should Holocaust denial be illegal in britain

[Craig B]

It was the Holocaust that was not easily imaginable; until proof positive was discovered on the ground many reasonable people continued to imagine a Nazi Party regime without a Holocaust.

Quite so. There might not have been a Holocaust. But there was one. The Nazi regime without a Holocaust exists nowhere but in the imagination. What you are doing is imagining a Nazi Germany innocent of the Holocaust and then comparing that with the antisemitism of the Catholic Church, but as you rightly say - and this is exactly my point:

Anti-semitism does not lead inevitably to the Holocaust.

And it did not lead to that in Catholic countries except where they were occupied by the Nazi regime.

The Catholic Church actively campaigned against the emancipation of Jews and their normalisation within Christendom and in the process promoted anti-semitism of all sorts, especially in majority Catholic countries like Austria and Poland. It did not sin only by omission ... This might be unfamiliar to you but it isn't revisionism.

Of course it sinned by grave commission. But there was no Holocaust.

I have made the point, the importance of which you deny, that Jewish officers were appointed both in Catholic Bavaria and Austria, but not in Prussia. This really is very significant, as regimes are always careful of whom they entrust with military force.

It is true, as you state, that Karl Lueger was an anti-Semite, and that he was treated as an inspiration by Hitler in later years. His anti-Semitism was an element of his political populism, and was not reflected in any murderous or violent onslaughts on Vienna's Jewish citizens. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Lueger

According to Amos Elon, "Lueger's anti-Semitism was of a homespun, flexible variety - one might almost say gemütlich. Asked to explain the fact that many of his friends were Jews, Lueger famously replied: 'I decide who is a Jew.' " Viennese Jewish writer Stefan Zweig, who grew up in Vienna during Lueger's term of office, recalled that "His city administration was perfectly just and even typically democratic."

The situation was exploited by the Catholic politician Karl Lueger, the leader of Austrian Christian-Social party with a program identical to that of the Berlin party of the same name led by Pastor Stoeker. In 1887, Lueger raised the banner of anti-Semitism. [...] However the enthusiastic tribute that Hitler paid him in Mein Kampf does not seem justified, for the Jews did not suffer under his administration.

As noted in the second quotation, these sorts of ideas, and the use of populist anti-Semitism in the formation of political parties was being practiced not only in Catholic German lands, but in Protestant Prussia too, and by staunch Protestants, as related in this wiki article.

 

[Strawberry]

A slight diversion, but lets not get the impression that Austria wasn't an enthusiastic participant in the Holocaust, and in fact the heartland of it, as evidenced by the disproportionate presence of Austrians on the Wiesenthal list - one third the Reich population, one half of the names. Add Bavaria (similarly Catholic, one notices) and you have the great bulk of them.

It's not unreasonable to say that the Holocaust was Austrian, not German.

Yes it is. Including Austria as a participant is accurate, and it would also be accurate to include Finland, (not a Catholic country, one notices), but describing the Holocaust as "not German" is revisionist rubbish.

 

[Craig B]

Yes it is. Including Austria as a participant is accurate, and it would also be accurate to include Finland, (not a Catholic country, one notices), but describing the Holocaust as "not German" is revisionist rubbish.

Finland was very exceptional among German allies in WW2, as I have noted in the Forum before now. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Finland#World_War_II

Because Finland was not a totalitarian state dominated by the Nazi party, Finnish Jews were not subject to the mass persecution and genocide of the rest of Europe. As Finland was never invaded by Germany, Finland's Jews did not meet the same fate as Jews in Russia, where the genocide was perpetrated by, or under the cover of, the occupying Wehrmacht. Approximately 300 Finnish Jews fought in the Continuation War. As Finland's forces had substantial numbers of German Army forces supporting their operations, the Finnish front was almost certainly unique in having a field synagogue operating in the presence of Nazi troops ... Yad Vashem records that 22 Finnish Jews died in the Holocaust, all fighting for the Finnish Army.

Presumably that means they died fighting on the Axis side in the war against the USSR. As I say, the Finland example is exceptional.

