Fred A. Leuchter

Leuchter was born on February 7, 1943, to Fred Arthur Leuchter Sr. in Malden, Massachusetts. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from Boston University in 1964. He holds patents for a geodetic instrument and an electronic sextant. Fred Leuchter Associates Leuchter started Fred Leuchter Associates in 1979, with which he sold services to several states to help them maintain, improve, document, and ascertain the effectiveness of their equipment for administration of capital punishment.  His initial work was with electric chairs, starting in Tennessee. His broader claims are that his work in this area is humanitarian, providing greater respect for both guards and those to be executed. He also claims that he offered his services at considerable economy: off-the-shelf parts, labor, and a 20% profit. By his own account, consultation among various state government agencies spread his reputation from Tennessee to other states, and further assignments followed. Leuchter "aggressively solicited business", and in 1985 the state of New Jersey purchased his proposal for a lethal injection system for $30,000. ==Zündel trial and investigation at Auschwitz==

In 1988 Leuchter was hired by Ernst Zündel, who was being tried in Canada for publishing works of Holocaust denial, to investigate and testify as an expert witness at his trial, for a fee of $30,000. Leuchter was recommended to Zündel by Bill Armontrout, warden for Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City, Missouri. In his capacity as warden, Armontrout was personally responsible for carrying out executions by the use of cyanide gas. In 1988, prior to writing the report, Leuchter had traveled to several sites of structures identified as gas chambers, where, without permission, he collected samples from walls, ceilings and floors, using a chisel and hammer to chip and scrape off pieces of the masonry. He took copious notes about the floor plans and layout, and all of his actions were videotaped by a cameraman. (Leuchter, who had married only about one month before the trip, told his wife that the trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau was their honeymoon. Leuchter also failed to explain his belief that Zyklon B was used only for delousing, in view of his belief that the product would present technical difficulties in ventilating and decontaminating such as to make it impractical for use in a gas chamber. Nor did he explain why such large chambers would be needed for delousing clothes. Leuchter also wrongly assumed that it would take 20 to 30 hours to air a room disinfected with Zyklon B. Since far lower concentrations are required when gassing people than for delousing, it would take only 20 to 30 minutes to ventilate the room; therefore, the forced-ventilation systems used would be more than adequate to allow the gas chambers to be operated without endangering the executioners. Leuchter's report also made claims about the capacity of the crematoria, although he admitted he had no experience with cremation technology. When questioned in court, Leuchter admitted he had never seen a document by the Waffen-SS Commandant for construction issued when the crematoria were constructed, which estimated they had a 24-hour capacity of 4,756 people, more than 30 times Leuchter's estimate of 156. Repeating of Leuchter report's tests In February 1990, Professor Jan Markiewicz, Director of the Forensic Institute of Kraków, redid the analysis. Markiewicz decided that the Prussian blue test was unreliable because it depended on the acidity of the environment, which was low in the gas chambers. Markiewicz and his team used microdiffusion techniques to test for cyanide in samples from the gas chambers, from delousing chambers, and from living areas elsewhere within Auschwitz. The negative control samples from the living quarters tested negative, while cyanide residue was found in both the delousing chambers and the gas chambers. The amount of cyanide found had a great variability, possibly due to 50 years of exposure to the elements to varying degrees, but even so, the categorical results were that cyanide was found where expected in both the gas chambers and the delousing facilities, and not found in the living quarters, supporting the hypothesis that the gas chambers were exposed to high levels of cyanide like the delousing facilities, and not low levels for routine fumigation, like the living quarters. ==Life and career after Leuchter report==

