenwald and other camps. (note 22) In a book published in 1947, French priest Georges Henocque, former chaplain of the Saint-Cyr Military Academy, claimed to have visited the inside of a Buchenwald gas chamber, which he described in detail. This particular story has been cited as a good example of the kind of Holocaust lies which even prominent personalities are capable of inventing. (note 23) Another French priest and former inmate, Jean-Paul Renard, made a similar claim about the camp in his own book published shortly after the war: "I saw thousands and thousands of persons going into the showers. Instead of liquid, asphyxiating gases poured out over them." When fellow Frenchman and former Buchenwald inmate Paul Rassinier pointed out to the priest that there was no gas chamber in the camp, Renard replied: "Right, but that's only a figure of speech ... and since those things existed somewhere, it's not important." (note 24) In a book published in 1948, Hungarian Jewish writer Eugene Levai charged that the Germans killed tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews at Buchenwald in gas chambers. (note 25) A widely distributed booklet issued by the Jewish Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith also spread the tale that people were gassed at Buchenwald. (note 26) In 1960 the Buchenwald gassing story was officially declared a fable. In that year, Martin Broszat of the anti-Hitler Institute for Contemporary History in Munich specifically stated that no one was ever gassed at Buchenwald. (note 27) Professor A.S. Balachowsky, a member of the Institut de France, likewise declared in November 1971: "I would like to confirm to you that no gas chamber as such existed at Buchenwald ..." (note 28) Holocaust writer Konnilyn Feig conceded in her book, Hitler's Death Camps, that Buchenwald did not have a gas chamber. (note 29) Today no serious historian still claims gassings there. How many perished? The numbers of persons estimated to have perished at Buchenwald while it was under German control vary tremendously. According to former inmate Elie Wiesel, the prolific Jewish writer and 1986 Nobel Peace Prize recipient, "In Buchenwald they sent 10,000 to their deaths every day." (note 30) This wildly irresponsible statement is, unfortunately, all too typical of the the rhetoric of the man who was also chosen to head the U.S. govemment's official Holocaust Memorial Council. The 1980 edition of the World Book Encyclopedia claimed that "more than 100,000" died in the camp. (note 31) The Encyclopaedia Judaica put the number at 56,549. (note 32) Raul Hilberg, writing in the 1982 edition of the Encyclopedia Americana, stated that "more than 50,000 died in the Buchenwald complex." (note 33) The U.S. Army intelligence report of April 24, 1945 (cited above) noted that the total number of certified deaths was 32,705. (note 34) A detailed June 1945 U.S. government report about Buchenwald put the total at 33,462, of whom more than 20,000 died in the chaotic final months of the war. (note 35) The authoritative Intemational Tracing Service of Arolsen, an affiliate of the Intemational Red Cross, stated in 1984 that the number of documented deaths (of both Jews and non-Jews) at Buchenwald was 20,671, with another 7,463 for Dora (Mittelbau). (note 36) While even these lower figures are regrettably high, it is important to realize that the great majority of those who died at Buchenwald were unfortunate victims of a catastrophic war, not German policy. Most of the rest were murdered by order of the Communist underground camp organization. Several hundred were also killed in Allied bombing attacks. In one air raid against a large munitions factory near the main camp, British bombers killed 750 persons, including 400 inmates. (note 37) American and Soviet atrocities Following the American takeover of Buchenwald in April 1945, about 80 remaining German guards and camp functionaries were summarily murdered. Inmates brutally beat the Germans to death, sometimes with the aid and encouragement of American soldiers. (note 38) Between 20 and 30 GIs took turns gleefully beating six young Germans to death. (note 39) Inmates also commandeered American jeeps and drove to nearby Weimar, where they looted and randomly killed German civilians. (note 40) After the war the Soviet secret police operated Buchenwald as a concentration camp for "potential class enemies" and other "possibly dangerous" German civilians. In September 1949, more than four years after the end of the war, there were still 14,300 inmates in the "special camp." (While Buchenwald was under German control, the number of inmates did not reach 14,000 until May 1943.) Conditions were horrible. Even the Soviet official in charge of the concentration camps in Germany, General Merkulov, acknowledged the severe lack of order and cleanliness, particularly at Buchenwald. At least 13,000 and as many as 21,000 persons died in Soviet-run Buchenwald, but no one has ever been punished for the deaths and mistreatment in this notorious postwar camp. (note 4l) One former inmate described his "five years of horrible seclusion, humiliations, interrogations and annihilation" in the Soviet-run camp in these words: People were mere numbers. Their dignity was consciously trampled upon. They were starved without mercy and consumed by tuberculosis until they were skeletons. The annihilation process which had been well tested over decades was systematic. The cries and groans of those in pain still echo in my ears whenever the past comes back to me in sleepless nights. We had to watch helplessly as people perished according to plan -- like creatures sacrificed to annihilation. Many nameless people were caught up in the annihilation machinery of the NKVD [Soviet secret police] after the collapse of 1945. They were herded together like cattle after the so-called liberation and vegetated in the many concentration carnps. Many were systematically tortured to death. A memorial was built for the dead of the Buchenwald concentration camp. A figure of death victims was chosen based on fantasy. Intentionally, only the dead of the 1937-1945 period were honored. Why is there no memorial honoring the dead of 1945 to 1950? Countless mass graves were dug around the camp in the postwar penod. (note 42) In an act of stunning hypocrisy, the Communist rulers of the postwar "German Democratic Republic" have turned the Buchenwald camp area into a kind of secular shrine. Every year, hundreds of thousands visit the sites, complete with museums, bell tower, monumental sculpture and memorials dedicated, ironically enough, to the "victims of fascism." (note 43) There is nothing to remind visitors of the thousands of forgotten Germans who perished miserably during the years after the war when the camp was run by the Soviets. The story of Buchenwald, like the story of virtually every German wartime concentration camp, is a microcosm of the entire Holocaust tale. The widely-accepted portrayal of Buchenwald, like those of the other German camps, contrasts sharply with the little- known reality. Notes 1. The information in this section is from two sources: "Buchenwald," Encyclopaedia Judaica(New York and Jersualem: 1971), Vol. 4, pp. 1442, 1445; and U.S. government report B-2833 of 18 June 1945. Document 217I-PS, published in the "red senes," Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression (NC&A) (Washington, DC: 1946-48), Vol. 4, pp. 800-833. 