diff --git a/git-filter-branch.sh b/git-filter-branch.sh
index cb9d2022cc..195b5ef48e 100755
--- a/git-filter-branch.sh
+++ b/git-filter-branch.sh
@@ -259,7 +259,6 @@ test -s "$tempdir"/heads ||
 
 GIT_INDEX_FILE="$(pwd)/../index"
 export GIT_INDEX_FILE
-git read-tree || die "Could not seed the index"
 
 # map old->new commit ids for rewriting parents
 mkdir ../map || die "Could not create map/ directory"