These are fair questions, though it is not reasonable to expect someone to spend their life reading someone else's specialist subject.
It is reasonable if that somebody makes a broad and silly, groundless, and unsupported caricature of said specialist literature, as you did. In fact, I fail to see how you could bring yourself to make such a caricature without having done extensive reading.
In this case, the list is almost entirely post war secondary academic material, mostly from this century
Because it is a list of "narrative" works of the kind you caricatured. Recall that you wrote - and I replied to this specifically - that
Holocaust narratives are more like: "These people were so bad you wouldn't believe it and deserved what they got. Don't be like them! This is the best documented genocide ever." "OK, about these footnotes, where are the documents?" "The Germans destroyed them. That's how cunning they were." "That's not what you said at first...(turns to Germar Rudolf)"
No amount of verbal gymnastics will succeed in place of a direct answer to what you were asked about your caricature. Sorry. I see what you're trying to do.
it doesn't include such obvious texts as Hitler's Mein Kampf for example
In the first place, in your post you mischaracterized not Mein Kampf but "Holocaust narratives", that is, secondary works on the Holocaust. Come on, reply honestly. Second, Mein Kampf is no doubt referenced many, many times in the books on Nick Terry's list.
or anything about revisionism.
Why would a list I offered to probe for the basis of your characterization of the narrative structure and quality of Holocaust narratives and their documentary base include revisionist works, which you didn't mention and which aren't historical works in any event? I cited this list to get to a discussion of
what you based your claims about the scholarship and its character on, not to compare merits of revisionist piffle vs historical scholarship.
I have about a six-shelf bookcase worth of more or less relevant books on WW1, Germany between the wars, Nazism, WW2, Judaism, Christianity in the 1930s, the air war, anti-semitism and the holocaust, plus stuff on Kindle - none of which is my main subject - and formerly i used libraries more than I do now (e.g. on the Barmen declaration). Despite that, I have read just under 1% (3) from the list extensively
Thank you for finally answering. That small % doesn't give you a basis in my opinion to make the sort of sweeping dismissal you tried. It is a pathetic % especially compared to your claim; you basically know nothing about the core recent literature, which literature you, however, felt entitled to dismiss. I imagine even you are chuckling about that. Or maybe you've read 100s of recent titles of scholarly works not on Nick Terry's list?
A problem here, for you, is that you could tell me, and I thought you might, about the wisdom of crowds, how many revisionists collectively have read most of these works and have a deep, wide base in the literature they argue needs revision. But, I would guess, you know and I know that collectively the answer won't be much better.
Btw, lest you feel I am being harsh, I feel inadequate here myself, I have to say, but have read 68% of the English titles, or 147 of them.
have some knowledge of 4.6% (16) through revisionist critiques or reading enough to know they weren't for me.
Doesn't count. I am asking you on what basis you described the typical narrative structure of Holocaust historiography - only by studying relevant works are you entitled to make such statements.
When I became aware of revisionism I adopted a method of sampling the literature. Hence I analyzed one book from this list myself in detail (see below), looked at new evidence reported in the press (a random sample, so I thought) and read revisionist analyses of other books.
What a mind-blowingly wrongheaded method to come to the conclusion you did about the structure of these works. It'd be easier, and more convincing, to actually read a bunch of the books. How on earth, btw, did you learn what "Holocaust narratives" are "like" by reading a few examples and then revisionist glosses on the works? How did you assess the 450,000 references on Nick Terry's list without, well, assessing them?
It is fair to say in my own cause that the list excludes many works I have read (Hannah Arendt's Eichman in Jerusalem (c1961) for example, which relies on Hilberg, Daniel Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners (1996), which relies on Browning (see below)
No. Sheesh, Goldhagen is more of a reply to, and critique of, Browning's Ordinary Men. I'm at a loss for words on your point about Arendt. But I will go on . . .
and Faurisson's Le Révisionissme de Pie XII.
Not relevant.
Presumably this is one of the best books, as the list is not exhaustive, I thought.
I don't know the works, not on my 147 titles from the list I read - or among the many 100s of others I've read. But analyzing one book doesn't help you understand what "Holocaust narratives" are "like."