2. U.S. Army report of 25 May 1945. Document 2222-PS. Published in NC&A, Vol. 4, pp. 86p864; "German-Bom NASA Expert ...," The New York Times, 18 October 1984, pp. Al, A12: "Ex-Nazi Denies Role ...," The New York Times, 21 October 1984, p. 8. 3. Document 2171-PS. NC&A, Vol. 4, pp. 800-833. 4. 2171-PS. NC&A, Vol. 4, pp. 832-833. 5. Nuremberg testimony of Günther Reinecke, 7 August 1946. Published in the IMT "blue series," Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal (IMT) (Nuremberg: 1947 49), VoL 20, pp. 438, 441 142; SS indictment brief against Karl Koch, 11 April 1944. Document NO-2360. 6. IMT, Vol. 3, pp. 514-515; Vol. 5, pp. 220-201; Vol. 32, pp. 267- 269. 7. "Clay Explains Cut in Ilse Koch Term," The New York Times, 24 Sept. 1948,p.3. 8. Interview with Lucius D. Clay. Official Proceedings of the George C. Marshall Research Foundation. Transcript of a videotape interview shown at the conference "U.S. Occupation in Europe After World War II," 23- 24 April 1976 at Lexington, Va., sponsored by the George C. Marshall Research Foundation, pp. 37-38. (I am grateful to Robert Wolfe of the National Archives for bringing this interview to my attention.) 9. Egon W. Fleck and Edwartd At Tenenbaum, Buchenwald: A Preliminary Report, U.S. Army, 12th Army Group, 24 April 1945. National Archives, Record Group 331, SHAEF, G-5, 17.11, Jacket 10, Box 151 (8929tl63-8929/180). I am grateful to Mr. Timothy Mulligan of the Military Branch of the National Archives for bringing this report to my attention. See also: Donald B. Robinson, "Communist Atrocities at Buchenwald," American Mercury, October 1946, pp. 397-404; and Christopher Burney, The Dungeon Democracy (New York 1946), pp. 21, 22-23, 28-29, 32, 33, 34, 44, 46, 49. 10. Internationales Buchenwald-Komitee, Buchenwald (East Berlin: Kongress, 1961). 11. Ernst Federn, 'That German ..." Harper's, August 1948, pp. 106-107. 12. Christopher Burney, The Dungeon Democracy (New York 1946), pp. l09, 124, 128-130. 13. The Jewish Times (Baltimore). Quoted in "On the Holocaust," The Gay Paper (Baltimore), December 1981, p. 2. 14. John Mendelsoln; "Sources," Prologue (Washington, DC: National Archives), Fall 1983, p. 180; Konnilyn G. Feig, Hitler's Death Camps (New York 1981), p. 96; K. Morgen testimony, 7 August 1946, IMT, Vol. 20, p. 490; testimony by former Buchenwald inmate Arnost Tauber at Nuremberg "I.G. Farben" trial, 12 Nov. 1947. Printed in: Udo Walendy (ed.), Auschwitz im IG-Farben Prozess (1981), p. 119; Roger Manvell and H. Fraenkel, The Incomparable Crime (New Yorlc 1967), p. 155; Buchenwald Camp: The Report of a Parliamentary Delegation (London: HMSO, 1945), pp. 4, 5. 15. "Official Army Report Lists Buchenwald as Extermination Factory, The Washington Star, 29 April 1945, p. A7. 16. U.S. Congressional Report on Camps, Doc. 159-L., IMT, Vol. 37, pp. 605-626; andCongressional Record (Senate), 15 May 1945, pp. 457S 4582. 17. B. M. McKelway, "Buchenwald ...," The Washington Star, 29 April 1945, pp. Al, A7. 18. B. M. McKelway, "Buchenwald ...," The Washington Star, 29 April 1945, p. A7; affidavit of H. Wilhelm Hammann of 6 March 1947. NO-2328. (Hamman was an inmate from 1938 until April 1945.) 19. E.W. Fleck and EA. Tenenbaum, Buchenwald: A Prelinunary Report, 24 April 1945 (Cited above), p. 14; see also the photo of Jewish children inmates at Buchenwald in: Robert Abzug, Inside the Vicious Heart (New York: Oxford, 1985), pp. 148-149. 20. S. Wiesenthal (letter), Book and Bookmen (London), April 1975, p. 5. 21. Nuremberg document 274-F (RF-301). IMT, Vol. 37, p. 148. 22. IMT, Vol. 19, p. 434; NC&A, Suppl. Vol. A, p. 61. 23. Georges Henocque, Les Autres de la Bàte (Paris: G. Duraissie, 1947), p. 115. Facsimile reprint and commentary in Robert Faurisson, Memoire en Defense (Paris: 1980), pp. 185-191. 24. Paul Rassinier, Debunking the Genocide Myth (Torrance, CA.: The Noontide Press, 1978), pp. 129-130. 25. Eugene Levai, Black Book on the Martyrdom of Hungarian Jewry (Zurich: 1948), p. 439. 26. Earl Raab, The Anatomy of Nazism (New York ADL, 1979), photo caption opposite page 21. The Buchenwald gassing myth was also propagated in: Francis Tomczuk, "Days of Remembrance," American Legion Magazine, April 1985, p. 23. 27. Die Zeit, 19 August 1960, p. 16 (U.S. edition 26 August 1960). 28. Germaine Tillion, Ravensbrueck (Garden City, NY: Anchor/Doubleday, 1975), p. 231. 29. K Feig, Hitler's Death Camps, p. 100. 30. Stefan Kanfer, "Author, Teacher, Witness," Time magazme, 18 March 1985, p. 79. 31. "Buchenwald," World Book Encyclopedia, (1980 edition), Vol. 2, p. 550. 32. "Buchenwald," Encyclopaedia Judaica, Vol. 4, p. 1445. 33. R Hilberg, "Buchenwald," Encyclopedia Americana (1982 edition), Vol. 4, p. 677. 34. E. Fleck and E. Tenenbaum, Buchenwald: A Preliminary Report (cited above), p. 18. 35. 2171-PS. NC&A, Vol. 4, p. 801. 36. Statement by Arolsen registry official Butterweck, 16 Jan. 1984. Facsimile in: Deutsche National-Zeitung (Munich), Nr. 18, 27 April 1984, p. 10. 37. Buchenwald Camp: The Report of a Parliamentary Delegation (London: HMSO, 1945), p. 5; 2171-PS. NC&A, VoL 4, p. 821. 38. Robert Abzug, Inside the Vicious Heart, pp. 49, 52. 39. Marguerite Higgins, News Is a Singular Thing (Doubleday, 1955), p. 78-79. 40. Elie Wiesel, Legends of Our Time (New York Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968), p. 140; Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews (New York Holmes and Meier, 1985), p. 987. 41. "Bis 1950: Buchenwald und Sachsenhausen," Amerika Woche (Chicago), 11 May 1985, p. 3; "Im Todeslager der Sowjets." D. National-Zeitung (Munich), Nr. 47, 15 Nov. 1985, p. 4; "Soviet Camps Busy, Berlin Paper Says," The New York Times, 10 Sept. 1949, p. 6. 42. Letter by E. Krombholz of Aschaffenburg, "Erlebnisbericht aus einem Sowjet-KZ," D. National-Zeitung (Munich), Nr. 11, 9 March 1984, p. 10; see also sketches of conditions in Soviet-run Buchenwald by former imnate Dr. Heinz Moller in: D. National-Zeitung (Munich), Nr. 6, 3 Feb. 1984, p. 5. 43. "Nazi Death Camp ..." (AP) Gazette-Telegraph (Colorado Springs, Co.), 1 July 1984, p. H12; "At Buchenwald ...," The New York Times, 14 April 1985, pp. 1, 29. From The Journal of Historical Review, Winter 1986-87 (Vol. 7, No 4), pages 405-417

