General Holocaust denial discussion Part III

[Jeffk 1970]

The label Holocaust denier is a dishonest one used to insinuate revisionists believe nothing bad happened to the Jews during WWII and to discourage us from asking questions. The reason Believers don't want the historical facts to be checked is because they know them to be false.

Very well.

Tell me, with proof, where the Jews went if the Germans didn't kill them. I like to start with this because it is the fly in the denier ointment.

 

[Pacal]

With the film "Denial" about the Lipstadt/David Irving trial (with Rachel Weisz as Lipstadt) scheduled for release in a few weeks, I suspect we will get yet another flood of Deniers infesting the Internet.

Actually it has already began. The trailers for Denial on YouTube have generated acres and acres of Denialist comments. And has per usual the comments are disgusting.

And of course the comments constantly bleat about Irving being a champion of free speech; forgetting that through a libel action Irving was attacking Lipstadt's free speech.

 

[EtienneSC]

Well, that proved you cannot read books for comprehension. You cite a number of statements from the introduction to our white paper, and expect them to be sourced to the nth degree? Really? The rest of the white paper does that!

This latter statement turns out to be a fair point. For example, looking at Chapter Two, I find an example of Hitler giving a particular order, but not in writing. This justifies the more general conclusions that not all such orders were put in writing, hence the absence of a written order does not imply that no such order was given, etc. Hence we are proceeding initially from particular to general, but once the general principle is known, it can be applied in other contexts. I was assuming that the general part would be in the Introductory Chapter, advertised as a summary and overview - but wrongly.

 

[EtienneSC]

If I'm not mistaken, Professor Andrzej Kola also visited the Sobibor site and indeed identified the mass graves there. It has been shown that the areas marked as mass graves are considerably greener than the surrounding areas, when checked via google satellite, no doubt precisely because of the Human remains mixed into the soil. There is also a huge mound of Ash in the middle of the place if I'm not mistaken.

I have been away for some time and have only just seen this. Are there any sources for the dimensions of this "huge mound of ash"?

The entire "Revisionist" quibbling about "Physical remains" is a classic example of the fallacy of moving goalposts. Initially, when confronted with documents proving or strongly implying mass murder, the Deniers dismiss these as forgeries and demand physical evidence. When the Physical evidence IS provided however, they insist that it is not enough or doctored and demand documents (sometimes the same documents they dismiss as forgeries). It's a complete and utter farce.

It is perfectly reasonable to examine both documentary and physical evidence in arriving at a conclusion. I see nothing farcical about this in principle. It is simply applying the standards accepted in other inquiries to narratives created in a very heated post-war atmosphere in which the survival of a new nation state (Israel) was at stake.

 

[EtienneSC]

The highlighted statements are ridiculous and utterly baseless assertions. One only needs to reread this and other threads and they will find examples of German Orders either explicitly ordering killings, or at the very least authorizing them. Quoted examples are the SS verdict against Max Taubner ("The accused will not be punished for the actions against the Jews as such. The Jews have to be exterminated...), the Goebbels Diary entry of May 27 1942 ("Liquidation", "not much will remain") and the Jager report and the like. Deniers insist that there are no orders or documents proving such indiscriminate killings, and yet when such documents are shown to exist, they are dismissed as forgeries. Holocaust Denial is just a baseless conspiracy theory that refuses to accept evidence that disproves its assumptions.

Do we have a more immediate reference to this SS verdict against Max Taubner? Accepting it as genuine for the moment, the actions against the Jews are not specified and the verb translated as "exterminated" may simply be "vernichten", which often means "nullified, deprived of power" in the language of the day.

I have seen doubts raised about the post-1941 parts of the Goebbels diary, which apparently exists only in typescript and is written in a more "villainous" tone than the preceding years.

The second statement (Falsehood in wartime) illustrates a painful ignorance of the Allies' policies both during and after the war. The simple, blunt truth is that there is no way on this Earth that the Allies falsified the Holocaust or any of the evidence of the Holocaust, as EtienneSC insinuates.

There is evidence that the British at least did in the declassified diaries of Victor Cavendish-Bentinck, a senior official of the Intelligence Service in London, who wrote in 1943: “I feel certain that we are making a mistake in publicly giving credence to this gas chambers story”. The "painful ignorance" appears to be yours, in this case.

