Britain’s Rumour Factory Origins of the Gas Chamber Story An essay published in tribute to Prof. Robert Faurisson on his 88th birthday 25th January 2017 For more than thirty years, historians have been aware of once-secret memoranda by senior British intelligence official Victor Cavendish-Bentinck in which he casts doubt on the alleged use of homicidal gas chambers by National Socialist Germany. Writing to Whitehall colleagues at the end of1 August 1943, Cavendish-Bentinck used dismissive language which today in most European countries would undoubtedly see him prosecuted for “Holocaust denial”. During the trial of British historian David Irving’s libel action against Deborah Lipstadt in 2000 (now dramatised in the Hollywood film Denial) some of Cavendish-Bentinck’s remarks were raised by Irving as justification of his claim that the gas chamber story originated as a propaganda lie. In his judgment against Irving, Mr Justice Gray accepted the counter-arguments of Lipstadt’s defenc...