Walter Lüftl

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Walter Lüftl (born November 6, 1933 in Vienna ; pseudonyms: Werner Rademacher , Alfons Bauer ) is an Austrian civil engineer who was President of the Federal Chamber of Engineers from 1990 to 1992 . In 1991 he wrote the so-called “Lüftl Report”, in which he denied the technical feasibility of mass killings with poison gas in the National Socialist concentration camps and denied the Holocaust . According to press reports about its history revisionistActivities Lüftl had to resign from his office in March 1992. The solemn award of the Golden Engineering Diploma by the Vienna University of Technology in December 2009 led to a series of critical media reports. After an investigation, the Vienna University of Technology withdrew Lüftl's honor in January 2010.

Life

Walter Lüftl was born in Vienna on November 6, 1933. He studied civil engineering at what was then the Vienna University of Technology and graduated as an engineer in 1959 . Lüftl then worked as a civil engineer in Vienna , and since 1969 as a court expert for construction . In the mid-1980s, Lüftl wrote several books on the topic of national debt and debitism together with the business journalist Paul C. Martin . Lüftl is a board member of the Austrian Society for Construction Law and holds the professional title of Baurat h.c. In 1988 he appeared as a consultant for the right-wing extremist working group for democratic politics in Vienna.

President of the Federal Chamber of Engineers

In the chamber elections in May 1990 Lüftl and his independent electoral group in the civil engineers section of the Chamber of Engineers for Vienna, Lower Austria and Burgenland achieved a relative majority with five out of twelve mandates. After lengthy coalition negotiations, Lüftl was elected President of the Federal Chamber of Engineers (today: Federal Chamber of Architects and Engineers ) on November 16, 1990 , replacing the architect Utz Purr .

Lüftl's administration was controversial within the Chamber from the beginning, for example when he wrote in the leading article of the Chamber magazine Konstruktiv in February 1991 that democracy was “not to talk about something as much and as long as possible”, because that was the “ Palaver system of black Africans ”. After Kurt Puchinger, who later became head of city planning in Vienna, called for the “possibility of presidential election” in a letter to the editor and criticized the statements as “racist presidential burps”, Lüftl defended himself by stating that he had merely mentioned “ethnographic facts”.

When plans to amend the 1947 Prohibition Act (which was supposed to criminalize Holocaust denial ) became public in 1991 , Lüftl sent a memorandum to the Chairman of the Justice Committee Michael Graff and several other members of the National Council entitled The New Inquisition . He criticized the planned amendment to the law as a "state-decreed moral terror".

Lüftl report and resignation

Since Lüftl's campaign did not produce the desired success and only few reactions, he wrote a manuscript in 1991 with the title Holocaust. Faith and Facts , in which he denied the technical possibility of mass murder in the Auschwitz extermination camp . He sent this document to various politicians (including Justice Minister Nikolaus Michalek , a club chairman, several members of the National Council and a governor ), journalists and Senate presidents of the Supreme Court.

The so-called "Lüftl-Report" was announced in the neo-Nazi magazine Halt by Gerd Honsik and published in excerpts. Further excerpts appeared in the neo-Nazi newspaper Sieg . After an article in Wirtschaftswoche took up Lüftl's commitment, preliminary investigations were initiated against him on suspicion of violating the prohibition law. As a result, Lüftl had to resign as president of the Chamber of Engineers on March 13, 1992 after a crisis meeting. In a press release, the presidents of the four regional chambers distanced themselves from Lüftl's statements and described his resignation as "inevitable". An English translation of the manuscript under the title The Lüftl Report appeared in the pseudoscientific Journal of Historical Review at the end of 1992 , officially without the author's cooperation.

The proceedings against Lüftl were discontinued in 1994 - “contrary to the intentions of the investigating magistrate”, as historian Brigitte Bailer-Galanda writes - by the Vienna Public Prosecutor's Office, as the reason for Lüftl's letter was merely “personal, subjective doubts, but no propaganda intent” and he cannot be clearly assigned to the right-wing extremist scene. In a letter to the editor in 2004, Walter Lüftl boasted that he had already created many "catacomb revisionists":

“You don't believe how many people I made catacomb revisionists at the Heuriger. But then as a result, if they want to pass on the knowledge about the truth they have acquired after the aha experience, they all have the problem of offending their friends and family because people do not distinguish between 'beliefs and facts' in the Holocaust can. That's why I chose the title back in 1991. I was aware of that. "

- Walter Lüftl : Letter to the editor to the quarterly issues for free historical research

The Documentation Archive of the Austrian Resistance (DÖW) and Simon Wiesenthal protested unsuccessfully to Justice Minister Michalek against the termination of the proceedings. As a result, domestic and foreign right-wing extremist papers celebrated this “victory of 'revisionism'”. Because of one of these reports, which Lüftl's argumentation made his own, the editor of the auditorium , Herwig Nachtmann , was sentenced to a fine and eight months on probation for National Socialist re-employment.