[...] EtienneSC and Mondial's insinuations are not only baseless, but are completely the opposite of what actually happened. Similarly, Britain continued its policy of blocking Jewish immigration to Palestine until 1948, even to the extent of firing on ships carrying refugees. There is no way, utterly no way, the Allies would falsify the record of the Holocaust, on behalf of the Jews or otherwise. Their broader foreign policies totally and utterly rule out any such falsification.

The experience of British troops on the ground was of large numbers of Jews arriving in Palestine in the period prior to independence. You neglect to mention that Jewish groups like the Irgun and Stern gang were firing on the British at the time.

 

[EtienneSC]

Any reference to said German laws "prohibiting indiscriminate killings"?

Trials and punishments under them are detailed in Alfred de Zayas The Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau, 1939-1945 (Rockport, Picton, 2000) 19,24.

Furthemore did these laws apply in territories like the General Government where the extermination camps were located or in the Soviet territories under control of the Wehrmacht where the Einsatzgruppen were completely free to carry on their mass killings? Is this statement not contradictory to the "Commissar Order" issued by the OKW (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht) on 6 June 1941? Finally how do you explain that despite "laws prohibiting indiscriminate killings" the Wehrmacht let more than 3 millions Soviet POWs starve to death?

There were "many occurrences of punishments, including death sentences, of German soldiers, officers, civil servants, meted out by court martial or military tribunals in Poland, Ukraine, Hungary, France". Presumably for the Commissar order, the laws of war would apply and it was directed against presumed combatants. It was controversial at the time and so implemented sporadically at most according to Louis Paget in his defense of Manstein.

Deaths by starvation happened on both sides. Few of the German prisoners from Stalingrad ever returned home, for example.

 

[EtienneSC]

In fact, no. There is an excellent, older study of Nazi special law for the east, written by Diemut Majer (“Non-Germans” Under The Third Reich: The Nazi Judicial and Administrative System in Germany and Occupied Eastern Europe, with Special Regard to Occupied Poland, 1939–1945);

Great, hopefully the author will make it available for free on the internet to facilitate debate, as revisionists do. Same goes for the other interesting works mentioned on this thread.

 

[A'isha]

Do we have a more immediate reference to this SS verdict against Max Taubner? Accepting it as genuine for the moment, the actions against the Jews are not specified and the verb translated as "exterminated" may simply be "vernichten", which often means "nullified, deprived of power" in the language of the day.

"Wegen der Judenaktion als solcher soll der Angeklagte nicht bestraft werden. Die Juden muessen vernichtet werden, es ist um keinen der getoeteten Juden schade. Wenn sich auch der Angeklagte haette sagen muessen, dass die Vernichtung der Juden Aufgabe besonders hierfuer eingerichteter Kommandos ist, soll ihm zugute gehalten werden, dass er sich befugt gehalten haben mag, auch seinerseits an der Vernichtung des Judentums teilzunehmen."

"The accused shall not be punished because of the actions against the Jews as such. The Jews have to be exterminated and none of the Jews that were killed is any great loss. Although the accused should have recognized that the extermination of the Jews was the duty of of Kommandos which were set up especially for this purpose, he should be excused for considering himself to have the authority to take part in the extermination of Jewry himself."

You can read the verdict for yourself in The Good Old Days: The Holocaust as Seen by Its Perpetrators and Bystanders.

 

[EtienneSC]

Which reminds me, in the light of LeoMajor's mention of Konrad Morgen in this context, that Pauer-Studer & Velleman have written an insightful study of Morgen, Konrad Morgen: The Conscience of a Nazi Judge (2015). [...]

Already we have shown in several ways, from how law was developed and applied to actual behavior of SS and other German forces how EtienneSC's claims of clean occupations and observation of conventional German legal norms by the Nazis during the war is nothing but wishful thinking uninformed by widely available and discussed evidence.

