Henri Roques

Henri Roques (born November 10, 1920 in Lyon , † March 16, 2014 in Colombes ) was a French agronomist . He was one of the leading French negationists or Holocaust deniers . In 1986, he sparked an academic scandal when it became known that he with a revisionist thesis about the Gerstein report at the University of Nantes doctorate was.

Life

Political and biographical background

Roques was politically active in right-wing extremist and neo-fascist circles during the 1950s . He was one of the co-founders of the right-wing extremist and later banned Phalange française and worked from 1955 to 1958 under the name Henri Jalin at the same time as its general secretary. He also supported Otto Strasser's establishment of the German Social Union . In 1955 he came into contact with Paul Rassinier , with whom he said he had developed a friendship. As Henri Jalin and Henri Saint-Marceau , he wrote for various publications, including until 1963 as France correspondent for the Belgian magazine L'europe reelle of the neo-Nazi organization European New Order ( Nouvel ordre européen ). Until the scandal surrounding his doctoral thesis, however, he kept a low profile politically. From 1986 he became involved in the National Front (FN), in which his wife held party offices. However, he himself was not a member of the FN.

Doctorate in Nantes 1985

Inspired by Robert Faurisson , Roques began in 1981 with a doctoral thesis on the Gerstein report . As a supervisor, Roques won the literary scholar Jacques Rougeot from the University of Paris IV , who was close to the Rassemblement pour la République and who was active in various organizations on the right-wing edge of Gaullism . After completing the dissertation in April 1984, Rougeot did not succeed in persuading other professors to form an examination committee. Historians had declined to participate. At the beginning of 1985, Roques found in Jean-Claude Rivière a medievalist and specialist in Occitan language and literature at the University of Nantes who was not only ready to do a doctorate for Roques , but also able to form an examination board. In addition to Rivière, the commission included Jean-Paul Allard , lecturer in German language and literature at the University of Lyon III , and Pierre Zind , Catholic priest, Alsatian separatist and professor of education at the University of Lyon II . All three were close to the right-wing extremist theory circle GRECE . Allard was a former member and Zind had already published with GRECE's publisher. Rivière was also a co-founder and co-editor of GRECE magazine Nouvelle École .

On June 15, 1985, Roques publicly defended his dissertation. Although the rapporteur, Thierry Buron, who was an assistant to Rivière, was absent for family reasons, Roques received a très bien (“very good”) grade . Roques immediately began to disseminate the results of his study, which was now accepted as a dissertation, in press releases and to prepare a publication.

Public scandal and cancellation of the doctorate

The French historian Georges Wellers subjected Roques' dissertation in the journal Le monde juif in early 1986 to devastating criticism. It was only through this publication that a number of professors at the University of Nantes became aware of the doctorate. On May 15, 1986, the journalist Phillipe Bouglé published an article in the weekly La Tribune entitled Une “affaire Faurisson” à Nantes? ( A “Faurisson affair” in Nantes? ). In it he reported on a petition that was circulating in the University of Nantes, according to which the good name of the university had been linked to a work in which, under the protection of pseudo-criticism, a campaign of systematic disinformation by the extreme neo-Nazi right was supported. The matter has now attracted national attention and has led to a scandal that has been noticed across Europe. Among other things, a debate between Roques and his lawyer Éric Delcroix with Claude Lanzmann , Georges Wellers, Jean-Claude Pressac and Bernard Jouhanneau was broadcast on television on May 23, 1986 .

The French Minister of Education, Alain Devaquet , appointed a commission of inquiry on May 25, 1986 to investigate the course of the doctoral procedure. Critics had pointed out that Roques had submitted his theses not to the historical, but to the literary faculty . Contemporary historians had not been consulted, while Rivière and Zind were Medievalists and Allard studied languages. It was also criticized that Buron was on the attendance list even though he was not present. Roques' defense attorney dismissed Buron's forged signature on the grounds that it was an inattention that did not invalidate the proceedings themselves.

The investigation found that Roques had moved from Paris to Nantes three months after the enrollment deadline and without permission from the university rector. He also lacked the necessary qualifications to do a doctorate in literature or history. A mandatory oral examination had not taken place. Roques had also submitted his dissertation faster than was provided for in the doctoral regulations. In addition, there was the forged signature on the list of participants in the defense of the dissertation. On July 2, 1986, Roques' doctorate was canceled by the Minister of Education and on July 3, 1986 by the university, with reference to the irregularities in the procedure. This decision was upheld in 1992 by the French State Court of last instance.

Roques published his work nonetheless, including in English with the help of the Institute for Historical Review . Günter Deckert arranged a German translation . Roques continued his work with the assistance of Vincent Reynouard and also published under the pseudonyms Henri Jalin and Andre Chelain . From 1990 to 1992 he directed the Revue d'Histoire révisionniste .

plant

Roques' preoccupation with the Gerstein report corresponded to the usual negationist and holocaust-denying strategies. Roques elevated the Gerstein report to the rank of a key document on the Holocaust and then destroyed the document by pointing out "inconsistencies" in order to question the existence of the National Socialist extermination camps as a whole. Paul Rassinier had already pointed out differences between the different versions on the occasion of the various versions of the Gerstein report published by the historian Léon Poliakov . Roques received the immediate impetus, however, from a declaration on the extermination of the Jews , which 34 historians had made in the newspaper Le Monde on February 21, 1979 and in which a passage from the Gerstein report with excessive figures was incorporated. Robert Faurisson had taken this as an opportunity to initiate a lawsuit.