Revisionist and climate change denier

The Lachout document was exposed as a forgery back in 1989 and is considered controversial even among revisionists, but Walter Lüftl wanted to prove its authenticity in 2006.

In the following years, Lüftl published articles and letters to the editor in revisionist and right-wing extremist magazines, for example in the quarterly issues for free historical research and in the Eckart (formerly Eckartbote ) of the Austrian Landsmannschaft . As early as 2001, in addition to the "history lies", about which he was not allowed to write as a "burned child", he listed eleven "lies of our time" in the quarterly issues : " Forest dying lie", " polar cap melting lie ", " sea ​​level rise lie ", " ozone hole lie ", “ Climate lie ”, “ greenhouse lie”, “lie about the greenhouse gases ”, “ energy saving lie ”, “ atomic lie ”, “ BSE lie” and “ foot and mouth disease lie ”.

In 2005, he and Johann F. Balvany , Katalin Clemente-Palma, Moishe Friedman , Günther Kappel, Waltraud Kupf, Richard Melisch , Herbert Michner and Helmut Müller signed an article by the well-known Catholic anti-Semite Friedrich Romig in the magazine Zur published by Andreas Mölzer Time in which he wrote of a "hunt" on the Holocaust denier and FPÖ Federal Councilor John Gudenus , who was later convicted . In 2006 Lüftl asked for the help of the Eckart readers to prove the authenticity of the Lachout document . This is a forged circular by Emil Lachout from the "Military Police Service" of the "Allied Command", which was intended to refute the use of poisonous gas in various concentration camps. However, both organizations never existed, as the DÖW had proven in 1989.

In recent years Lüftl writes proliferated in Hutten letters of Graz Rechtsextremistin and former BDM -Führerin Lisbeth Grolitsch . In 2008, in an article published there, he characterized the “pseudo-religion of 'sustainability'” as a continuation of the cult of reason of the French Revolution and brought it close to Robespierre . Instead of the Jacobean terreur , he sees the "terror of waste separation". In the same article Lüftl described the Greens as " Marxists camouflaged in green ". He is also repeatedly represented with articles on various websites that deny human-made global warming .

Controversial honor in 2009

At the end of December 2009 it became known that the Vienna University of Technology had honored Walter Lüftl on the occasion of his fiftieth graduation anniversary on December 11, 2009 with the award of the Golden Engineering Diploma. Rector Peter Skalicky defended the honor in relation to the daily newspaper Der Standard with the words “We asked extra questions. The faculty endorsed the award. ”After numerous protests, among others by the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde and the Vienna City Councilor for Culture and Science Andreas Mailath-Pokorny , Skalicky offered the incumbent science minister Johannes Hahn to resign, but the latter refused. Skalicky set up a commission to investigate the circumstances surrounding Lüftl's honor by the beginning of 2010 and to decide on a possible withdrawal. The affair also caused a stir in Poland. The Nobel Prize for Literature, Elfriede Jelinek, criticized Lüftl's honor in literary form:

“'Land of hammers, promising', sings our national anthem. And there is already one, I'll take a look, yes, it's a hammer:

On December 11th In 09 the building councilor hc Dipl. Ing. Walter Lüftl was awarded the golden engineering diploma in the ballroom of the Technical University of Vienna. An orchestra was playing. There was a ceremony. "

- Elfriede Jelinek : In the realm of the past

This honor was formally revoked at the end of January 2010 by the Rectorate of the Vienna University of Technology on the recommendation of the appointed commission, because the material prerequisites were not in place and Lüftl had "massively damaged his alma mater, the Vienna University of Technology". The withdrawal of the Golden Engineering Diploma was welcomed in numerous press releases, for example by the Mauthausen Committee Austria , the Memorial Service Association , the Austrian Students' Union and City Council Mailath-Pokorny. The culture spokesman Wolfgang Zinggl from the Greens also praised the withdrawal, but criticized the four-week "shocking second" from Rector Skalicky.