IMPORTANT:Israel's Cult of Victimhood

June 9, 2010

Israel's Cult of Victimhood

Barefoot Soldiers on the High Seas?

By JONATHAN COOK

Why are Israelis so indignant at the international outrage that has greeted their country’s lethal attack last week on a flotilla of civilian ships taking aid to Gaza?

Israelis have not responded in any of the ways we might have expected. There has been little soul-searching about the morality, let alone legality, of soldiers invading ships in international waters and killing civilians. In the main, Israelis have not been interested in asking tough questions of their political and military leaders about why the incident was handled so badly. And only a few commentators appear concerned about the diplomatic fall-out.

Instead, Israelis are engaged in a Kafkaesque conversation in which the military attack on the civilian ships is characterised as a legitimate “act of self-defence”, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it, 

and the killing of nine aid activists is transformed into an attempted “lynching of our soldiers” by terrorists.

Benny Begin, a government minister whose famous father, Menachem,became an Israeli prime minister after being what today would be called a terrorist as the leader of the notorious Irgun militia, told BBC World TV that the commandos had been viciously assaulted after “arriving almost barefoot”. Ynet, Israel’s most popular news website, meanwhile, reported that the commandos had been “ambushed”.

This strange discourse can only be deciphered if we understand the two apparently contradictory themes that have come to dominate the emotional landscape of Israel. The first is a trenchant belief that Israel exists to realise Jewish power; the second is an equally strong sense that Israel embodies the Jewish people’s collective experience as the eternal victims of history.

Israelis are not entirely unaware of this paradoxical state of mind, sometimes referring to it as the “shooting and crying” syndrome.

It is the reason, for example, that most believe their army is the “most moral in the world”. The “soldier as victim” has been given dramatic form in Gilad Shalit, the “innocent” soldier held by Hamas for the past four years who, when he was captured, was enforcing Israel’s illegal occupation of Gaza.

One commentator in Israel’s Haaretz newspaper summed up the feelings of Israelis brought to the fore by the flotilla episode as the “helplessness of a poor lonely victim, confronting the rage of a lynch mob and frantically realising that these are his last moments”. This “psychosis”, as he called it, is not surprising: it derives from the sanctified place of the Holocaust in the Israeli education system.

The Holocaust’s lesson for most Israelis is not a universal one that might inspire them to oppose racism, or fanatical dictators or the bullying herd mentality that can all too quickly grip nations, or even state-sponsored genocide.

Instead, Israelis have been taught to see in the Holocaust a different message: that the world is plagued by a unique and ineradicable hatred of Jews, and that the only safety for the Jewish people is to be found in the creation of a super-power Jewish state that answers to no one. Put bluntly, Israel’s motto is: only Jewish power can prevent Jewish victimhood.

That is why Israel acquired a nuclear weapon as fast it could, and why it is now marshalling every effort to stop any other state in the region from breaking its nuclear monopoly. 

It is also why the Israeli programme’s sole whistle-blower, Mordechai Vanunu, is a pariah 24 years after committing his “offence”. 

Six years on from his release to a form of loose house arrest, his hounding by the authorities -- he was jailed again last month for talking to foreigners -- has attracted absolutely no interest or sympathy in Israel.

If Mr Vanunu’s continuing abuse highlights Israel’s oppressive desire for Jewish power, Israelis’ self-righteousness about their navy’s attack on the Gaza flotilla reveals the flipside of this pyschosis.

The angry demonstrations sweeping the country against the world’s denunciations; the calls to revoke the citizenship of the Israeli Arab MP on board -- or worse, to execute her -- for treason; and the local media’s endless recycling of the soldiers’ testimonies of being “bullied” by the activists demonstrate the desperate need of Israelis to justify every injustice or atrocity while clinging to the illusion of victimhood.

The lessons imbibed from this episode -- like the lessons Israelis learnt from the Goldstone report last year into the war crimes committed during Israel’s attack on Gaza, or the international criticisms of the massive firepower unleashed on Lebanon before that -- are the same: that the world hates us, and that we are alone.

If the confrontation with the activists on the flotilla has proved to Israelis that the unarmed passengers were really terrorists, the world’s refusal to stay quiet has confirmed what Israelis already knew: that, deep down, non-Jews are all really anti-Semites.

Meanwhile, the lesson the rest of us need to draw from the deadly commando raid is that the world can no longer afford to indulge these delusions.

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net.