Protests were organized outside the courthouse in Canada and near Leuchter's home in Malden, Massachusetts. Despite the bad publicity, he remained active as a capital punishment consultant until 1990, when his lack of qualifications to practice was exposed. In the late 1980s, following the Ernst Zündel trial, he was featured in both The Atlantic Monthly and Primetime Live in items on capital punishment, neither of which mentioned his association with Zündel. Also following his involvement in the Zündel trial, Leuchter began lecturing to Holocaust denial groups, such as the Institute for Historical Review (IHR), about his research and continued belief in the conclusions he testified to in the trial. In a speech to the Eleventh IHR Conference in October 1992, he said: In this case, it is myself that I post mortem—and the cadaver isn't dead! Much to the dismay of my executioners, the execution was so badly botched that I am able to stand here before you to speak the truth, and to tell the world that it is not myself, but the Holocaust story that is dead. I repeat for the record: I was condemned for maintaining that there were no execution gas chambers as Auschwitz, Birkenau, Majdanek, Dachau, Mauthausen, or Hartheim Castle. There's no proof for the charge, only innuendo, lies, and half-truths. Robert Faurisson, Ernst Zundel and others said this first. They, too, live as victims of botched executions, but nevertheless free to speak the truth in a strong and growing voice that repeats: No gas chambers, no gas chambers, no damn gas chambers!Because I was somewhat naïve at the time, I was not aware that by so testifying I was offending the organized world Jewish community. By providing final, definitive proof that there were no execution gas chambers utilized for genocidal purposes by the Germans at these wartime camps, I established the simple fact that the Holocaust story is not true. What I did not know was that anyone expressing such beliefs is guilty of a capital crime: that of thinking and telling the unspeakable truth about the greatest lie of the age.I would have to pay for this crime. While I innocently told the truth in Toronto, plans were made, and subsequently implemented, for a major effort to destroy me. If I could be destroyed and discredited—so the reasoning went—no one would accept my professional findings, no matter how truthful. When he claimed that the Massachusetts Attorney General determined that the sale of the offered equipment was not, in fact, illegal, states started denying his contracts on the basis of his lack of qualifications. His wife divorced him in this same period. He had been banned from entering the country by the Home Office, thus his entry and presence there were illegal. Leuchter claimed that United States consulate personnel effectively refused him aid. He had been interrupted while giving an invited speech at David Irving's instigation; his talk followed immediately one by Robert Faurisson. Leuchter has blamed criticism of his work on an "international cabal ... those who have unjustly attacked me and violated my rights ... the Klarsfelds, Shapiros, and Kahns of the world". According to the Institute for Historical Review, Leuchter subsequently took employment as a telemarketer. According to The New York Times, before selling execution equipment, Leuchter was a dealer in military surveillance equipment. On October 24, 1990, The New York Times described him as "self-proclaimed execution expert and manufacturer of death machinery." It quoted Edward A. Brunner, chairman of the anesthesia department at Northwestern University Medical School, as saying Leuchter's lethal injection system would indeed paralyze a condemned criminal with Pavulon, but that far from being humane, the paralysis would merely stop the prisoner from screaming at the "extreme pain in the form of a severe burning sensation" caused by the potassium chloride injection. Potassium chloride is commonly used in judicial execution through lethal injection. Leuchter's electric chair design was used by the state of Tennessee to execute Daryl Holton in 2007 and Edmund Zagorski in 2018. Allegations of dishonest court appearances In 1990 Newsweek reported Alabama assistant attorney general Ed Carnes having called Leuchter's views on the gas chamber "unorthodox", and alleging that "Leuchter was running a death row shakedown scheme: if a state didn't purchase Leuchter's services, he would testify at the last minute for the condemned man that the state's death chamber might malfunction." The Associated Press quoted Carnes as claiming that Leuchter made "money on both sides of the fence". In his memorandum to death penalty states, Carnes observed that in Florida and Virginia the federal courts had rejected Leuchter's testimony as unreliable. The court in Florida had found that Leuchter had "misquoted the statements" contained in an important affidavit and had "inaccurately surmised" a crucial premise of his conclusion. In Virginia, Leuchter provided a death row inmate's attorney with an affidavit claiming the electric chair would fail. The Virginia court decided the credibility of Leuchter's affidavit was limited because Leuchter was "the refused contractor who bid to replace the electrodes in the Virginia chair". Charges of practicing without a license In 1991 Leuchter faced charges of practicing engineering without a license issued by the Board of Registration of Professional Engineers and of Land Surveyors, which regulates professional engineers, a violation of Massachusetts law. He settled with prosecutors by serving two years of probation and agreeing to stop disseminating documents in which he presented himself as an engineer, including the Leuchter report. In a speech given over a year later, Leuchter claimed that: a spurious criminal complaint was filed against me in the Massachusetts court system with the intent of destroying my reputation by putting me in prison for three months.In point of fact, a license is not required in Massachusetts, or any other state, unless the engineer is involved in construction of buildings, and is certifying compliance with specifications. There is also a statutory exemption for engineers who do not deal with the general public.As confirmation of the spurious nature of this charge, it should be pointed out there are more than fifty thousand practicing engineers in Massachusetts, of whom only five thousand are licensed. Although the state's licensing law has been in effect since 1940, there has been no record of any prosecution for this offense. Leuchter attributed the actions of the regulatory board against him to pressure from Jewish groups. ==Documentary==

Leuchter is the subject of a 1999 documentary by Errol Morris, entitled Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. ==Works==

• Fred A. Leuchter, The Leuchter Report: The First Forensic Examination of Auschwitz • Fred Leuchter & Robert Faurisson, The Second Leuchter Report, The Journal of Historical Review, Vol. 10, No.3 Fall, 1990. • Fred Leuchter, The Third Leuchter Report: A Technical Report on the Execution Gas Chamber at Mississippi State Penitentiary Parchman, Mississippi, Toronto, Samisdat Publishers (imprint of Ernst Zundel). • Fred A. Leuchter Jr., ''The Fourth Leuchter Report: An Engineering Evaluation of Jean-Claude Pressac's Book "Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers"'' Hamilton, Ontario, History Buff Books and Video. • Fred A. Leuchter, Robert Faurisson, Germar Rudolf, The Leuchter Reports: Critical Edition, Chicago, Theses & Dissertations Press, 2005 (imprint of Germar Rudolf). ==See also==