This would be the same Judge Konrad Morgen who described at Nuremberg the gas chambers at Monowitz - where there are none (IMT Trial records, Volume 20). Specifically, he gave the following evidence:

"Yesterday I described the four camps of the Kriminalkommissar Wirth and referred to the Camp Auschwitz. By "Extermination Camp Auschwitz" I did not mean the concentration camp. It did not exist there. I meant a separate extermination camp near Auschwitz, called "Monowitz...
The Extermination Camp Monowitz lay far away from the concentration camp. It was situated on an extensive industrial site and was not recognizable as such and everywhere on the horizon there were smoking chimneys. The camp itself was guarded on the outside by special troops of men from the Baltic, Estonians, Lithuanians, Latvians, and also Ukrainians. The entire technical arrangement was almost exclusively in the hands of the prisoners who were assigned for this job and they were only supervised each time by an Unterfuehrer. The actual killing was done by another Unterfuehrer who let the gas into this room. "

If, as skeptics and holocaust aficionados sometimes claim, true knowledge is virtually confined to academia and thereafter thoroughly vetted by respected publishing houses, perhaps someone will explain how the authors of the above book explain these statements by Morgen.

Apparently, Morgen also affirmed the reality of the "Jewish soap" myth to the Americans (Hilberg, Destruction, 1985, 966-67). A reliable guy, obviously.

 

[A'isha]

This would be the same Judge Konrad Morgen who described at Nuremberg the gas chambers at Monowitz - where there are none (IMT Trial records, Volume 20). Specifically, he gave the following evidence:

If, as skeptics and holocaust aficionados sometimes claim, true knowledge is virtually confined to academia and thereafter thoroughly vetted by respected publishing houses, perhaps someone will explain how the authors of the above book explain these statements by Morgen.

Apparently, Morgen also affirmed the reality of the "Jewish soap" myth to the Americans (Hilberg, Destruction, 1985, 966-67). A reliable guy, obviously.

http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2012/05/review-of-discussion-on-gas-openings-at_20.html

 

[EtienneSC]

Faurisson has been debunked since more than 30 years.

The former French Minister of Justice called him once a "falsifier of history". Faurisson sued him for defamation and Faurisson lost the case.

Frankly speaking the words "falsifier of history" applies to all deniers. This summarises what they are doing in a few words.

No, Faurisson won the case. The XVIIth penal chamber of Paris declared on 21 May 2007 that "the defendant (Robert Badinter, formerly of LICRA) had failed to provide proof" of his claim on an ARTE TV programme on 11 November 2006 that he had shown Faurisson to be a "falsifier of history" prior to becoming Minister of Justice in 1981. The court merely held that Badinter had spoken in good faith, which is probably what you are referring to.

Badinter's reference was to a legal case in 1981 and a 1983 appeal. These proved so embarrassing to the French establishment that the Fabius-Gayssot law was passed in 1990, making it illegal for Faurisson or other revisionists to advertise or distribute commercially the results of their research in France. Hence people often falsely believe that Faurisson did not continue his research after that date, or that his results are not available privately to interested parties. There are currently seven volumes of his revisionist writings and he has many supporters, at Rivarol and elsewhere.

So if you wish to see a real "falsifier of history" in this case, try looking in the mirror!

 

[EtienneSC]

FOR ALL INTERESTED MEMBERS, here's a list (with input from a colleague who is far better read than I) of titles for learning more about the Holocaust:

Helpful. Revisionism has a more concise list. You can find the most important titles available in English here.

 

[Nick Terry]

Great, hopefully the author will make it available for free on the internet to facilitate debate, as revisionists do. Same goes for the other interesting works mentioned on this thread.

This is a wholly unrealistic expectation, since academic works aren't generally made available for free on the internet, irrespective of topic. Digitisation of books and edited collections is also much slower than of journals, and most ebooks and journals require institutional access, again irrespective of topic.

Fortunately there are a number of open access journals relevant to this subject, in particular Viertelsjahrshefte fuer Zeitgeschichte, as well as an increasing number of PhD dissertations available through open-access depositories at different universities. More and more archival collections are being digitised as well.

Here is an introduction to what is currently available, it is far from complete, and a lot of links need to be added (googling the unlinked titles may well find them). The works listed cover a lot of ground, indeed there are usually several different things available for pretty much every major aspect of the Holocaust.

 

[Nick Terry]

This latter statement turns out to be a fair point. For example, looking at Chapter Two, I find an example of Hitler giving a particular order, but not in writing. This justifies the more general conclusions that not all such orders were put in writing, hence the absence of a written order does not imply that no such order was given, etc. Hence we are proceeding initially from particular to general, but once the general principle is known, it can be applied in other contexts. I was assuming that the general part would be in the Introductory Chapter, advertised as a summary and overview - but wrongly.

No, that would be nearly impossible in history-writing. You define the subject, review the literature, and identify your sources.