IMPORTANT:Big Bang? A Critical Review

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Journal of Cosmology, 2010, Vol 6, 1533-1547.
Cosmology, January 30, 2010

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Big Bang? A Critical ReviewAshwini Kumar Lal, Ph.D. 
Deputy Adviser, Ministry of Statistics & Progrmme Implementation New Delhi, India

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AbstractInflationary Big Bang model is the generally accepted theory for the origin of universe. Nonetheless, findings in observational astronomy and revelations in the field of fundamental physics over the past two decades question the validity of the 'Big Bang' model as a viable theory for the origin of the universe. This paper examines a few of the various factors which undermine the theory of the Big Bang, including the organization of galactic superstructures, the Cosmic Microwave Background, distant galaxies, gravitational waves, red shifts, and the age of local galaxies.
Keywords: Big Bang, Redshift, Cosmic Background Radiation, Concordance Model, WMAP, Superclusters, Sloan Digital Survey , Gravitational - wave Background

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1. Introduction.
Most, but not all cosmologists favor the inflationary Big Bang model as a viable explanation for the origin and nature of the universe. The origin of the Big Bang, that is, the state of "existence" which resulted in a Big Bang, is a mathematically obscure state - a "singularity" of zero volume that contained infinite density and infinite energy. Why this singularity existed, how it originated, and why it exploded, cannot be explained, and this state of affairs has led many scientists to question and challenge the validity of the Big Bang theory (Arp et al. 2004; Eastman 2010; Lerner 1991; Ratcliffe, 2010; Van Flandern 2002).
There is considerable evidence which has been interpreted as supporting a Big Bang origin of the universe, i.e. expansion and acceleration (Perlmutter et al., 1998; Schmidt et al., 1998). However, it has also been pointed out that an accelerated expansion limited to the most distant regions of the known universe, is incompatible with an explosive origin, but instead is indicative of an attractive force, i.e. a "universe-in-mass" black hole whose super-gravity is effecting red shifts and illumination, creating the illusion of a universe which is accelerating as it speeds away, when instead the stars closest to the hole are speeding faster toward their doom (Joseph 2010a). Other scientists have also pointed out that the interpretation of red shifts as supporting a Big Bang, is also flawed and lacking validity (Arp et al., 2004; Lerner 1991; Ratcliffe 2010; Van Flandern 2002). In fact, there is little evidence to support the belief that red shifts are accurate measures of distance or time (Arp et al., 2004; Ratcliffe 2010) and they are so variable and effected by so many factors that estimates of age, time, and distance can vary by up to 3 billion years following repeated measurements, over the just a few years, of the same star (Joseph 2010a).
There are also many opinions about the meaning of the isotropic cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB), believed to be relic of the Big Bang permeating the Universe. The CMB was first detected by Penzias and Wilson in a chance discovery in 1965, and subsequently confirmed by NASA's Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) in 1991 and the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) in 2003 (Benett et al. 2003). Many scientists believed that the CMB weigh heavily in favor of the Big Bang model of the origin of the universe (Figs. 1 & 2). This discovery, and the interpretations of its meaning, in fact, convinced many who supported an an infinite or "steady state" universe, that the Big Bang model was the correct one. Not all are convinced, however, and many have expressed their doubts (Arp et al. 1990; Lal 2008; Lerner 1991; Ratcliffe 2010; Van Flandern 2002).

 Figures 1 & 2: Comparison of the predictions of the standard Big Bang model with experimental measurements. The power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background radiation anisotropy is plotted in terms of the angular scale (or multipole moment) (top) Credit : NASA/WMAP Science TeamThe observed abundances of hydrogen, helium, and other lighter elements such as deuterium, and lithium - believed to have been generated during the process of nucleosynthesis in the immediate aftermath of the Big Bang also apparently lends credence to the Big Bang model (Fig. 3). On the other hand, it has been pointed out that the heat generated by a Big Bang would have been so intense that all these elements would have been turned into iron and would have resulted in a universe made of heavy metal (Joseph 2010a). Instead, it has been argued that the simplest of gases and atoms, beginning with hydrogen, can be explained by the activity of "black holes" from those smaller than a Plank length in size, to supermassive black holes within the heart of quasars (Joseph 2010a,b).

 Figure 3: Relative abundances of lighter elements (curves indicate the theoretical predictions from Big Bang nucleosynthesis, the horizontal stripes the values that follow from observations) Adapted from an image by E. Vangioni, Institut d'Astrophysique de ParisVan Flandern (2002), former Chief Astronomer for the United States Naval Observatory, has detailed 30 major problems with the Big Bang theory, including its reliance on ad hoc theorizing to paper over glaring inconsistencies, its reliance on constantly adjustable parameters to prevent its falsification, and the fact that there are quasars, large scale structures, and gobular clusters which are far older than the date given for the Big Bang.

Although the "Big Bang" is often presented as if it is proven fact, there is a wealth of data, including recent revelations of the several space probes and findings in fundamental physics, which tells a different story (Arp et al. 1990, 2004; Eastman, 2010; Lal 2008; Lerner 1991; Ratcliffe 2010; Van Flandern (2002).
2. Large - Scale Structures in the Universe.
In recent years, there have been a number of very serious challenges to the current theory of cosmic evolution and the belief the universe began just 13.7 billion years ago. These include the observation of large chains of galaxies spread throughout the universe forming gargantuan stellar structures separated by vast voids. The system of galactic superclusters forms a network permeating throughout the space, on which about 90% of the galaxies are located.
The existence of these "Superclusters", "Great Walls" and "Great Attractors" could have only come to be organized and situated in their present locations and to have achieved their current size, in a universe which is at least 80 billion to 250 billion years in age. The largest superclusters. e.g., "Coma", extend up to 100 Mpc!
In 1986, Brent Tully of the University of Hawaii reported detecting superclusters of galaxies 300 million light years (mly) long and 100 mly thick - stretching out about 300 mly across. At the speeds at which galaxies are supposed to be moving, it would require 80 billlion years to create such a huge complex of galaxies (Tully 1986).
In 1989, a group lead by John Huchra and Margaret J. Geller at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics discovered "The Great Wall"- a series of galaxies, lined up and creating a "wall" of galaxies 500 million light years (mly) long, 200 mly wide, and 15 mly thick. This superstructure would have required at least 100 billion years to form.
A team of the British, American, and Hungarian astronomers have reported even larger structures. As per their findings, the universe is crossed by at least 13 'Great Walls', apparent rivers of galaxies 100Mpc long in the surveyed domain of 7 billion light years. They found galaxies clustered into bands spaced about 600 millon light years apart. The pattern of these clusters stretches across about one-fourth of the diameter of the universe, or about seven billion light years. This huge shell and void pattern would have required nearly 150 billion years to form, based on their speed of movement, if produced by the standard Big Bang cosmology (Lerner 1990).