 

[Strawberry]

Finland was very exceptional among German allies in WW2, as I have noted in the Forum before now. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Finland#World_War_II Presumably that means they died fighting on the Axis side in the war against the USSR. As I say, the Finland example is exceptional.

That's certainly true, but Finland is not an innocent bystander when it comes to the Holocaust. The very fact that they were fighting on the Axis side helped the Nazis carry out their dirty work in other parts of Europe, not to mention darker skeletons which lurk in the closets of individual Finns.

Ireland gets more hassle for having been a neutral country during ww2 than Finland gets for being a member of the Axis! But then I suppose, as "one" would note, Ireland is a Catholic country and "one" is writing a certain sectarian thesis here.

 

[Craig B]

The Catholic Church actively campaigned against the emancipation of Jews and their normalisation within Christendom and in the process promoted anti-semitism of all sorts, especially in majority Catholic countries like Austria and Poland. It did not sin only by omission.

I'm surprised that you should think me unaware of Catholic hostility towards Jews. We have discussed that matter in the past. See this post and many subsequent posts in the same thread. At that time I took you to task for being too indulgent towards the Catholic Church in the matter of its maltreatment of Jews.

ETA See here for example.

 

[MCel58]

However Just to provide some balance and to at least get some recognition that anti-semitism was not a purely Nazi or Roman Catholic phenomena, it is worth looking at Martin Luther's own anti-semitism and many historians propose that it was Luther's anti-Jewish rhetoric that contributed significantly to the development of anti semitism in Germany and and in the 1930s and 1940s provided an ideal foundation for the Nazi Party's attacks on Jews. So it would be more logical to talk of the role of Christian Churches in the development of anti semitism in Europe and not just the Catholic church. As I said above anti-semitism was a part of European Politics for many centuries prior to the Holocaust and this is why in some ways it was on the whole not resisted by the general occupied counties and German allies.
See this entry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_and_antisemitism

 

[Craig B]

That's certainly true, but Finland is not an innocent bystander when it comes to the Holocaust. The very fact that they were fighting on the Axis side helped the Nazis carry out their dirty work in other parts of Europe, not to mention darker skeletons which lurk in the closets of individual Finns.

Ireland gets more hassle for having been a neutral country during ww2 than Finland gets for being a member of the Axis! But then I suppose, as "one" would note, Ireland is a Catholic country and "one" is writing a certain sectarian thesis here.

Perhaps. But Finland was fighting her own war against the USSR, and did not oppress Finnish Jews, let alone commit genocide against them. This happened because as my source points out, Finland was not occupied by the Wehrmacht. It was an ally of Germany.

I've made this point before. In Hungary and Italy the Holocaust began only when these countries were occupied by Nazi forces, as opposed to being allies of Germany.

In the case of Finland, and to a large extent Bulgaria: these were Axis allies but were not occupied by Germany, and the Holocaust was not perpetrated there. In Bulgaria many foreign Jewish refugees were expelled to occupied countries by Bulgaria, and murdered; and this happened to about twenty foreign Jewish refugees who had sought safety in Finland. But in both cases indigenous Jewish citizens escaped. The Holocaust was initiated by the Nazi occupying forces, and where there was no Nazi occupation there was no Holocaust. One exception. The Romanian Army occupied the Odessa region of the USSR, and Romania temporarily annexed it as "Transnistria". Atrocious mass murders of Jews were perpetrated there by the Romanian regime.

As far as I can understand from the wiki article I cited; the 22 deaths of Finnish Jews in the Holocaust were all of soldiers killed while fighting on the Axis side.

ETA Romania is not a Catholic country. According to wiki, the figures of religious affiliation are:

81.04% of the country's stable population identified as Eastern Orthodox in the 2011 census. Other Christian denominations include Roman Catholicism (4.33%), the Romanian Greek-Catholic Church (0.75%-3.3%), Calvinism (2.99%), Pentecostal denominations (1.80%).

 

[Strawberry]

Perhaps. But Finland was fighting her own war against the USSR, and did not oppress Finnish Jews, let alone commit genocide against them. This happened because as my source points out, Finland was not occupied by the Wehrmacht. It was an ally of Germany.