History-writing does not rely on law-like generalisations regarding its content, since the content - events and developments - will evolve and vary. It does however pay attention to precedent, and to change.

History is, in its essentials, the science of change. It knows and it teaches that it is impossible to find two events that are ever exactly alike, because the conditions from which they spring are never identical.
- Marc Bloch (he wrote variations on this in several places)

 

[Nessie]

Has anyone got any links or information on any testing of samples of bone/ash/earth from the AR camps?

 

[Nick Terry]

Has anyone got any links or information on any testing of samples of bone/ash/earth from the AR camps?

http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/belzec-sobibor-treblinka-holocaust_5940.html
http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/belzec-sobibor-treblinka-holocaust_4958.html

Follow the sources cited. They are enough for any sane person, but will never be enough for a denier, especially not the ones you've been wasting however many years it's been arguing with at RODOH. There's a quote attributed to Einstein about that.

 

[LemmyCaution]

Great, hopefully the author will make it available for free on the internet to facilitate debate, as revisionists do. Same goes for the other interesting works mentioned on this thread.

LOL that is a very funny excuse for not reading a book!

Prof Majer's book was first published in German in 1981 and translated into English in 2003. It is a product of extensive and deep research and worth reading, even if it means forking over some money.

Scholars who create works of value generally engage with publishers having scholarly or academic imprints to produce and distribute their work, with a charge for the work that includes a royalty to compensate the author and/or finance further research; there are exceptions, of course, but I would not expect Majer to be giving her work away any time soon, certainly not because of an imagined dialogue with "revisionists." This has nothing to do with the subject matter, but just the normal scholarly publishing process. I do believe portions of her book have been digitized and published online on GoogleBooks. Also, there may be articles/papers on the topic available online (but many of these require payment of subscription or one-time purchase fees - that's just how it works, in history, science, math, economics, what have you).

I understand that with revisionists the situation is on its head: generally revisionist authors have to give their books away due to a lack of academic/scholarly publishing outlets and in order to find at least a few readers, whilst for revisionists the exceptions are books made available for sale.

I personally am fine with compensating people for valuable work that they do and with my choosing to read, and paying for, what is important to me.

 

[LemmyCaution]

. . . this SS verdict against Max Taubner? Accepting it as genuine for the moment

Why do you qualify your comment with this phrase?

I have seen doubts raised about the post-1941 parts of the Goebbels diary, which apparently exists only in typescript and is written in a more "villainous" tone than the preceding years.

What are they? I have seen many things without merit. What is your point here? A direct statement, rather than an insinuation, would be helpful,

 

[LemmyCaution]

This would be the same Judge Konrad Morgen who described at Nuremberg the gas chambers at Monowitz - where there are none (IMT Trial records, Volume 20). Specifically, he gave the following evidence:

If, as skeptics and holocaust aficionados sometimes claim, true knowledge is virtually confined to academia and thereafter thoroughly vetted by respected publishing houses, perhaps someone will explain how the authors of the above book explain these statements by Morgen.

Apparently, Morgen also affirmed the reality of the "Jewish soap" myth to the Americans (Hilberg, Destruction, 1985, 966-67). A reliable guy, obviously.

So? I am aware of Morgen's testimony, including some of what he told CIC interrogators - but I was making a statement about the SS courts, documents concerning Morgen, his work as an SS judge, and his career trajectory. I certainly was not vouching for all the points of his testimony (actually, I didn't mention his testimony) or advocating a simplistic reading of what he maintained post-war. Your post is about points I did not raise, nor were the points you "address" raised in the posts I replied to. (OTOH, the links I included in my post take you to a thread in another forum, some posts in which discussed a number of Morgen's postwar errors, including IIRC the Monowitz gaffe.)

 

[LemmyCaution]

There is evidence that the British at least did in the declassified diaries of Victor Cavendish-Bentinck, a senior official of the Intelligence Service in London, who wrote in 1943: “I feel certain that we are making a mistake in publicly giving credence to this gas chambers story”. The "painful ignorance" appears to be yours, in this case.

This statement is not fair. Ivanesca did not write about what Allied officials gave credence to; rather, Ivanesca wrote that "there is no way on this Earth that the Allies falsified the Holocaust or any of the evidence of the Holocaust." Ivanesca wasn't maintaining that no one among the Allies questioned evidence for the Holocaust or interpreted evidence for the Holocaust in any particular way.