Hans Gamlich , who was sentenced to a suspended sentence for denying the Holocaust in 2001, criticized the withdrawal as "inhuman PC terror" in an open letter to Skalicky. The neo-Nazi website alpen-donau.info published the letter on January 23, 2010 and a week later put a scan of the original German version of the Lüftl report online, the manuscript Holocaust. Belief and facts . On February 3, 2010, alpen-donau.info published an anonymous mail, which quoted from Skalicky's "withdrawal letter" to Lüftl. If Skalicky stays with the withdrawal, he is " sure of a gold medal from the Bnai Brith ". The text is very similar to the documentation of his case published by Lüftl in 1994 under a pseudonym.

Lüftl report

Lüftls wrote Holocaust during his tenure as President of the Federal Chamber of Engineers. Belief and facts. became known as the "Lüftl-Report" after the title of the English translation published in the pseudoscientific Journal of Historical Review and now circulating on the Internet. The document follows the tradition of the Leuchter Report, which had already been refuted at that time, and was created roughly at the same time as the so-called Rudolf report in 1991 and 1992.

The chemist Josef Bailer certified the document in 1995 that it had been written “with pseudo-scientific seriousness” but without “conclusive, comprehensible arguments on the matter”. The three main points of the Lüftl report were refuted by Bailer in 1995, namely that

  1. Diesel exhausts are completely unsuitable for killing people that
  2. the witness Kurt Gerstein and thus the entire "Holocaust literature" would be untrustworthy and that
  3. Zyklon B would release hydrocyanic acid into the air too slowly to have been used for the gassings in the Auschwitz and Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps .

Fonts (selection)

Since 1993 Lüftl has published numerous articles and letters to the editor under his name in revisionist and right-wing extremist magazines such as Deutschland in Geschichte und Gegenwart , quarterly issues for free historical research and Huttenbriefe . In addition, there are further contributions under the pseudonyms Werner Rademacher and Alfons Bauer ( Bauer was the last name of Lüftl's great-grandfather), partly also in cooperation with other Holocaust deniers. Only a few of these contributions are listed here as examples.

  • The formulas for national bankruptcy. Using the example of the financial end of the Republic of Austria . With Paul C. Martin . 2nd Edition. Langen Müller Verlag, Munich 1984, ISBN 3-7844-7144-7 .
  • The bankruptcy. National debt, currency crisis and fraud against savers . With Paul C. Martin. 2nd Edition. Langen Müller Verlag, Munich 1984, ISBN 3-7844-7145-5 .
  • Capitalism. A system that works . With Paul C. Martin. Langen Müller Verlag, Munich 1986, ISBN 3-7844-7180-3 .
  • Holocaust. Belief and facts . Vienna (manuscript 1991/1992).
  • Expert evidence versus witness evidence . In: Constructive . No. 166 , December 1991, p. 31 f .
  • The Lüftl Report. An Austrian Engineer's Report on the 'Gas Chambers' of Auschwitz and Mauthausen . In: Journal of Historical Review . tape 12 , 4 (Winter, 1992-1993), pp. 391-420 (English).
  • About certainty and finding the truth . In: Austrian Society for Building Law (Ed.): Current information on building and procurement law . Manz'sche publishing and university bookstore, Vienna 2008, ISBN 978-3-214-07401-2 .
  • The pseudo-religion of "sustainability" . In: Huttenbriefe . Volume 26, No. 5 , October 2008, p. 6-8 .

As Werner Rademacher :

  • The Lüftl case . Or: The justice system on contemporary history. In: Ernst Gauss (Ed.): Basics of contemporary history . Grabert-Verlag, Tübingen 1994, ISBN 3-87847-141-6 , p. 41-60 .

