Can't We Have an Even-handed Discussion About the Holocaust?

When it comes to the Holocaust, reason and rational debate seem to fly out the window. People on both sides of the debate all seem to have strong emotions and the debates always degenerate into name calling and personal insults.

I would like to see a thread that has an even-handed discussion of the topic. I'm hoping this can be the one.

As my name implies, I am a student of history and in particular of WW 2. My interest is no doubt tied into the fact that I was born in Germany although I've lived almost all of my life in North America. For many years I believed that 6 million jews (among others) were killed in Nazi concentration camps via gas chambers. I saw the videos of the walking skeletons that were the survivors, of the mass graves being covered over by allied bulldozers, etc. and I was deeply ashamed of my ethnic heritage. But I read every book I could get my hands on about the war and in particular about Hitler and his nazis.

And along the way I found some surprising and disturbing information. Aside from the fascist Italians, it wasn't just some Germans who were nazis. They found people all over europe who shared the basic nazi ideology of racial superiority and resentment against the international jewish bankers that Hitler blamed for Gemany's defeat in WW1. There were french nazis, swedish nazis, polish nazis, rumanian nazis and prior to the war there were popular nazi movements in Britain and the US. Hitler's nazis found kindred spirits in every country they sent their armies into. What's disturbing about this is that the Holocaust is not blamed on just the Nazis. Oh no. It's blamed exclusively on the German nazis and the German people as a whole even though by the end of the war, Hitler's SS were arresting Christian Germans by the thousands and sending them to the concentration camps too but that doesn't count apparently.

And as I read more and more books about WW2, I discovered that indeed, the victors really do write the history books and quite often there's a lot more to what really happened and why than the victors want to admit to.

Take the Blitz on English cities for example. In the Hollywood movie, the Battle of Britain, it shows how contrary to standing orders, one German bomber bombs london (by mistake due to a navigation error) and the British retaliate by bombing Berlin and then Hitler decides to retaliate as well, etc. But here's what the movie doesn't tell you and what I found out from british historian David Irving.
Churchill ordered the RAF to bomb Berlin knowing full well that sooner or later Hitler would retaliate. The RAF bombed Berlin for seven days in a row without any retaliation. Hitler then warned the British that if they bombed a German city one more time, he would retaliate in kind and Churchill obliged him by immediately ordering another raid on Berlin. So the entire Blitz with thousands of civilian deaths on both sides could have been avoided if Churchill had backed down but he wasn't as popular early in the war as he would become later and it's Irving's contention that Churchill wanted German bombers to bomb English cities so that the English would rally around him. Is that in the history books (except for David Irving's)? No.

I was also surprised to learn that after Hitler's armies had defeated the Polish military and occupied the western part of Poland, which included the the area that was German territory prior to WW1 and was occupied almost entirely by ethnic Germans, Hitler offered to withdraw from all Polish territory except for the part occupied by ethnic Germans in exchange for peace. The British and French said no deal. Those two countries declared war on Germany because of treaty obligations to protect Poland. Who also attacked Poland and ended the war in complete control of Poland? The Soviet Union. Did the British and French declare war on the Soviet Union. Heck no! So much for guaranteeing Polish sovereignty.

What I'm getting at here is that there's a lot that's been left out of the mainstream history books about WW2. So now let's turn our attention to the Holocaust. I started reading about that too. I found websites with what seemed to be convincing claims that jewish deaths by concentration camp ranged all the way from 3.5 million down to zero. I didn't know what to believe any more. I found a video on Youtube made by an Israeli university student, who visited Auschwitz and found all kinds of inconsistencies. I read about Ernst Zundel's trial in Canada where a forensic expert gave evidence that samples of the walls of the alleged gas chamber at Auschwitz did not contain even the smallest traces of Zyklon-B gas but the smaller room used to fumigate clothes with the same gas generated wall samples that were saturated with it.

