Holocaust deniers, explain this.

[Matthew Ellard]

He got an answer to his question, then said "so what?". It's basically a case of asking a question, then pretending the answer is insignificant. It's exactly that, a handwaving away of the precise answer to the specific question asked.

I agree. He is 'handwaving' as he retreats.

 

[Dogzilla]

Is one book your limit this year?

NT has a habit of chastising posters for not being up on the latest holocaust research. A denier who has read The Destruction of the European Jews cover to cover is a denier because she's not up to date with the latest research, according to NT. With the industry projectile vomiting hundreds of books a year on the subject, it's very likely that a person who has just become interested and wants to learn more is going to pick up a book that contains erroneous information. Most people don't care enough about the topic to read every book on NT reading list. So I'd like him to name one book that would give the reader a broad overview but enough depth to understand the subject.

 

[Dogzilla]

Dogzilla is coming perilously close to the single-study fallacy which one hears from time to time from cranks and kooks. Anyone familiar with any academic discipline knows that one is never enough. The Holocaust is no different.

It might seem terribly unfair that in order to meet the most basic level of competence and knowledge that you have to read a couple of hundred books, but I don't see that it's any different with any other topic in history, or any other topic in any other field. Them's the breaks.

So what you're saying is that nobody has any business posting here unless they've read a couple of hundred books about the holocaust. Or, you're saying that the most basic level of competence and knowledge of the holocaust isn't necessary for posting here. So which is it?

 

[uke2se]

So what you're saying is that nobody has any business posting here unless they've read a couple of hundred books about the holocaust. Or, you're saying that the most basic level of competence and knowledge of the holocaust isn't necessary for posting here. So which is it?

I think he's saying that to have any credibility when you attempt to argue against historical facts, you should at least have taken the time to find out exactly what those historical facts are, and how they were arrived at.

 

[Nick Terry]

I think he's saying that to have any credibility when you attempt to argue against historical facts, you should at least have taken the time to find out exactly what those historical facts are, and how they were arrived at.

Oh, let's throw Dogzilla a bone. My statement wasn't terribly well worded. It's however true that to achieve a basic level of professional competence in just about any subject - i.e. a master's or doctorate - you will need to have read at least several hundred books and articles on a narrowly defined topic. A typical undergraduate will almost certainly have read several hundred books and articles across all topics in a 3 year single honours course, and likely not much different in a US style major.

The Membership Agreement doesn't license expertise and doesn't set any minimum thresholds for knowledge. Peer pressure, and the Stundies, don't even manage that. But the heartfelt contempt and ridicule of the forum membership is nonetheless the usual reward bestowed on the arrogantly ignorant here at JREF. Most of us - except maybe the woo-woos - wouldn't have it any other way.

 

[Dogzilla]

What one book would you recommend for learning about Holocaust revisionism?

I don't really like any of them. Some of the "classics" in PDF format are available for free at the vho.org website. I haven't read any of them cover to cover. The Germer Rudolf books are practically unreadable.

If I had to recommend just one, it's probably Butz's The Hoax of the Twentieth Century. It provides a good overview but it's out of date so it doesn't discuss more recent trends in holocaust scholarship. In his discussion of the Auschwitz myth he notes the importance of the Buna factory and his belief that the plant was photographed by aerial reconnaissance during the war. We learned he was right a few years later when the photos were released but his book doesn't discuss them.

He discusses the role of the Zionists in developing the extermination thesis. But I don't recall any mention of the Haavara. He spends too much time talking about the absurdities found in the Talmud and suggests that the hyperbole found there is a possible source for the exaggerations of the holocaust. This ignores the fact that all religious have some pretty stupid premises at their core and that the Talmud has influenced ideas found in Christianity and Islam as well as Judaism. In doing so he misses how galut--which is specific to Jews--is a prism through which the world is interpreted. He runs the risk of being called an anti-Semite if he were to delve into the galut issue. But the fact that the mass media has disgorged chicken little tales of Jewish misery intermittently since the turn of the century--very often with six million being the number of Jews in peril--cannot be dismissed as irrelevant. Since it's true, it can't be anti-Semitic.