As Alfons Bauer :

  • The "Gudenus case" and the reality in Austria . In: Quarterly books for free historical research . Volume 9, No. 4 , August 2006, p. 363–365 (Volume 9 actually corresponds to 2005, but the issue was not published until 2006).

literature

  • Josef Bailer: The "revisionists" and chemistry . In: Brigitte Bailer-Galanda, Wolfgang Benz and Wolfgang Neugebauer (eds.): Truth and "Auschwitz Läge" . Deuticke, Vienna 1995, ISBN 978-3-216-30124-6 , pp. 99-118 ( mauthausen-memorial.at ( Memento of 22 December 2015, Internet Archive ) [PDF; 66 kB ; accessed on January 10, 2010]).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Functionaries, activists and ideologues of the right-wing extremist scene in Austria. (PDF; 1.6 MB) DÖW , accessed on November 4, 2013 .
  2. ↑ DI Walter Lüftl. In: List of court experts. Federal Ministry of Justice , accessed on December 18, 2009 .
  3. ↑ a b Walter Lüftl: Should lies be compulsory in the future? In: Germany in the past and present . tape 41 , no. 2 , 1993, p. 13 f .
  4. ↑ Organization of ÖGEBAU. (No longer available online.) In: oegbau.at. Archived from the original on September 6, 2005 ; Retrieved December 18, 2009 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.oegebau.at
  5. ↑ The civil engineers have voted . Vienna, Lower Austria and Burgenland. In: Constructive . No.  156 , July 1990, p. 5 .
  6. ↑ Utz Purr : Who wants to be re-elected just to be president? In: Constructive . No.  159 , December 1990, p. 5 .
  7. ↑ Walter Lüftl: On our own behalf . Or: where is the culprit really? In: Constructive . No. 166 , December 1991, p. 4-5 .
  8. ^ Walter Lüftl: Chamber democracy: theory and practice - speaking and acting . In: Constructive . No. 160 , February 1991, p. 4 .
  9. ^ Vienna: Kurt Puchinger new head of urban planning . In: Österreichischer Städtebund (Ed.): ÖGZ . 72nd year, no.  6 , 2006, p. 54 .
  10. ↑ Letters to the Editor . In: Constructive . No.  161 , April 1991, pp. 50 .
  11. ↑ a b c Werner Rademacher: The Lüftl case. Or: The justice system on contemporary history . In: Ernst Gauss (Ed.): Basics of contemporary history . Grabert-Verlag, Tübingen 1994, ISBN 3-87847-141-6 , p. 41–60 ( Werner Rademacher is a pseudonym of Walter Lüftl).
  12. ^ A b Brigitte Bailer-Galanda : "Revisionism" as a central element of the international networking of right-wing extremism . In: DÖW (ed.): Das Netz des Hasses . Deuticke, Vienna 1997, ISBN 978-3-216-30329-5 , pp. 106-122 ( online [accessed December 18, 2009]). “Revisionism” as a central element of the international networking of right-wing extremism ( memento of the original from December 10, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.xn--dw-fka.at
  13. ↑ a b c d e Brigitte Bailer-Galanda: Leuchter and his epigones . In: Brigitte Bailer-Galanda, Wolfgang Benz and Wolfgang Neugebauer (eds.): Truth and "Auschwitz Läge" . Deuticke, Vienna 1995, ISBN 978-3-216-30124-6 , pp. 87–98 ( Remember.at [PDF; 66 kB ; accessed on December 18, 2009]).
  14. ^ A b c Josef Bailer: The "revisionists" and chemistry . In: Brigitte Bailer-Galanda, Wolfgang Benz , Wolfgang Neugebauer (eds.): Truth and "Auschwitz Likes" . Deuticke, Vienna 1995, ISBN 978-3-216-30124-6 , pp. 99–118 ( PDF, approx. 66 KB ( Memento from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) [accessed on January 10, 2010]).
  15. ↑ a b Jasmin Waibl-Stockner: "The Jews are our misfortune" . Anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and their anchoring in politics and society. LIT Verlag, Berlin / Hamburg / Münster (Westphalia) 2009, ISBN 978-3-643-50019-9 , pp. 209 ( books.google.at [accessed on January 17, 2010]).
  16. ↑ Resignation after doubts about the Holocaust . Austria's president of engineers draws conclusions. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . March 14, 1992 ( archiv.sueddeutsche.de [accessed January 4, 2010] subject to a charge).
