"The Leuchter Report and the Remer Report represent expert opinion."
Before we go into the factual misinformation contained in these "studies," there is one criticism that can be made at the outset. Neither Leuchter nor Germar Rudolf, who works for Remer, are experts in the field they claim knowledge of.
Fred A. Leuchter has a Masters Degree in history and sells execution devices to American prisons. In his publications, he always claims to be an engineer. Rudolf is a certified chemist in Stuttgart. In spite of what he claims, Leuchter has absolutely no practical experience with gas chambers. Of the six states that are supposed to have consulted with him, five turned him down. Only in Maryland did Leuchter submit a single draft for the renovation of a gas chamber. The plans were never carried out because Maryland decided to execute death row inmates by lethal injection.
Otto E. Remer was a general in the Wehrmacht and took part in the arrest of the military officers who attempted to assassinate Hitler on July 20, 1944. He is both sponsor and financier of the Remer Report.
It is important to realize that neither of these studies can be considered neutral analyses. Both were designed and written to aid in the legal defense of accused Holocaust revisionists. In the case of the Leuchter Report, the impetus came from the right-wing radical literary critic Robert Faurisson who tried to help his political friend Ernst Zündel, who was facing prosecution in Canada (and was later convicted). Zündel himself financed the trip of this "neutral expert" Leuchter. During cross examination, Leuchter admitted that he did not have the necessary scientific training. On top of that, in order to acquaint himself with the subject, he used only the sources recommended by Faurisson. Because of these inadequacies, the court in Toronto lent Leuchter no credence whatsoever. The judge stated that it was shameless of Leuchter to claim more than superficial understanding of the material.
In June of 1991, Leuchter himself landed in court for illegally practicing as an engineer. As a result, he signed a voluntary statement in which he admitted that he had never been an engineer by profession, that he had falsely made statements to the contrary in several states in order to solicit work, and finally that he was a self-styled expert in "execution technology." He promised that he would cease and desist from representing himself as an engineer and stop publishing his "scientific analyses," like the one about Auschwitz.
Even when looked at from the point of view of time invested and on-site research, both of these reports fail as serious investigations. For example, Leuchter devoted all of nine days, including flight time, to his excursion. He then wrote his 132-page report in four weeks, using diagrams that came from tourist brochures. In addition, it is clear that he knew nothing of important documents such as those written by SS construction supervisors.
As the contents of both reports demonstrate, neither author considered it necessary to work through the on-site documentation.