 Figure 4: SDSS 3D Universe Map Credit: Sloan Digital Sky Survey Team, NASA, NSF, DOE.
The "Sloan Great Wall" of galaxies, as detected by the Sloan Digital Survey (Fig. 4), has earned the distinction of being the largest observed structure in the Universe (Richard et al. 2005). It is 1.36 billion light years long and 80% longer than the Great Wall discovered by Geller and Huchra. It runs roughly from the head of Hydra to the feet of Virgo. It would have taken at least 250 billion years to form, if produced following a "Big Bang" creation event.
As summarized by Van Flandern (2002), "The average speed of galaxies through space is a well-measured quantity. At those speeds, galaxies would require roughly the age of the universe to assemble into the largest structures (superclusters and walls) we see in space, and to clear all the voids between galaxy walls. But this assumes that the initial directions of motion are special, e.g., directed away from the centers of voids. To get around this problem, one must propose that galaxy speeds were initially much higher and have slowed due to some sort of "viscosity" of space. To form these structures by building up the needed motions through gravitational acceleration alone would take in excess of 100 billion years."

Then there is the problem of gravity. "Hubble length" Universe, which consists of those galaxies and stars which can be observed by current technology, appears, therefore, to be organized as titanic walls and clusters of galaxies separated by a collection of giant bubble-like voids. The Great Walls are far too large and massive to have been formed by the mutual gravitational attraction of its member galaxies alone.
Discovery of the Great Walls of galaxies and filamentary clumping of galactic mater has greatly upset the traditional notion that galactic matter should be uniformly distributed. If the universe began with a Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago, the awesome size of these large-scale structures is baffling because there is apparently not sufficient time available for such massive objects to form and to become organized.
Based on the cosmological principle, which is one of the cornerstones of the Big Bang model, cosmologists predicted the distribution of matter to be homogeneous throughout the universe, implying thereby that the distribution of the galaxies would be essentially uniform. There would be no large scale clusters of galaxies or great voids in space. Instead, contrary to the "Big Bang" universe, we exist in a very "lumpy" cosmos.
3. Age of Universe
Based on the findings of the WMAP, astronomers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center proclaimed the age of Universe as 13.7 billion years (Benett et al. 2003). They claim that the WMAP data along with the complementary observations from other CMB experiments like CBI (Cosmic Background Imager) and DASI (Degree Angular Scale Interferometer) confirm the inflationary Big Bang model of the Universe (Figs. 1 and 2).
However, these claims are based on interpretations of data which are guided by the belief that there is no alternative explanation. Hence, rather than the data shaping the theory, the theory of the "Big Bang" dictates how data are interpreted and even which data should be included vs ignored. For example, it has been claimed that temperature fluctuations in the CMB are as little as one-millionth of a degree, and these are caused by variations in the density of the infant Universe at an epoch 380,000 years after the Big Bang, after which the universe rapidly cooled. However, it has also been asked: "What happened to the heat?" If everything was contained in a super-hot expanding universe which originated as a singularity, then there could be no "cold sink" or thus no cooling due to conduction or convection and temperature disequilibrium (Joseph 2009).
Supposedly, the universe rapidly cooled when radiation first decoupled from matter, creating vast hot and cold spots. Differences in temperature and matter creation supposedly led to clumping and eventually the formation of galaxies, stars and planets.
However, recent research studies undertaken by the scientists at CERN and Case Western University in the US have questioned the authenticity of the WMAP interpretations (Schwarz et al. 2004). Although most cosmologists think that the tiny variations in the temperature of the CMB are related to quantum fluctuations in the early Universe, Starkmen and Schwarz (2005) have reported that some of these variations are due to processes occurring in our solar system. According to their findings, the tiny temperature variations (0.00003ºC) detected have a strong statistical connection with the solar system, and has nothing to do with a Big Bang.
In fact, the claim for uniformity in the CMB, is just not true. Instead of variations which are as little as one-millionth of a degree, there are regions of space, vast voids, where the temperature of the CMB fluctuates significantly from surrounding space (Rudnick et al., 2007). For example, a black hole (Joseph 2010a) or void, over a billion light-years across, in the constellation of Eridanus, has apparently swallowed up all galaxies, gas, and light, including radiation from the CMB (Rudnick et al., 2007) . Based on an analysis of the NRAO VLA sky Survey (NVSS) data, Rudnick et al. (2007) discovered that there was a significant absence of galaxies in the constellation of Eridnus and which was also sucking in thermal energy and even consuming the cold from the CMB which is dragged inside. Joseph (2010a) argues for the presence of a "black hole" that he estimates must have gravity-mass of thousands of entire galaxies, such that even the energy of the CMB can be captured as the temperature of the hole is lower than the CMB. Holes of all size permeate the universe, according to Joseph (2010). If correct, then the overall temperature of the CMB and its fluctuations would have nothing to do with a Big Bang, but would be due to holes in space time which consume matter, gravity, energy, and some of which emit thermal energy in the process (Joseph 2010ab).
Van Flandern (2002) also notes that the "Big Bang offers no explanation for the kind of intensity variations with wavelength seen in radio galaxies" which he believes must be a function of absorption by unknown stellar material within deep space: "The amount of radiation emitted by distant galaxies falls with increasing wavelengths, as expected if the longer wavelengths are scattered by the intergalactic medium. For example, the brightness ratio of radio galaxies at infrared and radio wavelengths changes with distance in a way which implies absorption. Basically, this means that the longer wavelengths are more easily absorbed by material between the galaxies. But then the microwave radiation (between the two wavelengths) should be absorbed by that medium too, and has no chance to reach us from such great distances, or to remain perfectly uniform while doing so. It must instead result from the radiation of microwaves from the intergalactic medium. This argument alone implies that the microwaves could not be coming directly to us from a distance beyond all the galaxies, and therefore that the Big Bang theory cannot be correct."
In addition, the WMAP, which supports the "concordance (Λ-CDM) model" of the Universe with up to 73% dark energy, 23% dark matter and bare 4% comprising all the matter in observable universe, has been under attack in recent years. Critics have complained that claims for the existence of invisible, unknown forces, to support a theory where it is admitted that over 90% of the universe it seeks to explain cannot even be detected, hardly seems worthy of being called "science."
Surveys of distant cluster of galaxies undertaken by an international group of astronomers, European Space Agency's XMM-Newton satellite observatory has also cast doubt on the existence of dark energy itself (Vauclair et al. 2003). Moreover, it was found that clusters of galaxies in the distant universe were not found to be similar to those located closer to Earth. They seem to release more x-rays. These findings also indicate that the universe must be a high-density environment which is a clear contradiction to the popular "concordance model."
4. Early Galaxies.
Combining Advanced camera for Survey (ACS) and the Infrared Camera for Multi-object Spectrometer (NICMOS), the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF) has revealed the presence of estimated 10,000 fully formed galaxies in a patch of sky in the constellation, Formax - a region just below the constellation, Orion (NASA News Release 2005). According to the NASA interpretation, these fully formed galaxies emerged just 700 million years after the Big Bang, when the universe was barely 5% of its current age (z ~ 7).
Also, using ISAAC near- infrared instrument aboard ESO's Very Large Telescope(VLT), and the phenomenon of gravitational lensing, a team of French and Swiss astronomers using Very Large Telescope (VLT) of the European Southern Observatory, have identified an extremely faint galaxy, Abell 1835 IRI 1916 at z=10 (Pello et al., 2004).
According to their interpretations (Pello et al., 2004) Abell 1835 must have formed just 460 million years after the universe was born, during the "Dark Age" when the first stars and galaxies were supposedly being born More recently, fully formed galaxies were discovered which are at a greater distance, over 13.1 billion light years (American Astronomical Society 2010), and which must have already been billions of years in age, over 13 billion years ago (Joseph 2010a).
However, there are many problems with these interpretations. First and foremost, they are based on an Earth-centered universe (Joseph 2010a); all estimates of time are based on how distant these galaxies are from Earth. As Earth is not "ground zero" for the Big Bang, then distance from Earth have nothing to do with the age of these galaxies (Joseph 2010a). Second, the claims that these are "primitive" galaxies are based on light waves which could be interpreted to suggest they are metal poor. Metal poor, it is claimed, indicates a young, primitive galaxy. However, our own Milky Way galaxy is orbited by two very old metal poor dwarf galaxies, Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy and the Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy (Chou, et al., 2009; Ibata et al., 1997; Majewski et al., 2003; Martin et al., 2004) whereas the Milky Way is believed to be 13.6 billion years in age (Pasquini et al., 2005). Metal poor is not an indication of "primitiveness" or youthfulness as fully formed ancient galaxies near our Milky Way are also metal poor (Van Flandern 2002). In fact, lots of metal has been detected in distant quasars and galaxies (Van Flandern 2002), and if distance is related to age, this means that many of the oldest, most distant galaxies are metal rich; and this defies the predictions of the Big Bang.
Therefore, there are fully formed distant galaxies that must have already been billions of years old over 13 billion years ago; which would make them older than the Big Bang. Then there is the problem of the oldest globular clusters so far discovered, whose ages are in excess of 16 billion years (Van Flandern 2002). The Milky Way and other galaxies are also so old that they must have formed before the so called "Dark Ages" and thus almost immediately after the Big Bang, which is not consistent with theory.
Also, images taken with the Hubble Space Telescope and other larger telescopes show that no two galaxies are alike, and the endless varieties of galactic forms pose grave challenges to the theory governing evolution of the diverse galactic shapes.
Using the Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) aboard NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, astronomers have detected about a dozen very red galaxies at a distance of 10 to12 billion light years from Earth (cfa Harvard 2005). According to the Big Bang model, these galaxies existed when the universe was only about 1/5 of its present age of 13.75 billion years. The unpredicted existence of "red and dead" galaxies so early in the universe challenges Big Bang theories relating to galaxy formation (cfa Harvard 2005). Analysis showed that galaxies exhibit a large range of properties. Young galaxies with and without lots of dust, and old galaxies with and without dust. There is as much variety in the so called "early universe" as we see around "today" in galaxies closer to Earth.
Moreover, Spitzer Space Telescope, which is sensitive to the light from older and redder stars, has also revealed evidence for mature stars in less massive galaxies at similar distances (Spitzer 2005), when the Universe was supposedly less than one billion years old.
5. Gravitational Wave Background.
One of the acid tests relating to the validity of the Big Bang model is detection of remnant of gravity waves from the earliest epoch of the universe. Existence of gravitational wave background, as predicted by Einstein in 1916 in his general theory of relativity, is expected from the violent early moments of the Big Bang much like the cosmic microwave background that fills the sky with radio waves from the early universe. While the microwave background presumably originated 380,000 years after the Big Bang, gravitational wave background purportedly come directly from events in the first minute after the Big Bang. The cataclysmic Big Bang is believed to have created a flood of gravitational waves; ripples in the fabric of space-time. These gravitational waves should still fill the universe. However, presumably they are at a very feeble strength and cannot be detected by conventional astronomical tools. Nevertheless, they should carry information about the universe as it was in the immediate aftermath of the Big Bang. If these waves cannot be detected, this challenges the Big Bang.

