The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

Ernst Zündel's Flying Saucers


Ernst Zündel has done extensive research into the theory that UFOs are really Nazi airships flying reconaissance missions from a secret base at or near the South Pole.

We are not making this up, honest.

The following web pages detail this research. Samisdat is the name of Zündel's publishing company.

Samisdat Hollow Earth Expedition

Transcription of a pamphlet from Zündel concerning an expedition to find secret UFO bases.

What's New at Samisdat?

Three transcriptions and large images of pages of a pamphlet. Page one features many photographs of 'German UFO prototypes.' Page two has an interesting picture of a 'German scientist at work,' looking at a penguin. Page three has order forms.

UFO Investigator Pass

An official UFO Investigator Pass, complete with UFO spotting chart and questions to ask the UFO occupants when they land.

Spotting Chart

Detail of another UFO spotting chart, with directions about what sorts of notes to take upon sighting a UFO.

This page has turned out to be one of our more popular. Perhaps a bit of background about these flying saucers is in order.

Zündel's real beliefs about UFOs are not clear. Frank Miele summarized it well in his article "Giving the Devil His Due," concerning Zündel's book UFOs: Nazi Secret Weapons?:

The book argued that what are usually described as flying saucers from outer space are actually Nazi secret weapons, still being launched from a hole in the ice in Antarctica. This may be why he jokingly told me...that I was dealing with the "real lunatic fringe." In a later phone conversation, Zündel told me that the UFO book was in fact a ploy.

"I realized that North Americans were not interested in being educated. They want to be entertained. The book was for fun. With a picture of the Führer on the cover and flying saucers coming out of Antarctica it was a chance to get on radio and TV talk shows. For about 15 minutes of an hour program I'd talk about that esoteric stuff. Then I would start talking about all those Jewish scientists in concentration camps, working on these secret weapons. And that was my chance to talk about what I wanted to talk about."

"In that case," I asked him, "do you still stand by what you wrote in the UFO book?" "Look," he replied, "it has a question mark at the end of the title."

[...]

Zündel will dangle a reference to UFO's or the wisdom of the ancient Atlanteans. If it has no effect, he just moves on. If it elicits skepticism, he blows it off with a jovial "for whatever it's worth." Given our early conversation on the UFO book, I'm still not sure whether Zündel really believes any of this esoteric stuff or whether he's just learned how effective pushing hot buttons is in grabbing the media spotlight and perhaps bringing in donations.

It should be pointed out that one of Zündel's most popular works, "Did Six Million Really Die?," also has the terminal question mark.

Michael Hoffman described the flying saucer material in his book on Zündel thusly:

Zundel the advertising man and media manager went into high gear, developing his controversial "Flying Saucer" line of publications. Less imaginative potential allies did not understand the tactic. They felt he should simply try and try and try again to pursue more traditional paths to public recognition. Some of them are still trying.

Hitler's Secret Antarctic Bases, Nazi Super-Weapons and the mystic secrets of the Aryan Hindu prophetress Savitri Devi were themes the public - and even their commissars - simply could not ignore. The 1970's witnessed a tidal wave of renewed interest in all things spiritual and Zundel was riding the wave for all it was worth. In countless radio talk shows, he held forth on spaceships, spacecraft, "free energies," electromagnetism, emergent technologies and the occasionally positive contributions those otherwise condemned Germans produced under the Third Reich in these fields.

Periodicals accepted ads for flying saucer books that would have obstinately refused similar space for The Auschwitz Lie. "When one door is closed, another will open." By this means, Zundel established a mail order business combining several book titles from revisionist and Fortean fields appealing to a broad base of free thinkers and truth seekers.

The Great Holocaust Trial, Hoffman, Michael A., Institute for Historical Review, Torrance, California, 1985, p. 18.

Zündel's own web site says this:

In 1972 he published a book on UFO's which became a run-away best seller marketed by direct mail and through advertisements, mainly in large circulation U.S. magazines. The success of the book convinced Zündel to enter the direct mail business selling other books on UFO's and eventually original, uncensored tapes of Nazi-era songs by German soldiers and SS (which contained no annoying commentaries distorting the music), historical speeches in their uncut form by Adolf Hitler and interviews he had done with various writers and historians on Zionism and the developing area of Holocaust revisionism including Dr. Robert Faurisson, French expert in ancient texts and documents at the University of Lyon II and Rabbi Elmer Berger, head of the American Council for Judaism.

Please note that Nizkor is not claiming that, because Zündel's ideas about UFOs are crazy, therefore his claims about the Holocaust are wrong. That inference would be an example of the poisoning the well fallacy. Zündel is wrong regardless of his opinions about flying saucers. Nizkor has much documentation of the errors of Zündel and other Holocaust-deniers; a good place to start is the QAR.


[ Index ]

Home ·  Site Map ·  What's New? ·  Search Nizkor

© The Nizkor Project, 1991-2012

This site is intended for educational purposes to teach about the Holocaust and to combat hatred. Any statements or excerpts found on this site are for educational purposes only.

As part of these educational purposes, Nizkor may include on this website materials, such as excerpts from the writings of racists and antisemites. Far from approving these writings, Nizkor condemns them and provides them so that its readers can learn the nature and extent of hate and antisemitic discourse. Nizkor urges the readers of these pages to condemn racist and hate speech in all of its forms and manifestations.