I've made this point before. In Hungary and Italy the Holocaust began only when these countries were occupied by Nazi forces, as opposed to being allies of Germany.

In the case of Finland, and to a large extent Bulgaria: these were Axis allies but were not occupied by Germany, and the Holocaust was not perpetrated there. In Bulgaria many foreign Jewish refugees were expelled to occupied countries by Bulgaria, and murdered; and this happened to about twenty foreign Jewish refugees who had sought safety in Finland. But in both cases indigenous Jewish citizens escaped. The Holocaust was initiated by the Nazi occupying forces, and where there was no Nazi occupation there was no Holocaust. One exception. The Romanian Army occupied the Odessa region of the USSR, and Romania temporarily annexed it as "Transnistria". Atrocious mass murders of Jews were perpetrated there by the Romanian regime.

As far as I can understand from the wiki article I cited; the 22 deaths of Finnish Jews in the Holocaust were all of soldiers killed while fighting on the Axis side.

I agree with all that, and I'm not accusing Finland of genocide. I just don't believe that the higher ups in Finland were unaware of what was going on inside their ally the Third Reich for a start, and I've also heard darker rumours about individual Finns, which I will leave aside because they may be urban myths.

The point which I originally posted to make here is that describing the Holocaust as "Austrian and not German" is a ridiculous level of revisionism. Of course Austria took part, but it was primarily a German affair.

 

[Craig B]

The point which I originally posted to make here is that describing the Holocaust as "Austrian and not German" is a ridiculous level of revisionism. Of course Austria took part, but it was primarily a German affair.

Absolutely, as I tried to make clear in my post. Only where the Wehrmacht went as masters, did the genocide take place.

The only other issue I was raising is that while the history of the Catholic Church's treatment of Jews is deplorable, as I have said many times in threads here, we can't transfer blame for the genocide as such from the Nazis to the Church. Left to itself, the Church oppressed Jews, but did not commit mass murder of them.

 

[Craig B]

I just don't believe that the higher ups in Finland were unaware of what was going on inside their ally the Third Reich for a start.

They knew, because Finnish soldiers knew. Believe it or not, three Jewish Finnish service personnel - two Army officers and a member of the Women's Auxiliary service - were awarded Iron Crosses by the Wehrmacht. They refused to accept the medals. They knew what was going on.

 

[Strawberry]

Absolutely, as I tried to make clear in my post. Only where the Wehrmacht went as masters, did the genocide take place.

The only other issue I was raising is that while the history of the Catholic Church's treatment of Jews is deplorable, as I have said many times in threads here, we can't transfer blame for the genocide as such from the Nazis to the Church. Left to itself, the Church oppressed Jews, but did not commit mass murder of them.

The Catholic Church had as its aim to convert Jews, not kill them. Indefensible as that is, its not Nazism. And btw, Protestant churches were no better as one look at Martin Luther's rantings about Jews clearly show.

More disturbing though, is CapelDodger's attempts to associate Nazism with Catholic populations as distinct from the Catholic Church. I find that quite creepy, and I don't see a whole pile of difference between that and anti-Semitism.

 

[MCel58]

I agree with all that, and I'm not accusing Finland of genocide. I just don't believe that the higher ups in Finland were unaware of what was going on inside their ally the Third Reich for a start, and I've also heard darker rumours about individual Finns, which I will leave aside because they may be urban myths.

The point which I originally posted to make here is that describing the Holocaust as "Austrian and not German" is a ridiculous level of revisionism. Of course Austria took part, but it was primarily a German affair.

The Holocaust was as you rightly say German however as I have stated above it was not widely resisted in most occupied European or allied countries as anti-semitism was already had a key part historically of those societies both in countries which were Catholic and protestant as shown by my post about Luther. The exception was of course Denmark who did resist the holocaust and all of the other anti-jewish rules brought in by the occupying forces of Germany and whose resistance managed to get most of the Danish Jews to safety. I think that it is this that has caused many countries in Europe to enact anti Holocaust denial laws because of the quiet complicity of many countries in the acts of sending Jewish people to the camps by their state officials and police forces.