 Figure 5: Schematic diagram of Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory Credit : http://space.mit.edu/LIGO/more.htmlThese waves should be observed as the "stochastic (random) background" – analogous to a superposition of many waves of different size and directions on the surface of a pond. The amplitude of the background is directly related to the parameters that govern the behaviour of the universe during the first minute after the Big Bang. The primordial stochastic gravitational waves are the warps, twists, and bends in space-time that were supposedly laid down as universe expanded from its earliest moments to the present.
The LIGO (Laser Interferometer and Gravitational Wave Observatory - jointly managed by MIT and Caltech, USA) and GEO 600 (the German-UK interferometer detector) have been actively searching for the gravity waves since 2002. The Italian Virgo interferometer joined the search in 2007. As per a a recent report (LIGO et al. 2009)stochastic background of the gravitational waves, expected as unique signature from the earliest moment of evolution of the universe, has not been discovered despite 2 years of sustained search for gravity waves. No gravitational waves contradicts the Big Bang theory.
6. Rivers of Galaxies Flowing in the Wrong Direction
The Big Bang predicts general uniformity in the trajectory of galaxies, and yet, contrary to this theory (Joseph 2010a) there are galaxies crashing into each other from every conceivable direction. There are in fact rivers of galaxies flowing in the wrong direction, including local galaxies who streaming motions are too high for a finite universe that is supposed to be everywhere uniform (Van Flandern 2002).
As summarized by Van Flandern (2002): "The average redshift for galaxies of a given brightness differs on opposite sides of the sky. The Big Bang interprets this as the existence of a puzzling group flow of galaxies relative to the microwave radiation on scales of at least 130 Mpc. Earlier, the existence of this flow led to the hypothesis of a "Great Attractor" pulling all these galaxies in its direction. But in newer studies, no backside infall was found on the other side of the hypothetical feature. Instead, there is streaming on both sides of us out to 60-70 Mpc in a consistent direction relative to the microwave "background". The only Big Bang alternative to the apparent result of large-scale streaming of galaxies is that the microwave radiation is in motion relative to us", a result which is contrary to the theory of the Big Bang.
Moreover, at the center of the local supercluster, 250 mly away in the direction of the Hydra and Centaurus constellations, rivers of galaxies over a region of hundreds of million light years across, are all flowing in the same direction; an "anomaly," which defies Big Bang predictions, and is thus attributed to a "Great Attractor" the identify of which is unknown.
7. Constancy of Speed of Light.
One of the basic assumptions of Einstein's general theory of relativity, is the constancy of the speed of light. A varying speed of light contradicts Einstein's theory of relativity, and conflicts with the Big Bang model for the universe. In recent years, the speed of light has been observed to have exceeded the speed of 300,000 km/sec, albeit over short range, in quantum tunneling experiments (Landauer 1993, Brown 1995). This has led some to claim that light moved faster during the early stages of the universe. For example, the evidence for variations in the fine-structure constant, α (= e²/ ħc) - a measurement of the strength of electromagnetic interaction between photons and electrons based on measurement of light travelling billions of years from quasars (Davies, et al 2002) has been used to claim that the speed of light was faster than its current speed some 6 to 10 billion years ago. The fine-structure is believed to be slowly increasing over cosmic timescales. These explanations have been offered up in order to explain away some of the major holes in Big Bang theory.
The laws governing the physical world cannot afford to be selective in their attributes, simply for the sake of saving a theory.
8. Oldest Planet.
In July 2003, the oldest planet yet was discovered, a huge gaseous object equivalent to 2.5 times the size of Jupiter whose origin dates back to about 13 billion years (at z ~7). This ancient planet was located by the Hubble Space the Telescope near the core of the ancient globular cluster M - 4 located some 7,200 light years away in the northern - summer constellation of Scorpius (Hansen et al. 2003). This discovery challenged a widely held view among astrophysicists that planets could not have originated so early because the Universe had yet to generate heavy elements needed to make them.
Planet-making ingredients include iron, silicon and other elements heavier than helium and hydrogen. These so-called metallic elements are cooked in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and accumulate from the ashes of dying stars (supernovae), which are recycled in new stars and their families of planets (Joseph and Schild 2010).
Planets 13 billion years in age, nearby galaxies 13.6 billion years in age, distant galaxies billions of years older than the supposed Big Bang, and the existence of Great Galactic Walls that took from 80 billion to 250 billion years to form, do not support the Big Bang theory.
9. Future Probes.
We are presently in a "golden age" of cosmological discoveries. Astronomers working on the WMAP mission stunned the scientific community with their announcement that the first generation stars in the universe were surprisingly born just after 200 million years of the Big Bang birth of the cosmos. Of course, the fact is, the true age of the universe is unknown, and since its inception, the age of the universe has been steadily pushed backwards in time, from 2 billion year to 8 billion after it was determined the Earth was 4.6 billion years in age, and now the estimates are 13.75 billion years.
With ten times the light-gathering power of Hubble, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), successor to the HST due to be launched in 2014, may well detect ever more distant galaxies. Likewise, the ultra-high resolution radio telescopes such as Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile which is to become operational in 2012, will be peering still deeper into the universe, and probably pushing the hypothetical Big Bang further backward in time as ever more distant galaxies are detected.
10. Conclusion.
There is a growing body of evidence which demonstrates the Universe could not have begun with a Big Bang 13.75 billion years ago. Indeed, the day may come when it is determined there never was a "Big Bang" and cosmologists of the future will only gaze back in wonder at how anyone could have believed in a creation event which was refuted by so much contradictory evidence.