I watched a video of David Irving who, by the way, contrary to what his detractors say, has always admitted that jews were killed by the nazis in concentration camps AND elsewhere but he differs when it comes to how they were killed and how many were killed, say that among the many lies told by the allies during the war ie. propaganda, he specifically cites a memo, he found in the British classified archives, from the head of MI5's propaganda department that says that they've gotten as much mileage from the jews-killed-by-gas-chamber lie as they're likely to get and henceforth they should stop pushing that lie because of the potential post war repercussions when the truth finally comes out. Wow!

So what IS the truth? it seems to me that if an entire ethnic group, including all future generations, is going to be accused of being inhuman monsters, then that's an extraordinary allegation and needs to be supported by extraordinary evidence. So far I haven't found that extraordinary evidence. I've found allegations, some of them even predating the war itself, that millions of jews were being systematically killed and I've found lots and lots of lies. I know they're lies because most of them are mutually exclusive so they can't all be true. Based on everything I've read, heard or seen to date, this is what I think is most likely what really happened.

Prior to the war, jews in Germany were less than 1% of the population and yet Germany's banks, courts, newspapers and theaters were dominated by jews. The average German saw this disproportionate amount of wealth and power and resented it, especially when those jewish-owned banks foreclosed on homes and businesses that the owners lost due to the Depression. So along comes Hitler and blames all of Germany's troubles on the International jewish bankers (specifically the Rothschilds) and promises to restore national pride and prosperity if elected. He didn't promise to kill the jews. What he did promise was to deport them and in fact, according to David Irving, he found 25,000 pages of memos and reports all dealing with plans to deport German jews to Madagascar.

Also prior to the war, SS leader Himmler was prepared to allow all German jews to leave Germany in return for a ransom of the equivalent of $1,000 per family. Jewish leaders in Switzerland, including future Israel leader Golda Meir, refused the deal. You can check this on www.jewsagainstzionism.com

After the war started, deporting jews to Madagascar became impractical so the new plan was to resettle them in land conquered from the Soviets which is why all of the concentration camps where jews were killed are in Poland, not Germany. Continued on next post.

reply to post by Studenofhistory


Unfortunately ,people just can Not have a civilized conversation about the subject matter and this thread will more than likely be 404ed. Cant really have my say at the moment (bit drunk and need sleep) however if thread is still around will read and comment tomorrow

reply to post by Studenofhistory

Because it's a very emotional subject. Most other subjects may have little buttons that get pushed, this one's are the size of a football field. You aren't going to get even handed when a good portion of people reading your thread, lost Family members to that horrible war.

You can cite a *memo* found, to back your case. Others will cite a lost relative to back theirs. Very emotional...you see.

Des

I find the fact that some countries make it illegal too even question a supposedly historical fact quite disturbing......surely every histrorical event should be open to scrutiny.

Wait, he has more.

I think as long as we don't discuss Hitler and what he accomplished before the holocaust and people keep it civil this thread will remain open.

ETA: People, keep this mental, not emotional.

Holo, we could, but its gonna caust

reply to post by Studenofhistory


Don't go there or you'll be added to a long list of decent posters that have now gone .

On this subject emotions and opinions trump facts on this site.

Emotions only decrease visibility. If you let emotions overpower logical thinking you'll never find truth. Too bad some can't see past it, but that shouldn't stop others! I agree that it's completely absurd to make questening certain parts of history illigal, and it should immediately raise a red flag to those who do. It would be great if we could have a civil discussion about this.

Leave emotions at the doorstep please!

The plan was to use the concentration camps in Poland as temporary camps for jews and others who were to be shipped further east. During the war, Himmler's SS gradually took over control of all secret military projects, the most famous being the underground mass production of V-2 rockets using slave labor. It's no surprise then that concentration camps were quite often located close to secret SS military installations. Dr. Joseph Farrell has written numerous, well-documented books on nazi secret military research and it's clear from his work and others, that the SS needed slave labor more than they needed racial purity.