 

[Craig B]

The Catholic Church had as its aim to convert Jews, not kill them. Indefensible as that is, its not Nazism. And btw, Protestant churches were no better as one look at Martin Luther's rantings about Jews clearly show.

Yes. But one point requires to be made. The Protestant churches were less politically influential in Protestant countries than Catholic ones were in Catholic countries. The position of Jews in Protestant countries was therefore less precarious than in Catholic countries, regardless of the inclinations of the Protestant churches, whatever these may have been.

Thus, not long after Luther's time, Jews fleeing from Spain and Portugal often migrated to England or the Netherlands where they were free from the grosser forms of official persecution. In the Netherlands they did very well. In the UK, religious considerations prevented them from engaging in voting or entering Parliament until

the passage of the Jews Relief Act 1858 by which either house might admit Jews by resolution, allowing them to omit the words "on the true faith of a Christian."

The problem, of course, was the existence of an established state church.

 

[Strawberry]

The Holocaust was as you rightly say German however as I have stated above it was not widely resisted in most occupied European or allied countries as anti-semitism was already had a key part historically of those societies both in countries which were Catholic and protestant as shown by my post about Luther. The exception was of course Denmark who did resist the holocaust and all of the other anti-jewish rules brought in by the occupying forces of Germany and whose resistance managed to get most of the Danish Jews to safety. I think that it is this that has caused many countries in Europe to enact anti Holocaust denial laws because of the quiet complicity of many countries in the acts of sending Jewish people to the camps by their state officials and police forces.

Yes, I can absolutely see the rationale behind laws against Holocaust denial. However, to answer the question that this thread asked - I'm not persuaded that the UK needs them. Holocaust denial, where it rears its ugly head in Britain, can be dealt with by discrediting it.

 

[Strawberry]

Yes. But one point requires to be made. The Protestant churches were less politically influential in Protestant countries than Catholic ones were in Catholic countries. The position of Jews in Protestant countries was therefore less precarious than in Catholic countries, regardless of the inclinations of the Protestant churches, whatever these may have been.

Thus, not long after Luther's time, Jews fleeing from Spain and Portugal often migrated to England or the Netherlands where they were free from the grosser forms of official persecution. In the Netherlands they did very well. In the UK, religious considerations prevented them from engaging in voting or entering Parliament until The problem, of course, was the existence of an established state church.

I don't accept the premise of your first paragraph, there are too many penal laws and coercion acts in the history of Britain's laws for me to believe that.

And indeed, I think your second paragraph partially refutes your first.

 

[MCel58]

Yes, I can absolutely see the rationale behind laws against Holocaust denial. However, to answer the question that this thread asked - I'm not persuaded that the UK needs them. Holocaust denial, where it rears its ugly head in Britain, can be dealt with by discrediting it.

I agree with that and in fact I don't think any country should have them but i understand how they have come to be in place.

 

[Craig B]

I don't accept the premise of your first paragraph, there are too many penal laws and coercion acts in the history of Britain's laws for me to believe that.

Please accept, difficult as it may be, that there were even more in countries where the Catholic Church exercised power. That is why Jews who left Spain or Portugal - from which they were expelled in atrocious circumstances - went to the Netherlands or England in the seventeenth century. (Or Huguenots from France.) They were expelled from England in 1290, and readmitted only after the religious revolution of the seventeenth century, by Oliver Cromwell in fact.

Even in the twentieth century we find Pius XII expressing this view

Public worship of false religions may be, in cases, tolerated by the civil authorities, with the view of obtaining a greater good or avoiding a greater evil, but, in essence, it may be repressed even by force if necessary. But the right to tolerance is a contradiction, because, as is evident even from the term, whatever is tolerated is never a good thing, rather, it is always a purely bad thing. In the social life of nations, error may be tolerated as a reality, but never allowed as a right. Error “has no right to exist objectively nor to propaganda, nor action”

(Pius XII: Ci Riesce 1953) I gratefully accept that since then there has been a revolution of thought and action in the Catholic Church. We are discussing past times.

My point is, that even in the worst of these times, it was not the practice of the Church to commit mass murder against Jews, but to oppress them until they converted to Christianity.