What Caused the Mini 'Ice Age' of the Early 1800's?

June 11, 2010

"The Year Without Summer" - What Caused the Mini 'Ice Age' of the Early 1800's?

 

Global warming is our current focus, but from 1810 to 1819, people worried because the planet was far colder than usual, with the planet cooling almost a full degree Fahrenheit. 1816 according to climate historians was known as "the year without a summer."

The chill of 1816 has long been blamed on an Indonesian volcano called Tambora, which erupted the year before. But why the years before Tambora's eruption were also colder than usual was a mystery. Recently uncovered evidence in the ice of Antarctica and Greenland suggests that another volcanic eruption may have contributed to the worldwide dip in temperatures.

Jihong Cole-Dai, a chemistry professor at South Dakota State University, led the expeditions to Antarctica and Greenland, told NPR's Guy Raz in an interview that volcanoes dump large quantities of ash and sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere, which acts "like a giant window shade, reflecting sunlight and lowering temperatures on the ground for years afterward."

But Cole-Dai empasizes that one eruption isn't enough to freeze an entire decade. He knew something else had to have been going on which turned out to be layers of sulfur buried in ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica that showed another volcano had erupted some time in 1809, triggering  a mini ice age.

Cole-Dai said his research team isn't sure exactly where the mystery volcano is, but they suspect that it was somewhere near the equator and that it had to be large enough to blanket the planet in ash.

Casey Kazan

Source: http://www.npr.org/

VDARE.COM - http://www.vdare.com/baldwin/100611_freedom.htm June 11, 2010 Freedom’s Real Enemies By Chuck Baldwin Politicians in Washington, D.C., love to manufacture a crisis. The crisis generates fear within the citizenry, thereby allowing the federal government to centralize more and more power. During a crisis, the citizenry becomes much more forgiving of federal abuses and accommodating of federal encroachments than it otherwise would be without a crisis. Hence, we have a federal "war on drugs," and a "war on poverty," and a "war on terror," and an "oil crisis," and an "energy crisis," and a "domestic terrorism crisis," and an "education crisis," and a "border crisis," and an "economic crisis"–Blah! Blah! Blah! You can mark it down: every major crisis that America has faced over the last several decades has been either manufactured or facilitated by policies and activities originating in Washington, D.C. But at the same time that DC is creating these crises, it categorizes any ideological group it finds distasteful as a convenient scapegoat. These convenient scapegoats can include "angry white guys," "tea party extremists," "a vast right-wing conspiracy," Constitution Party or Libertarian Party "extremists," "Second Amendment extremists" (gun owners), "pro-life extremists," ad infinitum, ad nauseam. Yet, while DC’s elitists are plotting America’s next crisis and figuring out whom to categorize as America’s next "extremist," some real enemies are waging war against the freedoms and liberties of our once-great republic. And, ladies and gentlemen, these enemies are much more subtle, a lot closer, and much more dangerous than almost anything you are being told about. Here are some of freedom’s real enemies: Big Cities When the United States was a much smaller–much more agricultural–nation, our freedoms were mostly intact. The mass exodus out of rural America into urban America has been a bane of freedom–and it will continue to be so. Thomas Jefferson addressed this issue astutely when he wrote in a letter to James Madison, "When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become corrupt as in Europe." (Source: The Jeffersonian Cyclopedia, A Comprehensive Collection of the Views of Thomas Jefferson) Jefferson spoke again of this danger in a letter to Benjamin Rush. He wrote, "I view great cities as pestilential to the morals, the health, and the liberties of man. True, they nourish some of the elegant arts, but the useful ones can thrive elsewhere, and less perfection in the others, with more health, virtue and freedom, would be my choice." (Source: Ibid.) Big cities are most always more liberal, more socialistic, more utopian, and more centralist. Citizens living in big cities readily submit to the machinations and designs of Big Government with much greater regularity than do their rural counterparts. In states where a handful of big cities dominate State politics, Big-Government policies almost always take over the politics of the entire State. If you doubt that, just speak with freedom-loving citizens in New York, Illinois, or Maryland. Consider, specifically, the freedom most necessary to preserve our liberties: the right of the people to keep and bear arms. People in states that are less populated enjoy much greater liberty than do people in heavily populated states. For example, Boston’s Gun Bible (BGB) ranks the states according to the degree of gun ownership (and possession) protection in each State. It is no coincidence that the states with sparser populations are much freer than states with denser populations. Here is BGB’s breakdown of the most and least free gun ownership states: Most Free States: Vermont Idaho and Kentucky (tie) Louisiana and Alaska (tie) Wyoming Montana Least Free States: New Jersey Illinois Hawaii Massachusetts New York Population density in the "most free" states is less than 50 persons per square mile, while in the "least free" states it is more than 460 persons per square mile. Case closed! While big cities will typically tolerate much more in the way of licentiousness and sexual perversion, they are also the first to tolerate Big-Government socialism. Without a doubt, Thomas Jefferson was right: big cities are"pestilential to the morals, the health, and the liberties of man." If you want to live free in the future, you will probably need to leave the big city–and perhaps the states that are dominated by big cities. The National News Media For the most part, the national news media is no friend of freedom. About all most of them know of the US Constitution is the part about the "freedom of the press" (from the First Amendment, of course). Watch any of the Big Three television network newscasts on any weekday evening, and what will you see? You will see the exact same stories regurgitated over and over again–even with the exact same spin! And that spin is most always tilted toward bigger and bigger government. This goes on night after night, week after week, month after month, and year after year. But this is all just coincidental, right? Get real! The cable news networks are not much better. About the only difference between cable networks is that CNN will provide cover for Big Government Democrats while viciously attacking all things Republican, and FOX NEWS will provide cover for Big Government Republicans while viciously attacking all things Democrat. Face it: the national news media is intoxicated with Two Party Politics. They really don’t care nearly as much about the fundamental tenets and principles of liberty as they do about whether a Democrat or Republican wins office. Washington’s media elite are wined and dined by the same party politicians that they cover on television or in the newspaper. (What a racket!) Do you really think any major media news personality is going to risk losing his or her job (which is exactly what would happen) by asking too many questions, or boring too deeply, or straying too far off the reservation? Once again, get real! All of these guys and gals know exactly where the line–and the "third rail"–is located. And they all will stay clear of both! It’s not about reporting the news, or defending liberty, or anything of the sort. It is about pleasing their big corporate sponsors–corporate sponsors who are in bed with the elites from both major political parties, by the way! As long as the American people continue to allow the national news media to manipulate and spin the news, our liberties will continue to erode. Big Business In fact, Big Anything can be freedom’s enemy: Big Business, Big Labor, Big Media, Big Cities, and Big Religion. Big Anything! However, the rate and degree to which Big Business has been able to advance during the last half of the twentieth century–and now into the twenty-first century–is especially problematic for the survival of liberty. Dear friend, it is a mistake to equate Big Business with freedom. Big Business has little to do with capitalism and free enterprise and much to do with monopolism and globalism. Big Business does not want to compete with private enterprise; it wants to crush it! Big Business sees Big Government as a friend and partner. In fact, Big Business and Big Government are conjoined twins. They grow and live as one. Accordingly, it is no accident that when the Bilderbergers got together a few days ago at the Hotel Dolce in Sitges, Spain, for their super-secret meeting, the list of attendees included the cabal of super-elites from Big Government, Big Business, Big Academia, and Big Media. People such as Bill Gates (Microsoft), Roger Altman (former Deputy Secretary of the US Treasury), Martin Feldstein (Harvard University), Niall Ferguson(Harvard University), Philip Gordon (Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs), Donald Graham (The Washington Post), Richard Holbrooke (Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan), Robert Hormats (Under Secretary for Economic, Energy and Agricultural Affairs), Henry Kissinger (former Secretary of State), Klaus Kleinfeld (Chairman and CEO, Alcoa), Craig Mundie (Microsoft), Peter Orszag (Director, Office of Management and Budget), Charlie Rose (Producer, Rose Communications), Robert Rubin (Co-Chairman, Council on Foreign Relations; former Secretary of the Treasury), Eric Schmidt (CEO and Chairman of the Board, Google), James Steinberg (Deputy Secretary of State), Lawrence Summers (Director, National Economic Council), Christine Varney (Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust), and Paul Volcker (Chairman, Economic Recovery Advisory Board). And please remember that these are only the names of those that were published. The complete list of attendees is top secret and never released. For example, was Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner there? He is a Bilderberg (and CFR) member. But of course, this meeting–complete with the tightest security and secrecy possible–is only for the purpose of social fellowship and clubmanship, right? That the world’s most interconnected business, governmental, and media elites would meet outside the viewing and listening of everyone is supposed to be dismissed as irrelevant and insignificant, right? Well, if you get your news from ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, or FOX NEWS, that is exactly what you are being led to believe. Yet, Big Business has been conspiring with Big Government for the purpose of personal aggrandizement (at the cost of liberty, of course) for decades–probably centuries. Remember, it took an act of Congress to stop old Prescott Bush (George H.W. Bush’s father and G.W. Bush’s grandfather) from sending financial assistance to Nazi Germany. Know, too, that international bankers today are supporting governments (some that are openly hostile to the United States) in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Again, Big Business and Big Government are conjoined twins–an interconnected body that grows in unison at the expense of our liberties. Freedom has many more real enemies that could be added to this list, of course; and maybe in the future we can talk more about them. For now, recognize that our liberties are hanging by a thread in this country. And the next time you hear someone in Washington, D.C., or the national news media railing against the latest "crisis" that requires Big Government to fix, please remember who the real enemy is.