His explanation of what happened to Jews who are missing reveals as much about his personal success with women as it does insight into the missing Jews. And his book was written before we had this geyser of memoirs spewing onto the bookshelves so he doesn't discuss any of the nonsense like Filip Mueller or Mischa that makes the traditional story more and more untenable.

But it's valuable because it explains what really happened to the Jews in Europe in the 1940s as we understood it in 1975. The holocaust in 2010 is a completely different animal but we can't fault Butz for not predicting the way the story would change.

I would also recommend any of the books that have been written to answer holocaust revisionism. Questions raised by revisionists piqued my curiosity but it was Shermer, Lipstadt, and van Pelt who told me that there aren't any answers to those questions.

So you're not reading the excerpt right.

This is an excerpt from a verdict in which some SS dude was punished for excessive cruelty, isn't it? Am I thinking of something else? In any case, it doesn't look good. It could support an extermination thesis but without seeing the entire statement I can't say.

If you give me a quote without any context, I'll dismiss it with a hand wave. If you insist that the meaning of a sentence is independent of the entire document and set of documents then you need to take some remedial social science research classes.

 

[Dogzilla]

I think he's saying that to have any credibility when you attempt to argue against historical facts, you should at least have taken the time to find out exactly what those historical facts are, and how they were arrived at.

No, he said you need to read a few hundred books to begin to comprehend those historical facts and how they were arrived at. You might agree with what he says but if you haven't read enough books, you don't know what you're talking about.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

No, he said you need to read a few hundred books to begin to comprehend those historical facts and how they were arrived at. You might agree with what he says but if you haven't read enough books, you don't know what you're talking about.

Reading something besides comic book derivatives would get you going down the right road, Dogzilla.

 

[Dogzilla]

Why do I suspect that Kola summarized his findings somewhat differently?

I don't think Kola addressed the maximum number of bodies that could be bureid there.

No, that's not it. Maybe someone, somewhere on a forum has said that, but it's not part of the standard narrative. The standard narrative says that there is no need to excavate because 1) We can prove mass murder without the need for excavation and 2) the Germans destroyed enough of the bodies through cremation that the size of the graves could not be used to determine the extent of the crime. Fortunately (if that term can be applied to anything at all related to Operation Reinhard) there is ample other evidence available to make at least a rough estimate.

As to #2, the story is that the bodies were buried in mass graves at first. Then, a few months before the gassings ceased, mass graves were opened up and the bodies were burned. Jews gassed after the mass graves were opened were taken straight to the grill. So it is true that the size of the mass grave won't determine the extent of the killing. But in the case of Treblinka as an example, 700,000 were buried in mass graves before they were opened up. More Jews were killed after the graves were opened and all the bodies were reduced to ash which take up far less space. So nobody expects there to be all the bodies of everybody who was killed at these camps. But if 700,000 bodies were buried in the Treblinka mass graves, there had to have been pits large enough to hold 700,000 bodies. If pits large enough to hold 700,000 bodies were dug in 1943, it's not possible that we couldn't find them today. If not by simple visual inspection, ground penetrating radar could find them without even disturbing any remains that are buried there.

It might be off plus or minus 100,000 people, but it's the best we can do. As a percentage, the error is not very large.

At Treblinka the death toll ranges from a low of 700,000 to a high of 1.2 million. As a percentage, that's a large error.

 

[Nick Terry]

No, he said you need to read a few hundred books to begin to comprehend those historical facts and how they were arrived at. You might agree with what he says but if you haven't read enough books, you don't know what you're talking about.

To begin to comprehend any subject thoroughly and professionally, you need to do a lot of research. It's perfectly possible, though, to learn quite a lot about a subject from half a dozen trade paperbacks. That doesn't make you an expert.

