Fred Leuchter the author of The Leuchter Report, a pseudoscientific Holocaust denial document.
Leuchter, who graduated from Boston University with a degree in history, would go on to become a "self-taught execution expert." Leuchter attempted to run an execution equipment business, aggressively selling lethal injection systems and electric chairs. In the early 90's, he was forced to stop his business, as he would run into legal trouble due to his lack of qualifications or licensure.
In 1988, he was hired by Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel, to serve as an "expert" witness on at his trial. Ernst Zundel was on trial in Canada for propagating Holocaust-denial material. The document was released through Samisdat, Zundel's publishing company specializing in Holocaust denial literature.
In 1988, Leuchter traveled to several concentration camps, where he illegally took samples from the gas chamber buildings. After taking his samples to a forensic lab, he compiled a fraudulent report called The Leuchter Report: An Engineering Report on the Alleged Execution Chambers at Auschwitz, Birkenau, and Majdanek Poland.
In his report, Leuchter not only conducted a highly flawed and uneducated analysis, but also dismissed several important findings of the tests.
The manager of the forensic lab where Leuchter took his samples found out what the trial was about only when he was getting to the stand. The lab manager compared the tests to "analyzing paint on a wall by analyzing the timber that's behind it."
The court pointed out that Leuchter had no formal training in engineering, toxicology, biology or chemistry. While Leuchter testified under oath that his lack of an engineering college degree was due to Boston University not offering such a degree at the time, the truth is that the university offered three types of engineering qualifications when he was a student there.
Leuchter continued to lie throughout the trial, when he stated that the director of the Auschwitz museum gave him plans and blueprints of the concentration camp. Following the trial, the museum director staunchly denied any such doing.
At the trial, the court dismissed Leuchter and his "findings" as inadequate. The judge stated that "His opinion on this report is that there were never any gassings or there was never any exterminations carried on in this facility. As far as I am concerned, from what I've heard, he is not capable of giving that opinion. He is not in a position to say, as he said so sweepingly in this report, what could not have been carried on in these facilities."
Even though the report is discredited, it is still largely popular with anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers worldwide. Holocaust deniers such as David Irving, Robert Faurisson and others often use the Leuchter Report as "evidence" in their Holocaust denial. It can be found on such anti-Semitic websites as Radio Islam and Institute for Historical Review.
Leuchter wrote:
"After reviewing all of the material and inspecting all of the sites at Auschwitz, Birkenau and Majdanek, your author finds the evidence as overwhelming. There were no execution gas chambers at any of these locations. It is the best engineering opinion of this author that the alleged gas chambers at the inspected sites could not have then been, or now, be utilized or seriously considered to function as execution gas chambers."
The Yizkor Project has posted an examination of his work, at: http://www.nizkor.org/faqs/leuchter/