I need to remind you that YR Büchler's work on Taübner put all the revisionist speculation and wittering about that case to shame, in this very thread.
On which subject, another book from Nick Terry's list that I looked at was Christopher Browning's
Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland (1988). I chose this as it was the basis of Daniel Goldhagen's
Hitler's Willing Executioners (1996), which I had read when it came out without suspecting that there might be anything wrong with the evidence for the holocaust as a whole. Browning writes for a page and a half describing the narrative without footnotes (nothing wrong with that). Then he puts his first question "How had the Germans organized and carried out the destruction of this widespread Jewish population [in Poland]?" So he assumes the narrative, rather than first trying to establish it, even though he describes it as "astounding". It's fair enough to limit an inquiry, but that's not designed to convince someone with doubts.
Browning's topic is not the widespread destruction of Polish Jewry, and his intent is not to convince you about it, but rather a study of the perpetrators through close analysis of PB 101 and the men in it, especially motive. Browning's study of the men of PB 101 is in fact sourced, with his original research. Your reading of Browning finds him wanting because you won't accept his goal. That's, frankly, just unworthy of serious discussion.
Can you show that Browning's book, or any of the two others you're familiar with, is structured like this?
"These people were so bad you wouldn't believe it and deserved what they got. Don't be like them! This is the best documented genocide ever." "OK, about these footnotes, where are the documents?" "The Germans destroyed them. That's how cunning they were." "That's not what you said at first...(turns to Germar Rudolf)"
Seriously?
Then contrary to what you say, Browning writes:
Firstly, when we ask "Where are the orders to kill?" Who gave them? Who was to be killed? Why?", the answer apparently is "There are none." I don't doubt that people were shot in Poland, but one question is "How many?" and the most important is "Why?" - which Goldhagen at least asks. Secondly, any army unit is a "killing unit" composed of "professional killers", that being what an army is. Thirdly, how reliable is a book that relies "heavily" on the statements of people described as liars likely to be?
His goal, again, was to understand perpetration and motive; surely what the perpetrators think is relevant to such a project!
As for Hilberg, I link to two revisionist analyses of him below. I found his opening description of Christian anti-semitism totally unconvincing - basically, this is a guy who never went to Sunday school, whatever his titles - and decided to read Graf's Giant with Feet of Clay instead. As far as I know, no scholar has thought it worthwhile to respond to revisionist critiques.
The reason why is different to what you think.
Although I know HC has written about Graf's book - as here (
"Jürgen Graf is a Liar" and I believe in other pieces I'm too lazy to search for right now).
Hilberg's opening thoughts, of course, do not rely on German documents, which was why I brought his work up, his use of German sources, not for his brief introductory survey.
Have you read Carlo Mattogno's Curated Lies (2016), in which the officials of the Auschwitz Museum cite only 74 documents as in effect "criminal traces" (Pressac's phrase) of homicidal operations? What have the upholders of the narrative done to refute it?
Who or what is an upholder of the narrative? More to the point, what is "the narrative," and how do you know what it is if you haven't read the basic, recent literature?
Another open goal: Nick Terry list includes Deborah Lipstadt's Beyond Belief (1986). On page 261, she refers to 4 million people killed at Auschwitz, duly footnoted with a reference to three newspapers from 1945. So you deduct one from your massive number of footnotes.
We can deduct 100s more for sure. But I didn't ask you about one footnote - or a few 100s. If we "lose" several 100s, we still have 440,000+ as Nick Terry described them. As you know, what I asked you about was this: 1) the narrative structure you attribute to works you've now told us you have read a minuscule number of, on a decent sample of them, and 2) your claim that the typical approach to documents is "The Germans destroyed them. That's how cunning they were."
There are footnotes in Laurence Rees' Auschwitz, but none of them refer to German wartime documents.
Again, with your having read almost nothing on this topic, except revisionist stuff, you are in no position to characterize the typical structure of the works or to speak to the document base. I would suggest you try Fleming's book on Allied censorship and Auschwitz; Angrick & Klein's work on Riga; the Auschwitz 5-volume camp history; Stangneth's study of Eichmann (interesting because it shows how Eichmann's revelations blew the minds of early deniers); Lozowick's close study of RSHA archives for the Netherlands and France; or others I've mentioned.
