Arthur Butz

Arthur R. Butz is an associate professor of electrical engineering at Northwestern University and a Holocaust denier, best known as the author of the pseudohistorical book The Hoax of the Twentieth Century. He achieved tenure in 1974 and currently teaches classes in control system theory and digital signal processing.

Arthur Butz
Born
New York City
Alma mater
Known for
Scientific career
FieldsElectrical engineering
InstitutionsNorthwestern University

Education and career

Born in 1933,[1] Butz attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from which he received both his Bachelor of Science and, in 1956, his Master of Science degrees. In 1965, he received his PhD from the University of Minnesota.[2] His doctoral dissertation considered a problem in control engineering.

Holocaust denial

In 1976, after he received tenure,[3] Butz published The Hoax of the Twentieth Century: The Case Against the Presumed Extermination of European Jewry, an antisemitic, pseudohistorical book which argues that the Holocaust was a propaganda hoax.[4][5] From 1980 to 2001, Butz was on the editorial board of the Journal of Historical Review, a publication of the Institute for Historical Review, a Holocaust-denying organization.[1]

Faculty reaction

Butz's Holocaust denial sparked an outrage among the Northwestern University's faculty and community, after the existence of the book was disclosed by The Daily Northwestern in 1977.[6] His views were also criticized by Robert H. Strotz, Northwestern University's then-president at the time of the book's publication.[7] In 1997, Butz drew further criticism after using the university's Internet domain to publish his views.[8]

In 2006, sixty of Butz's colleagues from the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science faculty signed a censure describing Butz's Holocaust denial as "an affront to our humanity and our standards as scholars".[9] The letter also called for Butz to "leave our Department and our University and stop trading on our reputation for academic excellence."[9]

University President Henry Bienen issued a statement condemning Butz' Holocaust denial, but noted that tenure and academic freedom protected Butz from dismissal as he had kept his denialism separate from his work as an instructor.[10] Instead, after the book's existence had been disclosed in 1977, the university began hosting symposia and developing courses on the Holocaust, created an endowed professorship on the subject, and funded a political science fellowship dedicated to study of the Holocaust.[11] Northwestern implemented a policy, unique to Butz, according to which if he teaches a course that is required for graduation or any degree program, another section of that course must be offered at the same time so that no student ever has to enroll in one of his classes.[3]

Debunking

According to the Anti-Defamation League, "some Holocaust deniers argue that Butz's book has never been refuted by mainstream scholars, but in fact many of his arguments were thoroughly debunked" in books by Deborah Lipstadt (Denying the Holocaust, 1993), John C. Zimmerman (Holocaust Denial: Demographics, Testimonies and Ideologies, 2000) and online web sites such as Nizkor Project and www.anti-rev.org.[1] Historian Jacques Kornberg, in a 1995 analysis, found that Butz had provided no evidence to support his claims that the Nuremberg trial defendants were tortured, and that his accusations were instead based on unproven allegations of torture associated with other trials unconnected to Nuremberg, such as the Dachau Military Tribunal.[12]

Removal from Amazon

In 2017, Amazon.com removed the book along with other Holocaust-denying books from its US and UK sites. The removal of the books from the platform was requested by the director of the Yad Vashem library, Robert Rozett, who sent an email directly to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.[13][14][15]

See also

References
  1. "Arthur Butz" (PDF). Anti-Defamation League. December 1, 2001. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 14, 2018.
  2. "He still teaches, students still squirm". 30 November 2011. Retrieved 30 November 2011.
  3. Jaschik, Scott. "A Holocaust Denier Resurfaces". Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved 2023-08-19.
  4. Geri Yonover (2000). "Anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial in the academy : a tort remedy". In DeCoste, F. C.; Schwartz, Bernard (eds.). The Holocaust's Ghost: Writings on Art, Politics, Law, and Education. University of Alberta Press. p. 329. ISBN 978-0888643377. Retrieved 7 October 2017.
  5. Noami Schaefer Riley, The Faculty Lounges and Other Reasons Why You Won't Get the College Education You Paid For, Lanham, Maryland: Ivan R. Dee, 2011, p. 33
  6. King, Seth S. (January 28, 1977). "Professor Causes Furor by Saying Nazi Slaying of Jews Is a Myth". The New York Times.
  7. "Northwestern University President Strongly Deplores Book by Butz". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. March 8, 1977.
  8. Mendels, Pamela (January 10, 1997). "Professor Puts Holocaust Theories Online, Prompting Accusations at Northwestern". The New York Times.
  9. Elizabeth, Campbell (February 17, 2006). "Students, faculty oppose Butz with petitions". The Daily Northwestern. Retrieved February 22, 2009.
  10. "Statement Regarding Associate Professor Arthur Butz". February 6, 2006. Archived from the original on May 1, 2007.
  11. Blackstone, Kevin (November 15, 2022). "What Kyrie Irving can teach us about noxious drivel and how to counter it". The Washington Post. Retrieved August 18, 2023.
  12. Kornberg, Jacques (1995). "The paranoid style: Analysis of a holocaust‐denial text". Patterns of Prejudice. 29 (2–3): 33–44. doi:10.1080/0031322X.1995.9970153. ISSN 0031-322X. Retrieved 30 December 2022.
  13. "Amazon UK removes 3 Holocaust denial books from sale". The Times of Israel.
  14. "Amazon UK Removes 3 Holocaust Denial Books from Sale". The Times of Israel. March 9, 2017. Retrieved October 2, 2019.
  15. Ziv, Stav (June 6, 2017). "Under pressure, Amazon stops selling Holocaust-denial books". The Jewish Chronicle. Retrieved June 17, 2017.
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