With the war against Russia going badly, the jews already in Polish concentration camps couldn't be shipped any further east but that apparently didn't stop the SS from shipping even more jews to those Polish camps. David Irving, who became famous for his meticulous research, believes that SS camp commanders, with the approval of Himmler, took the easy way out and made room for the new, healthier arrivals by shooting the sick and elderly already in the camps.He does not believe that gas chambers were used. Among his several reasons for coming to that conclusion, I'll just relate one. Death by gas chamber means that there would be lots of bodies. There are only two things you can do with dead bodies. Cremate them or bury them. Cremation of millions of bodies would have required hundreds of thousands of tons of coke for the crematoriums. That much coke would have been easy to see from the air when the allies sent recon planes over the camps on a regular basis. Irving has seen those recon photos. No piles of coke are visible anywhere. If those millions of bodies were buried, then there would be evidence of mass graves and again the recon photos do not show ANY mass graves. NONE.

So the bottom line for me is this.
A) Jews WERE killed by Nazis, along with plenty of non-jews too.
B) Jews were NOT killed by gas chambers
C) The total number of jews killed from all causes, including starvation and disease, in Nazi concentration camps is very likely closer to half a million than to 6 million. I don't know the exact number and that's exactly the problem. No one really knows the exact number and I don't believe that it's fair for current and all future generations of Germans to be vilified for deaths that didn't happen.

Is this still a tragedy? Of course. WW2 deaths from all causes range anywhere from 30 to 50 million. The whole war was a tragedy. General Patton, who always hated Nazis, wrote to his wife at the end of the war, that the war's real victims were the Germans and he came to have a high opinion of the average German. He saw first hand what the concentration camps looked like but he didn't blame all Germans for what happened there.

Don't we owe the dead the truth? Why is it unacceptable to ask disturbing questions about the Holocaust. It is possible to be skeptical of the official version and not be anti-semitic.

Let's discuss the facts and leave the emotion behind, okay?

Well thought out threat. S&F

Although I do disagree on there not being any mass graves found and people not being killed by gas chambers.

Side note- One interesting thing I stumbled across accidentally concerning this ordeal is that the Nazi scientist invented some types of anabolic steroids during all of this. They were trying to find a cure or something to help prevent wasting disease in humans. Another "agent" I read that they discovered is known as 7 methoxy isoflavone which is used for protein synthesis and is an anti-catabolic.

Considering many theories have been debunked about the "holocaust" such as census records, ovens and gas chambers not working the way they were thought to work, and many other things.
This puts a damper on things.
Considering russia and chinas holocausts were much greater than the israeli,jew,semite, whatever they are calling themselves for this particular topic. yet the jew/semite/israeli/Etc. holocaust is the only one remembered and used as a permatool.
Then, even if this whole thing was as bad as they say it was, why was it that bad, how did it get there?
I believe there was a holocaust, I believe there have been MANY of them.
Some worse than others.

(Edit)
With there being lies found in the jewish/Etc. holocaust, it calls into question what else was lied about.

you fail to mention that in 1939 more than 58000 ethnic germans were killed in poland between march & sept the final straw came when 5500 christians were burned alive or nailed to barn doors or worse fearing that their country was going the way of the ukraine the germans invaded to save the remaining 1.45 million ethnic germans still there .both churchill .stalin hitler were players in a very big game . wars are distractions nothing more .ww1 & ww2 were all about egypt keep the plebs distracted while tptb get digging .they were all bad/ people were to stupid to know what was going on . i grew up listening to old men go on about the boer war & hearing about days in the trenches doodle bugs in london . ww2 naval warfare in the afternoon then there was all the other little fist fights going on vietnam etc etc its hard to see a time when tens of millions were not getting the chop behhhhhhhhhh ........: vote for the buddhists when is the last time they wanted war ::

Shame on you human kind, no wonder why we are in such a mess

Let's discuss the facts and leave the emotion behind, okay?