  17. ↑ BR hc Dipl.Ing. Lüftl resigned . In: Constructive . No.  168 , April 1992, pp. 4 .
  18. ^ Walter Lüftl: catacomb revisionists . In: Quarterly books for free historical research . Volume 8, No. 3 , 2004, p. 359 (letter to the editor).
  19. ^ Lüftl among Holocaust deniers. In: News from far right - May 2003. DÖW , 2003, accessed on March 18, 2013 .
  20. ↑ a b Middle East and gas chamber experts at Eckart . In: News from far right - September 2006. DÖW , 2006, accessed on November 4, 2013 .
  21. ^ Walter Lüftl: The lies of our time . In: Quarterly books for free historical research . Vol. 5, No. 3 , 2001, p. 325 f .
  22. ↑ The "Third Camp" in the year of thought. In: News from far right - May 2005. DÖW , 2006, accessed on November 4, 2013 .
  23. ↑ Brigitte Bailer-Galanda, Wilhelm Lasek , Wolfgang Neugebauer, Gustav Spann : The Lachout "Document" . Anatomy of a fake. DÖW, Vienna 1989 ( nizkor.org [accessed January 25, 2010] English version of the Nizkor Project ).
  24. ↑ Walter Lüftl: The pseudo-religion of "sustainability" . In: Huttenbriefe . Volume 26, No. 5 , 2008, p. 6 .
  25. ↑ Thomas Trenkler: TU honored Holocaust deniers . In: The Standard . December 18, 2009 ( derStandard.at [accessed December 18, 2009]).
  26. ↑ Thomas Trenkler: IKG demand: revocation of the honorary diploma for Lüftl . In: The Standard . December 19, 2009 ( derStandard.at [accessed December 27, 2009] December 19-20).
  27. ↑ hoa: Holocaust deniers honored at the Vienna University of Technology: Rector has "offered to resign" Hahn. In: NEWS.at. December 18, 2009, accessed December 18, 2009 .
  28. ↑ Wiedeńska politechnika wyróżniła kłamcę oświęcimskiego . In: Gazeta Wyborcza . December 19, 2009, p.  8 (Polish, online [accessed December 22, 2009]).
  29. ↑ Elfriede Jelinek : In the realm of the past. In: www.elfriedejelinek.com. December 18, 2009, accessed on January 1, 2010 (reprinted in Dschungel , supplement to Jungle World No. 1/2010, January 7, 2010, p. 12f).
  30. ^ TU Vienna: No honoring of Holocaust deniers. In: science.ORF.at. January 18, 2010, accessed January 18, 2010 .
  31. ↑ Thomas Trenkler: Vienna University of Technology revokes honor for Holocaust deniers . In: The Standard . January 19, 2010 ( derStandard.at [accessed on January 18, 2010]).
  32. ↑ Willi Mernyi: MKÖ and memorial service welcome give in TU Rector Skalicky. In: APA-OTS . January 18, 2010, archived from the original on January 18, 2016 ; Retrieved January 18, 2010 .
  33. ↑ Michaela Wein: ÖH welcomes the “dishonor” of the revisionist Lüftl. In: APA-OTS . January 18, 2010, accessed January 18, 2010 .
  34. ↑ Jakob Scholz: Mailath on Causa Lüftl: Protests successful. In: APA-OTS . January 18, 2010, accessed January 18, 2010 .
  35. ↑ Zinggl on the revocation of the Lüftl honor: "That was high time". In: APA-OTS . January 18, 2010, accessed January 18, 2010 .
  36. ↑ Hans Gamlich : On the Lüftl case - an open letter . In: alpen-donau.info . January 23, 2010
  37. ^ Walter Lüftl: The Lüftl Report . An Austrian Engineer's Report on the 'Gas Chambers' of Auschwitz and Mauthausen. In: Journal of Historical Review . tape 12 , no. 4 (1992-1993) , pp. 391-420 (English).
  38. ^ A b Anton Maegerle : A spider in the web. In: look to the right . November 27, 1996, accessed December 20, 2009 (fee required).
  39. ^ Alfons Bauer: The Lüftl case: An important victory of revisionism . In: Quarterly books for free historical research . Volume 8, No. 3 , 2004, p. 316-320 (large parts of the text are identical to the Lüftl case , which was published under Werner Rademacher ).
  40. ^ Walter Lüftl: Letter to the Editor . In: Law and Truth . Vol. 15, 7 + 8 (July / August), 1999, pp. 22 .
personal data
SURNAME Lüftl, Walter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rademacher, Werner (pseudonym); Bauer, Alfons (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian civil engineer and Holocaust denier
DATE OF BIRTH November 6, 1933
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna