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

Originally posted by SneakyB



If Irving changed his mind about their existence it does not mean that they were used for killing.

He simply may have found info that 1 or more buildings were used to delouse prisoners.

Then you should read Irving's answer that the other poster provided:

How were they killed, and where? On a small scale, unwanted Jews were put to death by gassing in two small units at Auschwitz, the White House and the Red House, which is now in Poland. It was a death camp as well as a slave-labour camp.

So Irving makes quite clear which of your possibilities he now advocates.

Originally posted by Biliverdin


Particularly, when he wrote about Hess, he began to stick his nose in places that they didn't want outsiders looking, and he was not only black balled, but there was a rather clear attempt to smear his reputation. To compound this, and perhaps because of this, he did fall in with the wrong crowd, and was perhaps a little too easily led to the Right. I sort of suspect that it is possible that this was all part of the plan to discredit him.

My boss, who was an internationally renouned military historian (no names) once drunkenly proposed the Irving-Hess theory that you brought up. I think it is a distinct (maybe even the most plausible) possibility. But this only reenforces the stupidness of what Irving went on to do - as you say, hanging out with the wrong crowd. I think he did way more than that. I think his ambitions with "that crowd" point to more than just hanging out with them. I think he honestly believed that he was going to bring down the establishment. Either way, it was an irrepsonsible move, which is human and forgiveable. But it was also unscientific to the point of seriously damaging his credibility - probably up to the very end of his life. As to where he stands today, I don't know. He almost seems positively mainstream to me.

Originally posted by Biliverdin


From the start he was concerned that an Allied offensive would target the Ruhr, and the Ruhr was essential to his war effort, as well as the economy in general, at war or peace.

First of all: again, a very interesting reply from you. I couldn't agree more.

As to the imaginary Ruhr offensive. I bet you know about its mongrel, albeit very real, brother: the Saar offensive. One of the most curious episodes of the Second World War....

Hitler was one lucky bastard, time after time. Germans betting on French military incompetence almost never lost their wagers.

Originally posted by NichirasuKenshin

Originally posted by SneakyB



If Irving changed his mind about their existence it does not mean that they were used for killing.

He simply may have found info that 1 or more buildings were used to delouse prisoners.

Then you should read Irving's answer that the other poster provided:

How were they killed, and where? On a small scale, unwanted Jews were put to death by gassing in two small units at Auschwitz, the White House and the Red House, which is now in Poland. It was a death camp as well as a slave-labour camp.

So Irving makes quite clear which of your possibilities he now advocates.

There's that "wonderful" all or nothing mentality that makes discussing topics like this so much fun.

"On a small scale" was part of his quote... and that does not come anywhere near what we've been led to believe for the past 40 years.

Originally posted by SneakyB


"On a small scale" was part of his quote... and that does not come anywhere near what we're been led to believe for the past 40 years.

Depends on what "everything" means to you. Most of the knowledge that I have about the Holocaust and the Second World War comes from the most traditional of sources. There was never much in there to suggest that gas chambers were the sine qua non of the Holocaust. From the traditional sources that I studied, a picture emerged in which the elements which did not include any gas chambers (at least in the Zyklon B sense) at all, such as the Einsatzkommando and the Reinhardt Camps, were the pivotal structures of Nazi mass murder.

I think that much of the prominence of the gas chambers is to be explained by the peculiarities of victimhood and memory (mix in a dose of good old political piggybacking on tragedies). Picking up scholarly accounts of the Holocaust does certainly not suggest that a majority of any ethnic subgroup was put to death in traditional gas chambers such as those portrayed in Hollywood's rendition of the Holocaust. But cleary, (and not surprisingly) the gas chambers have a deep psychological meaning for any victim, and of course it can also be abused and milked, which undeniably has been done by some of the most extreme zionists. It's justthat I believe that it's more a function of the psychological implications of victimhood, and certainly not something inherent in scholarly writings on the Holocaust.

Originally posted by NichirasuKenshin
My boss, who was an internationally renouned military historian (no names) once drunkenly proposed the Irving-Hess theory that you brought up. I think it is a distinct (maybe even the most plausible) possibility. But this only reenforces the stupidness of what Irving went on to do - as you say, hanging out with the wrong crowd. I think he did way more than that. I think his ambitions with "that crowd" point to more than just hanging out with them. I think he honestly believed that he was going to bring down the establishment. Either way, it was an irrepsonsible move, which is human and forgiveable. But it was also unscientific to the point of seriously damaging his credibility - probably up to the very end of his life. As to where he stands today, I don't know. He almost seems positively mainstream to me.

Irving certainly has quite an ego, and one of the drawbacks of much of his writings is his own need to flatter himself at his cleverness, haha. His work does now appear pretty mainstream, but I can imagine at the time that it must have ruffled a few feathers. We have of course since had numerous books exposing fuller and fuller details of Hess's flight, and yet still, the public records office are unable to release the Hess dossier. I believe it is up for review next year.

Thanks for the info regarding the codes being broken and monitored by the Brits. I didnt know that. So they were reading the daily reports from the camps? No mention of all the gassings ect? Id have thought that those evil nazis would have been bragging about it in the messages. I think the einzatgruppen killed more people as they roamed arround Poland and russia. The Dirlewanger anti partisan unit were also roaming about murdering people there abouts behind the lines. It was a mess, the whole war was a holocaust. Yet the real cuplrits always seem to get away with it. The banksters.

reply to post by nightbringr


Not at all. He now says that there are two small gas chambers used at Auschwitz and implies or at least that's how it sounded to me, that those were the only gas chambers used of all the camps. So were gas chambers used to kill jews? Technically yes so he didn't really lie about changing his mind but he doesn't come out and admit that the politically correct version of the Holocaust ie. all 6 million killed via gas chambers is in fact true. By choosing his words carefully, he has managed to avoid going to jail for ten years without actually embracing the accepted version of the Holocaust.

I can't fault him for that.

Originally posted by NichirasuKenshin

Originally posted by SneakyB


"On a small scale" was part of his quote... and that does not come anywhere near what we're been led to believe for the past 40 years.

Depends on what "everything" means to you. Most of the knowledge that I have about the Holocaust and the Second World War comes from the most traditional of sources. There was never much in there to suggest that gas chambers were the sine qua non of the Holocaust. From the traditional sources that I studied, a picture emerged in which the elements which did not include any gas chambers (at least in the Zyklon B sense) at all, such as the Einsatzkommando and the Reinhardt Camps, were the pivotal structures of Nazi mass murder.

I think that much of the prominence of the gas chambers is to be explained by the peculiarities of victimhood and memory (mix in a dose of good old political piggybacking on tragedies). Picking up scholarly accounts of the Holocaust does certainly not suggest that a majority of any ethnic subgroup was put to death in traditional gas chambers such as those portrayed in Hollywood's rendition of the Holocaust. But cleary, (and not surprisingly) the gas chambers have a deep psychological meaning for any victim, and of course it can also be abused and milked, which undeniably has been done by some of the most extreme zionists. It's justthat I believe that it's more a function of the psychological implications of victimhood, and certainly not something inherent in scholarly writings on the Holocaust.

edit on 20-7-2012 by NichirasuKenshin because: grammar

edit on 20-7-2012 by NichirasuKenshin because: grammar

I have no problem with what you said... and most of it is probably true.

Including this...

explained by the peculiarities of victimhood and memory (mix in a dose of good old political piggybacking on tragedies)

What I'm curious about is what other claims are exaggerated or just plain wrong due to "peculiarities of victimhood and memory"?

And why is it okay to rake Germany over the coals for the past 65 years when so much of the "truth" might be based on "peculiarities of victimhood and memory"?

reply to post by Studenofhistory


He made those comments prior to his court case, not in court. His admission of his error to the reporters would not have been known to the court until after his case. And, more importantly, as he himself stipulates, and which the contents of his book concur, he is not an expert on the holocaust. Whenever he has spoken about the details of the holocaust, it has been his opinion, nothing more.

reply to post by Biliverdin


I agree with you that Irving does have quite an ego. I highly recommend that people watch the youtube videos of his book tour lectures. He's a very accomplished speaker who manages to inform and entertain at the same time.

As far as hanging out with the wrong crowd, I assume that wrong crowd refers to nazis and Irving takes pride in having made those contacts because those people are comfortable with him, believe him to be even-handed in his approach to his work and therefore they tell him things that they wouldn't tell to anyone else except each other. His work isn't just based on documents from archives, it's also based on interviewing people who were in a position to know things during the war, on reading their diaries and personal notes, letters, etc. He even managed to interview the two women who were Hitler's personal secretaries during his entire time in power. Is there any other historian who can make that claim?

reply to post by Sinny


Sorry, no. I have not read any of Peter Lavender's stuff.

Originally posted by SneakyB
And why is it okay to rake Germany over the coals for the past 65 years when so much of the "truth" might be based on "peculiarities of victimhood and memory"?

Because of the very reason that it does cause knee jerk reactions. From both sides of the debate. What are we always told when looking at a conspiracy? Follow the money. No-one is following the money while we are all busy debating about how many millions the Nazis killed and how they killed them. The debate about the hows and the how manys has served as the most effective obfuscation of the facts behind the holocaust and of those that profited from it, both financially and politically.

reply to post by Biliverdin


I agree completely with the 'follow the money' line of reasoning. The problem is when you do that, you get labelled anti-semitic.

reply to post by Studenofhistory

I completely agree with you,unfortunately ATS these days, has to a large extent, degenerated into a verbal slagfest.