Roques made use of the fact that the Gerstein report is available in different versions, languages ​​and forms of transmission. Gerstein had towards the end of the war in French captivity issued and there his eyewitness account resigned from April to May 1945 in French, English and German. Some of these texts are handwritten and some are typed. Instead of undertaking a text-critical examination of the various versions, Roques contented himself with pointing out "improbabilities and inconsistencies". He claimed that only the French versions of the text were authentic because only they were available in Gerstein's handwriting. The German text versions, however, would have to be forgeries. Since Gerstein only mastered French to a fair degree, it was easy for Roques to point out inaccuracies and errors. Text passages that could not be disqualified in this way, he interpreted as exaggerations and compulsive confessions of a psychopath . He also interfered with his sources in a falsifying manner. In his dissertation, for example, he used a French translation of the German version of the Gerstein report in order to be able to show the stylistic features of a foreign author, which he then passed off as evidence of a forgery by allied "dark men". In the German edition, the German original text of the Gerstein report was printed, but with additional errors, for example with three different spellings of Belzec . In a note, Roques commented that the spelling was always wrong; But Gerstein would have known the correct spelling. In this way he came to the conclusion that the Nazi mass killings by gas were difficult to believe and completely unproven without openly denying the Holocaust.

Peter Kunze also criticizes Roques for wrongly quoting. In order to dismiss essential parts of Gerstein's report as posthumous forgeries, Roques argues that no construction is too absurd and no real or alleged typo of Gerstein's is too unimportant. Kunze concludes that Roques' work "is an attempt at fraud that borders on nonsense."

Fonts

• Mémoire sur Léon Poliakov face aux confessions de Gerstein. Nn, Sl 1981.
• Les "confessions" by Kurt Gerstein. Etude comparative des differentes versions: edition critique. Université de Nantes, Nantes 1985.
  • German edition: The "Confessions" of Kurt Gerstein. On the problem of a key document. Druffel , Leoni am Starnberger See 1986, ISBN 9783806110487 .
  • English edition: The "confessions" of Kurt Gerstein. Institute for Historical Review , Costa Mesa, California 1989.
• as André Chelain: Faut-il fusiller Henri Roques? . Polémiques; Diffusion, Ogmios, Paris 1986.
• as André Chelain: La thèse de Nantes et l'affaire Roques. Avec le texte et les appendices de la thèse soutenue à Nantes 15 juin 1985 par le Dr Henri Roques, "Les confessions de Kurt Gerstein, étude comparative des différentes versions." Polqmiques; Mercure Diffusion, Paris 1988, ISBN 9782906407039 .
• Ed .: Günter Deckert, who did not howl with the wolves, 1940-2000. Germania-Verlag, Weinheim 2001.
• with Vincent Reynouard: Sur "Amen" de Costa-Gavras. Acquittement pour Pie XII. V. Reynouard, Bruxelles (BP 256, B-1050), [diff. en France] 2003.

literature

• Stephen E. Atkins: Holocaust denial as an international movement. Praeger, Westport, Conn. 2009, ISBN 0313345392 .
• Valérie Igounet: Histoire du négationnisme en France. Le Seuil, Paris 2000.
• Robert A. Kahn: Holocaust denial and the law. A comparative study. Palgrave Macmillan, New York 2004, ISBN 9781403964762 .
• Peter Kunze: The Nantes scandal . In: Lendemains 11, No. 43/44 (1986), pp. 157-160.
• Jürgen Schäfer: Kurt Gerstein - witness of the Holocaust. A life between biblical circles and SS. 3rd edition. Luther-Verl, Bielefeld 2002, ISBN 3785804075 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Robert A. Kahn: Holocaust denial and the law. A comparative study. Palgrave Macmillan, New York 2004, ISBN 9781403964762 , p. 145.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Peter Kunze: The Nantes scandal . In: Lendemains 11, No. 43/44 (1986), p. 158.
3. ↑ Tamir Bar-On: Where have all the fascists gone? . Ashgate, Aldershot, Hampshire 2007, ISBN 9780754671541 , p. 51.
4. ^ ^{A b c} Robert A. Kahn: Holocaust denial and the law. A comparative study. Palgrave Macmillan, New York 2004, ISBN 9781403964762 , p. 146.
5. ^ Stephen E. Atkins: Holocaust denial as an international movement. Praeger, Westport, Conn. 2009, ISBN 0313345392 , p. 97.
6. ↑ ^{a b} Stephen E. Atkins: Holocaust denial as an international movement. Praeger, Westport, Conn. 2009, ISBN 0313345392 , p. 98.
7. ^ ^{A b} Jürgen Schäfer: Kurt Gerstein - Witness of the Holocaust. A life between biblical circles and SS. 3rd edition. Luther-Verl, Bielefeld 2002, ISBN 3785804075 , pp. 203f.
8. ^ Jürgen Schäfer: Kurt Gerstein - Witness of the Holocaust. A life between biblical circles and SS. 3rd edition. Luther-Verl, Bielefeld 2002, ISBN 3785804075 , p. 202f.
9. ^ Jürgen Schäfer: Kurt Gerstein - Witness of the Holocaust. A life between biblical circles and SS. 3rd edition. Luther-Verl, Bielefeld 2002, ISBN 3785804075 , p. 204.
10. ↑ Peter Kunze: The Nantes scandal. In: Lendemains 11, No. 43/44 (1986), p. 159.