I am not an evolutionary biologist or palaeontologist, but have read half a dozen popular science books on evolution which present the results of cutting edge research which provides evidence for evolution. Nor am I a historian of the American Civil War, but I have read half a dozen good books on the conflict which convey the richness of the topic and which educate me on the sources and literature. In both cases, the evidence is incomplete because that's just how the past is.

There are major pseudo-controversies about both evolution and the ACW, just as there is a pseudo-controversy over the Holocaust. In all such cases, it seems that the contrarians have read a few revisionist titles at most. The smarter contrarian then claims to have read some of the mainstream works - the Dawkinses or Macphersons or Hilbergs - and pronounces himself better than these authors.

Usually, it turns out that these contrarians haven't even begun to comprehend the argument put forward in the few mainstream books they've read, and goes online merrily strawmanning, misrepresenting and traducing the argument, narrative and/or evidence of these books.

That's basically what you've been doing.

 

[Nick Terry]

I don't really like any of them. Some of the "classics" in PDF format are available for free at the vho.org website. I haven't read any of them cover to cover. The Germer Rudolf books are practically unreadable.

If I had to recommend just one, it's probably Butz's The Hoax of the Twentieth Century. It provides a good overview but it's out of date so it doesn't discuss more recent trends in holocaust scholarship. In his discussion of the Auschwitz myth he notes the importance of the Buna factory and his belief that the plant was photographed by aerial reconnaissance during the war. We learned he was right a few years later when the photos were released but his book doesn't discuss them.

He discusses the role of the Zionists in developing the extermination thesis. But I don't recall any mention of the Haavara. He spends too much time talking about the absurdities found in the Talmud and suggests that the hyperbole found there is a possible source for the exaggerations of the holocaust. This ignores the fact that all religious have some pretty stupid premises at their core and that the Talmud has influenced ideas found in Christianity and Islam as well as Judaism. In doing so he misses how galut--which is specific to Jews--is a prism through which the world is interpreted. He runs the risk of being called an anti-Semite if he were to delve into the galut issue. But the fact that the mass media has disgorged chicken little tales of Jewish misery intermittently since the turn of the century--very often with six million being the number of Jews in peril--cannot be dismissed as irrelevant. Since it's true, it can't be anti-Semitic.

His explanation of what happened to Jews who are missing reveals as much about his personal success with women as it does insight into the missing Jews. And his book was written before we had this geyser of memoirs spewing onto the bookshelves so he doesn't discuss any of the nonsense like Filip Mueller or Mischa that makes the traditional story more and more untenable.

But it's valuable because it explains what really happened to the Jews in Europe in the 1940s as we understood it in 1975. The holocaust in 2010 is a completely different animal but we can't fault Butz for not predicting the way the story would change.

I would also recommend any of the books that have been written to answer holocaust revisionism. Questions raised by revisionists piqued my curiosity but it was Shermer, Lipstadt, and van Pelt who told me that there aren't any answers to those questions.

You truly are a kook.

This is an excerpt from a verdict in which some SS dude was punished for excessive cruelty, isn't it? Am I thinking of something else? In any case, it doesn't look good. It could support an extermination thesis but without seeing the entire statement I can't say.

If you give me a quote without any context, I'll dismiss it with a hand wave. If you insist that the meaning of a sentence is independent of the entire document and set of documents then you need to take some remedial social science research classes.

The meaning is quite clear even in the excerpted quote, and was so comprehended up thread by ElMondoHummus.

You posted an excerpt that was an explicit admission of a formal structure and organization for the execution of Jews, as well as an admission of the existence of procedural rules ("Although the accused should have recognized that the extermination (Vernichtung) of the Jews was the duty 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"). And you did it to address his specific request:

Now you insist on context.