It's impossible to do this because it is an emotional subject. Also a lot of the Nazi's paperwork was confiscated at the end of the war and is kept in secret. Because of this we will never be able to get an accurate number as to how many died in the camps.

The thing that bothers me most about the holocaust is when people talk about it all they mention is the Jews. They conveniently forget all the other people that were sent to the camps as well and that's just plain wrong. These people were just as important as the Jews and should be recognized as well. To not do so just makes their deaths meaningless and they shouldn't be lost to history.

reply to post by DBCooper71


You're quite right that questioning the official version of the Holocaust will get you thrown in jail in some countries. Canada is one and present day Germany is another. Here is an example of the kind of insanity that the official version has generated.

David Irving gave a lecture in Germany and knowing how sensitive the topic of the Holocaust is, he was careful about what he said. A local newspaper reported that Irving made a controversial statement about the Holocaust and Irving was required to appear in an German court to address those allegations. Because his entire lecture had been recorded, he was able to prove that he DID NOT say the things that he was alleged to have said so he was allowed to go free BUT the court ordered the German organizer of the lecture to be imprisoned for FIVE years. Why?

Because the court said, that the organizer should have realized that David Irving MIGHT have said, what he in fact did not say. Not only is it illegal to question the Holocaust, defense lawyers are not even allowed to present factual evidence to support their client's claims and at least one defense lawyer has been sent to jail for doing exactly that. Germans seem to have been so traumatized by the war and the Holocaust condemnation that they now seem to be going to the opposite extreme. It makes me want to weep.

A war on banks? Who could hate that? That sounds like a worthy war to me. Oh and I agree; the history books are full of half truths.

reply to post by Studenofhistory


Look, I am certain everyone knows more people were killed who were not Jewish by the nazis, I think (just going from memory) there were 18 million non jews killed and aproximate 6 million jews.

I believe the points they raised on this being more about them is because compared to their numbers at that time, 6 million cut their numbers down heavily, however from the other 18 million killed in concentration camps, while this hurt their numbers, it did little towards devastating their population.

Something like that is why I heard the 18 million people don't matter to most people.

But this thread will be shut because it is not allowed to be spoken of, not in germany, and not here either I would not suppose.

reply to post by Studenofhistory


While i am certain that some kind of "holocaust" happened, and that jews where killed and died of starvation, i do not believe the number 6 million to be true anymore, or that they where killed in gas chambers. The evidence simply speaks against it, and the only things that speak for it seem to be assumptions and testimonies from people where alot of them have been proven to be false.

reply to post by OpinionatedB


It appears you are saying 24 million people died in the camps

But I get the gist of what you are saying, you are talking about proportionality of the populations.

However you are still wrong, because apparently proportionally more Gypsies/Roma died than Jews......And the term holocaust has been changed to be solely for the Jews.

The Holocaust (from the Greek ὁλόκαυστος holókaustos: hólos, "whole" and kaustós, "burnt"),[2] also known as the Shoah (Hebrew: השואה, HaShoah, "catastrophe"; Yiddish: חורבן, Churben or Hurban,[3] from the Hebrew for "destruction"), was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi Germany, led by Adolf Hitler, throughout Nazi-occupied territory.[4] Of the nine million Jews who had resided in Europe before the Holocaust, approximately two-thirds perished.[5] In particular, over one million Jewish children were killed in the Holocaust, as were approximately two million Jewish women and three million Jewish men.[6][7]

Some scholars maintain that the definition of the Holocaust should also include the Nazis' genocide of millions of people in other groups, including Romani, leftists, Soviet prisoners of war, Polish and Soviet civilians, homosexuals, people with disabilities, Jehovah's Witnesses and other political and religious opponents, which occurred regardless of whether they were of German or non-German ethnic origin.[8] This was the most common definition from the end of WWII to the 1960s.[8] Using this definition, the total number of Holocaust victims is between 11 million and 17 million people.[9]

WIKI