The Institute for Historical Review

The focal point of world neo-Nazi propaganda since 1978 has been the Institute for Historical Review (IHR) in California. Its main propaganda organs were the quarterly Journal of Historical Review and the bi-monthly IHR Newsletter. The 29 members of the editorial staff and board came not only from the USA, but also from Germany (Udo Walendy, Wilhelm Stäglich, and Georg Franz Willing), France (Robert Faurisson and Henri Roques), Argentina (W. Beweraggi-Allende), Australia (John Bennet), Spain (Enrique Aynat), Italy (Carlo Mattogno), and Japan (Hideo Miki). The JHR became a tribunal for neo-Nazis around the world. The activities of the Institute, headed by Mark Weber, have been curtailed in recent years by financial problems. Publication of the JHR ceased in 2002, and the Bulletin now appears only in an online edition.

The IHR also organizes annual revisionist congresses presenting the latest “achievements” in the field of denying Nazi genocide.

Wolf Rudiger Hess, the son of Hitler’s chosen deputy, Rudolf Hess, addressed the October 1992 eleventh congress as guest of honor.

One of the most provocative public acts of the IHR was the public challenge it issued in 1978, offering a prize of $50,000 to anyone who could prove that there were gas chambers in Auschwitz. When a former Auschwitz prisoner living in California who had lost his mother and two sisters in the camp, Mel Mermelstein, came forth with such proof, the IHR rejeced his claims. Mermelstein took the IHR to court. In 1995, he was awarded the prize and an additional sum in damages. Nevertheless, the IHR continued informing the world that Mermelstein had failed to prove his case. It still continues to declare this in its “66 Questions and Answers about the Holocaust,” which is widely available on the Internet.

At present, the IHR concentrates on spreading revisionist propaganda on the Internet and on sending speakers to appear at various forums, including universities in the USA.