Then by all means, head to the library and look up 'The Good Old Days' edited by Ernst Klee et al for the rest of the text. See if that changes anything in how these lines can be interpreted. Or look up an article in Holocaust & Genocide Studies by Yehoushua Buechler which examines that context; you can probably find it online by googling Max Taubner (although it is correctly spelt with an umlaut). It's further discussed in other articles also in HGS by Juergen Matthaeus, entitled 'Controlled Escalation'. To grasp the context, one would have to read up on SS disciplinary procedures and probably on SS ideological training as well. Matthaeus, Breitman and Kwiet edited a useful collection of essays entitled Ausbildungsziel Judenmord?

The context, as you would learn, is that Taubner bragged about his killings and flashed pictures of them around; his maintenance platoon had not been ordered to carry out mass executions, and this became noticed because of his bragging. His parent formation, the 1st SS Infantry Brigade, was tasked with carrying out mass executions - but not only was his subunit not so tasked, he endangered the reputation of the Waffen-SS by yapping about it. This was after his platoon was returned to its garrison base in Poland in a spell out of the frontline. That was when he was arrested.

Taubner was actually prosecuted by the SS for ignoring service instructions, breaching military discipline, not for killing Jews. He couldn't be prosecuted for that since it would subvert the entire framework of the SS's activities. That is why the excerpted quote came into being.

That much was obvious to ElMondoHummus just reading the excerpt at face value. The judgement stated that the extermination (Vernichtung) of the Jews was the duty of Kommandos which were set up especially for this purpose, and thereby confirms the existence of a policy of extermination.

It's far from the only document to do so, as you'd know if you were a truly diligent reader of even just a few books on the Holocaust. A policy of extermination, you said, should leave many documents relating to its existence. It should 'ripple' out and leave all manner of traces. This is one of them - it shows that the policy of extermination created administrative difficulties and incited SS men such as Taubner to exceed orders, which risked breaching military discipline.

For the exact same reason, the Wehrmacht had its doubts about the so called Barbarossa decree, or Kriegsgerichtsbarkeitserlass. This order, issued at Hitler's behest, exempted any Wehrmacht soldier from punishment for killings of civilians in reprisals unless these killings risked military discipline.

Taubner's case is far from exceptional - there are several others almost exactly like it, for example the prosecution of a Feldgendarmerie NCO who had assisted Sonderkommando 4a in executions, who then carried out his own unauthorised executions, and was tried for it. The judgement in that case came to a similar conclusion

"So sind auch die Erschiessungen von Juden durch den SD letzlich Akte des Staaten, der die Austilgung dieser Feinde in einer bestimmten Art und Weise anordnet und ebenso durchfuehren laesst. Fuer diese vom Staat fuer notwendig gefundenen Massnahmen sind eigens Organe eingesetzt. Diese Organe sind in sich wieder straffen Satzungen unterworfen." ~ Feldurteil des Reichskriegsgerichts vom 17.4.1942 gegen den Unteroffizier der Feldgendarmerie Hans Roettgermann.

There are, in fact, many orders issued to Army units reminding them that measures against Jews are the responsibility of the SD, not to take part in executions, which many did as 'volunteers' and execution tourists, and not to take photographs, which many also did, as Taubner had.

 

[Dogzilla]

Now you insist on context.

Of course. I thought context was a given.

Then by all means, head to the library and look up 'The Good Old Days' edited by Ernst Klee et al for the rest of the text. See if that changes anything in how these lines can be interpreted. Or look up an article in Holocaust & Genocide Studies by Yehoushua Buechler which examines that context; you can probably find it online by googling Max Taubner (although it is correctly spelt with an umlaut).

Thank you. Now I have something to work with.

 

[Nick Terry]

Of course. I thought context was a given.

Actually, it's you that needs to demonstrate some knowledge of the context for these statements.

The crucial line in the Taubner verdict was, as others have pointed out, the extermination (Vernichtung) of the Jews was the duty of Kommandos which were set up especially for this purpose which we can parse perfectly clearly just from this one line. You were already told that this was an SS court. Clearly, it thought that the extermination of the Jews was policy.