And indeed, I think your second paragraph partially refutes your first.

Not my main point, which is that when religious institutions dominate the state, they behave in an oppressive way, regardless of the denomination involved. In Catholic countries the Church had more power than in Protestant countries, but where Protestant churches did possess political power, they of course abused it.

 

[Pacal]

Not my main point, which is that when religious institutions dominate the state, they behave in an oppressive way, regardless of the denomination involved. In Catholic countries the Church had more power than in Protestant countries, but where Protestant churches did possess political power, they of course abused it.

There is a rather amusing story that a Protestant divine was invited to teach at a University in the Netherlands. This divine was a through going Theocrat and he called for the establishment of a full blown theocracy and the rule of the Saints in the Netherlands, complete with mass repression and rule by "godly" men approved by the Calvinist Church.

The local Town Councilors called him to one of their meetings and he was told that they had not fought to get away from the Inquisition of Rome in order to fall under the inquisition of Geneva. The divine left soon after.

 

[Craig B]

There is a rather amusing story that a Protestant divine was invited to teach at a University in the Netherlands. This divine was a through going Theocrat and he called for the establishment of a full blown theocracy and the rule of the Saints in the Netherlands, complete with mass repression and rule by "godly" men approved by the Calvinist Church.

The local Town Councilors called him to one of their meeting and he was told that they had not fought to get away from the Inquisition of Rome in order to fall under the inquisition of Geneva. The divine left soon after.

According to the note attached to an exhibit in the City Museum in Amsterdam, most children in that city were still being baptised as Catholics as late as 1700.

But Calvin - ugh! His baleful influence cast a pall over my own country, Scotland, until very recently.

If there is anything that inclines me to grant the greatest possible toleration to even the most repellent examples of human opinion, it is thinking about these bigots, and others like them.

 

[CapelDodger]

I think this is quite a limited view of anti-semitism in Europe. Pogroms against Jews, anti-semitism and Jewish Ghettos had already been part of the political agendas for hundred of years in many European areas.

I am aware of this. This side-bar is about the Holocaust and what led up to it. We don't need to go back to medieval times to look at that. In democratic Europe during the 19thCE the story was one of increasing normalisation of Jews as citizens. Why, then, was there a reverse flow during the later century in Austria which ultimately transferred to greater Germany and culminated in the Nazis and the Holocaust? The ghetto walls had been pulled down and then were put back up again.

What the Nazis did was use anti-semitism in many European cultures as a vehicle to carry out the holocaust because they knew it would not meet too much dissent from the occupied countries and in fact in many cases met with a degree of approval ...

That's kinda weird. You seem to suggest that the Nazis only used anti-semitism, rather than were anti-semitic, so they could kill all the Jews for some other reason. Their money? The Nazis certainly did get a massive amount of loot that way but I'll go with the mainstream idea - that the Nazis wanted to kill the Jews because they actually were anti-semitic.

People did not dissent from the Holocaust because they did not know about it. It was not publicised. On the contrary, great efforts were made to cover it up. There were heroic efforts made to rescue Jews from "relocation", many successful, but in the end most people did nothing. I can't blame them.

... except of course in Denmark where the Danish Police refused to co-operate with any actions against the Jews and where Jews did not wear the yellow star after the famous protest of the King. Denmark was occupied on April 9 1940.

The Danish government continued to rule Denmark, and the Danish parliament continued to sit, unti mid-1943, by which time the few thousand Danish Jews had got away to Sweden. The intention was to incorporate Denmark into the Reich after victory, the Danes being regarded as pucka Aryans, so normality was the aim. No Gestapo, no Nuremberg Laws. The Danish Nazi Party only had about a third of the parliamentary seats so weren't able to implement their desired policies, despite the enthusiastic support from the anti-semitic press, such as the Jurgen-Posten (notorious for their Jew-baiting cartoons, ironically enough).

Denmark did provide the largest contingent of volunteers for the Waffen-SS, which I suppose was some success for the Danish Nazis. About 60,000 as I recall, but don't quote me. It's a long time since I read up on all this.