The "holocaust" is one of these historical episodes that really requires to be examined and discussed rationally,as it more than any other aspect of modern history,shaped the world that we now live in.
had it not been for the holocaust,it is unlikely that the state of Israel would exist,at least not in it's current form.

Also It is unlikely that the allies would have won the war had the Nazi's not adopted the policy of extermination,as they would have been able to allocate a large majority of the forces assigned to this action to their war fronts.They would also have been able to count on the support of many of the Soviet republics such as Ukraine,latvia and Lithuania in their fight against Stalin's Soviet Union. They would have had many Jewish scientists on their team,not least of all Einstein,perhaps enabling the Nazi's to produce the frirst viable nuclear weapon?.

Yes, the holocaust does deserve to be discussed without recourse to verbal slanging and close mindedness(on both sides of the argument).

reply to post by Studenofhistory


Many of those Nazis that you propose only feel able to talk to Irving have given several interviews to all sorts of different programme makers. I suggest you, for example, watch Laurence Rees's documentary series, The SS: A Warning from History and the other one that he made about Auschwitz for the BBC. Many writers and historians, have conducted interviews with those with first-hand knowledge of Hitler's Germany. Rees talks to many who were in the execution squads as young men for example. The World at War, if I recall correctly, interviewed some of the hierarchy's secretaries, though I can't remember specifically if Hitler's was included. All of the captured generals were interviewed by Liddell Hart. The only one who thinks that Irving has special access, is Irving, and it is an unfounded boast.

No, I was referring to his contact with Neo-Nazi groups, and with the hardcore revisionists such as Faurisson.

Originally posted by Studenofhistory
reply to post by Biliverdin

 

I agree completely with the 'follow the money' line of reasoning. The problem is when you do that, you get labelled anti-semitic.

Only because you are not actually following the money and instead making a mistaken presumption.

Originally posted by SneakyB
And why is it okay to rake Germany over the coals for the past 65 years when so much of the "truth" might be based on "peculiarities of victimhood and memory"?

This is what i do not understand.

Who has been raking Germany over the coals? As far as i can tell, most people in this world realize it was the regime who committed these atrocities, and the rank and file troops were doing what they had to do. Perhaps since im not German, i do not see this persecution still going on.

Maybe you can show some examples of how Germany is still the whipping boy?

jews(zionists) -> jews holocaust(lie) -> palestine -> palestinian holocaust(real) * -> ISRAEL
jews(zionists) -> media -> politics -> entertainment -> banks -> israel
jews(zionists) -> lies -> wars -> agenda -> usa -> israel
jews(zionists) -> israel(Zion) -> PROBLEM!

that's how i feel it...

Originally posted by nightbringr


Maybe you can show some examples of how Germany is still the whipping boy?

As you may have seen, I traditionally argue on "your side of the argument". I just want to comment on your question.

I've read tons of books over the years and in all that time I have only ever seen one book that denounced the german people as a whole (even their descendents currently living) in a blanket manner: Hitler's willing helpers by Daniel Goldhagen. I've met plenty of published historians over the years (I used to organise conferences for my boss) and I've never met one - german or non-german - that took Goldhagen as serious historical scholarship.

Goldhagen's argument can be summed up along these lines: Antisemitism is a global phenomenon, but the germans took this globally existing idea and turned it into something unique, which allowed them to become a nation of mass murderers that was fanatical in its whole and that fully supported everything the Nazis did, even if only tacitly.

As I said, I've really never met anyone who took that book seriously, It surely is not representative of the "official version" (that is, if you take the "official version" to consist of scholarly accounts). I bet there are other books along that line of argumentation (maybe early writings from Israel or such things) but I can't recall any other coming to such prominence as Hitler's willing executioners.

The current narrative of the crimes of Nazism goes back to Nuremberg - and in that sense the trials were fair, maybe even biased in favor of the german people. The prosecution decided on a narrative in which a small, reactionary elite (the primary defendants in the first trials) as well as a small subsection of the people (The SS as "the conscience of the German people", loosely translated as well as the people indicted in later trials).seduced and deceived the people into enabling their nefarious plans. The german people as such were not indicted, only accused of not actively resisting.

This has a lot to do with the dawning of the Cold War, of course. One could speculate about how history would have judged the Nazis and the german people if the Uncle Joe and Uncle Sam would have become best buddies. I'd wager that Goldhagen be some kind of historical superstar.