The only possible alternative explanation is that the SS court was mistaken about what policy was.

But this is completely improbable, given other sources spelling out the same thing.

For example, Einsatzkommando 2, which became the KdS Lettland in Latvia, wrote in a report of February 1942 (LVVA 1026-1-3, p.262) as follows:

Das Ziel, das dem EK 2 von Anfang an vorschwebte, war eine radikale Loesung des Judenproblems durch die Exekution aller Juden.

And then there's the Jaeger report which has the virtue of giving one of several examples of why the policy of total extermination could not be carried through to its absolute conclusion: other agencies wanted to keep some Jews alive as workers, and the SS couldn't always get its way.

I can state today that the goal of solving the Jewish problem for Lithuania has been achieved by Einsatzkommando 3. In Lithuania, there are no more Jews, other than the Work Jews, including their families. They are:
In Schaulen around 4,500 In Kauen “ 15,000 In Wilna “ 15,000I also wanted to kill these Work Jews, including their families, which however brought upon me acrimonious challenges from the civil administration (the Reichskommisar) and the army and caused the prohibition: the Work Jews and their families are not to be shot! The goal of making Lithuania free of Jews could only be attained through the deployment of a raiding commando with selected men under the leadership of SS First Lieutenant Hamann, who completely and entirely adopted my goals and understood the importance of ensuring the co-operation of the Lithuanian partisans and the competent civilian positions.

So now let's add back in the Sonthofen speech, which you keep avoiding:

"It was necessary to resolve another big question. It was the most horrible task and the most awful assignment that any organization could receive: the solution of the Jewish question. I want to say a few words on the matter to this group with complete candor. It's good that we had the hardness to exterminate the Jews in our territory. Don't ask yourselves how difficult it would have been to carry out such an order, even though, as soldiers, I might say you would understand. But thinking critically as German soldiers, you can see that the order was essential. Because we wouldn't have been able to withstand the aerial bombing if we had had the Jews in our cities. I am also convinced we would not have been able to hold the Lemberg front of the Generalgouvernement if the big ghettos in Lemberg, Krakau, Lublin, and Warsaw had still been there. We cleaned out the last one, the big ghetto in Warsaw, in summer 1943. In Warsaw there were 500,000 Jews. I tell you this number confidentially. It took us five weeks of street fighting. Just the same, I want to answer a little question that surely you must have. The question is, of course you had to kill the adult Jews, I understand that, but how could you do the same to the women and children? So I have to tell you something: The children will be grown one day. Do we want to be so improper that we say, no, no, we're too weak to kill children. Our children can deal with them. Our children will fight that one out. But the Jewish hate, small today, will be big tomorrow, and the grown avengers will attack our children and grandchildren, who will then have to deal with them. I am convinced that this will be the case even if Adolf Hitler does not survive. No, we cannot shirk our responsibility to kill all the Jews. That would have been cowardly and therefore we adopted a clear solution to the problem, as difficult as it was. "

Let's be quite clear: your claim repeated on many occasions that there is no documentary proof of a policy of extermination, is complete bullflop.

If you wish to claim otherwise, then by all means, present your own explanation for all of the items of evidence which are generally thought to indicate such a policy.

 

[Saggy]

At Treblinka the death toll ranges from a low of 700,000 to a high of 1.2 million. As a percentage, that's a large error.

Is this a joke? 700,000 to 1.2 mill based on what? This is complete idiocy without a shred of evidence. Why repeat such nonsense?

As for Kola's 'investigation', it showed almost nothing. Mattogno dissects it in detail here http://www.vho.org/GB/Books/b/.

When the Nazis discovered real mass graves at Vinnitsa and Katyn they invited international teams of forensics experts and excavated. That is what is done when a real mass grave is found. Holohoax mass graves have been 'found'. They have never been excavated.

Persistent rumors led to an investigation of the murder of Irish immigrant workers in 1832 ... and led to the discovery of a mass grave and an excavation ... see http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/pennsylvania-ghost-story-leads-to-murder-mystery/19606498 This is standard procedure for any real investigation of murder.

There are more mass graves of murdered Irish immigrant workers in the US then there are mass graves of holohoax victims.

There are no excavated mass graves of holohoax victims.

 

[Dogzilla]

Is this a joke? 700,000 to 1.2 mill based on what? This is complete idiocy without a shred of evidence. Why repeat such nonsense?

Chill out dude! I get tired of writing "allegedly" or "according to the story" or any other qualifier every time.

The point was made that "historians" have agreed on death tolls that are well establish, only off by a few percentage points. I was countering with the industry's own figures proving that the alleged death tolls are nowhere near agreement percentage wise.

I know as well as anybody who can add subtract multiply and divide that the number of bodies said to be buried at Treblinka couldn't possibly fit which is superceded by the fact that there's no evidence of any mass graves at all at Treblinka.

 

[Dogzilla]

Actually, it's you that needs to demonstrate some knowledge of the context for these statements.

People here quote from comic books yet I am the one who needs more knowledge. Sure. Whatever you say.

The crucial line in the Taubner verdict was, as others have pointed out, the extermination (Vernichtung) of the Jews was the duty of Kommandos which were set up especially for this purpose which we can parse perfectly clearly just from this one line. You were already told that this was an SS court. Clearly, it thought that the extermination of the Jews was policy.

I know this is an internet forum, not a scholarly journal. I don't expect people here to adhere to the strict academic standards I would expect from university professors. I don't really expect university professors to adhere to the standards of their profession when posting here.

But I expect everybody to adhere to the standards a fourth grade student in the United States would be expected to follow for show-and-tell. Perhaps my standards are too high. I will try to be more accommodating in the future.

You can parse nothing from one line. If others were able to do so it is because they too had preconceived notions coming into it. And no, you saying it is an SS court isn't enough context.

 

[Dogzilla]

Reading something besides comic book derivatives would get you going down the right road, Dogzilla.

Like MAUS?

 

[Matthew Ellard]

I know as well as anybody who can add subtract multiply and divide that the number of bodies said to be buried at Treblinka couldn't possibly fit which is superceded by the fact that there's no evidence of any mass graves at all at Treblinka.

Apart from this one they are standing in?
http://www.deathcamps.org/treblinka/pic/bigp51.jpg

How come you don't mention the human ash at Treblinka? Is that against holocaust denial policy guidelines?

 

[Matthew Ellard]

At Treblinka the death toll ranges from a low of 700,000 to a high of 1.2 million. As a percentage, that's a large error.

Is this a joke? 700,000 to 1.2 mill based on what? This is complete idiocy without a shred of evidence. Why repeat such nonsense?

Please comment on this for starters.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hoefletelegram.jpg
http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/ar/hofle.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Höfle_Telegram

 

[Dogzilla]

Please comment on this for starters.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hoefletelegram.jpg
http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/ar/hofle.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Höfle_Telegram

Holy Diamonds Wrapped in Feces! I've never seen the Hoefle telegram before! It looks like a quantity of something was sent to L, B, S, and T. Maybe it's people who were sent to the Action Reinhard camps and Lublin? Maybe it could be evidence that people were murdered at these camps?

There's no evidence of gigantic mass graves that could hold all those bodies anywhere inside those camps or in surrounding area. Nobody has ever really looked except at Belzec. But the mass graves they found weren't nearly big enough and now that the whole camp's has been covered up to prevent any further investigation we can safely assume that Belzec was not a place of mass murder.

So Belzec is out. The rest of those places are unknown. We don't have any records indicating that the bodies were shipped somewhere else. So it looks like this Hoefle telegram is yet another piece of evidence that proves there isn't any real evidence.