David Irving and Holocaust Denial

Not criminalizing an action is not the same as tolerating it. The fact is that holocaust denial is the expression of an opinion. Unless there's a direct threat uttered, it shouldn't be the domain of the courts. Speech isn't free unless it's free for those you disagree with too.
 
MetalBooger said:
There are many books that explain how Jewish clothing was sent back to the father land as another ploy of extracting every last bit of wealth from the Jews. Ya know, the economic motives alone, backed up by accounting papers and letters of Nazi bureaucrats and businessmen, coupled with the extreme violence of Nazi fascism seems provide substantial evidence that there was a great deal of incentive to exterminate the Jews.





If there wasn't video proof of 'Nazi gassing', would their proven, documented crimes against humanity, and their hate towards minorities be absolved?
Click to expand...


When you say "back to the father land" I'm going to assume that you are referring to the clothing that was "robbed" from the the "death camps" such as Treblinka, Belzec, and Auschwitz. If so, what about all the articles of clothing deloused in Nazi Germany itself? In fact, the delousing and all of the hygiene problems the Nazis addressed by delousing clothing prevented an enormous typhus outbreak. All of their efforts were undermined do to the saturation bombings by Great Britain and America. This caused all the Jews and everyone else to die in camps such as Dachu, this was not the Nazis fault.

Typhus Causes a Truce, Journal of the American Medical Association (May 19, 1945) p. 220.

You can continue to support your case that the Nazis had a plan to exterminate the Jews, but like I said, the “Holocaust” survivors have some explaining to do. They need to explain why the Zionist collaborated with the Nazis, and why so many Jews of Auschwitz went with the Nazis rather then be “liberated” by the Red Army. Perhaps they realize who the real genocidal maniacs were…the Bolsheviks and all the other Marxist.

To answer your last question, if there “wasn’t” any video’s of Nazi gassings, would I excuse the crimes they did commit? No, of course not, I want all the criminals to pay the price. Soviet and American crimes have gone unpunished for decades now, but yet people still have room to talk about the Nazis. Not to mention, many crimes were blamed on the Nazis at Nuremberg, crimes they didn’t even commit such as the Katyn forest massacres. But like I said, I still haven’t seen any evidence for mass gassings.

 
The Poona of Peshwa said:
I was just struck by the similarities between "intelligent design" proponents in biology, and "holocaust revisionists" in history. "Oh there are holes in the theory! The mainstream academy has a dogmatic creed they have to hold to and are bent on obscuring the truth!" In both cases you're only seeing what you want to see because of latent extreme-right tendencies.

I don't think that holocaust denial should be criminal, that's laughable. But whether historians should waste time proving the existence of one of the more well-documented atrocities of human history to the satisfaction of a few fringe types is another question altogether. It's the same with intelligent design, let them have their mousetraps and dice, there's actual work to be done.
Click to expand...


I’m not so sure I see a parallel between Holocaust revisionism in history to intelligent design in science. For example, evolutionary biologist have a detailed and elegant list of potential findings that could falsity predictions made by evolutionary biologist, all the way to blowing evolutionary theory out the window, metaphorically speaking that is. For example, evolutionary biologist have made a prediction that we will never discover an organism lacking nucleic acids (DNA and RNA molecules.) The creationist thus far haven’t found any such organisms, instead they prefer straw man tactics and out right lies against evolutionary theory.

Something that would seriously falsify evolutionary theory as a whole would be to find Homo sapien fossil remains alongside dinosaur remains. Evolutionary theory would be toasted, but of course no such fossil remains have been found. Another discovery that would blow away evolutionary theory (at least for the case of common ancestry) would be if the cytochrome c protein sequence between humans and chimpanzees were completely random. But that isn’t the case, we have an identical cytochrome c protein sequence, despite virtually endless sequences that could perform the same function of this protein. The chances of two different species sharing this identical molecule is very slim of course, the exact mathematics of this has already been taken care of by physicist Hubert P. Yockey in his “Information Theory and Molecular Biology” (1992). And creationist say evolution is a theory of “chance”.

With historical revisionism, the name here is kind of overstated because history and science is always in a state of “revisionism”. You must make room for novel research and discoveries or it isn’t science, if not it would be a very poor method to research history. When this isn’t allowed, or denied, sometimes in the court of law, then it becomes sacred kind of like Holocaust propaganda and the Lux Ex Orient doctrine of the Middle Ages. Always remember the tactic scientist practice, including evolutionary biologist , the “potential falsification” employed by the scientific method, how many Holocaust proponents list a complete set of potential discoveries that would falsify the Holocaust? They wouldn’t dare do that, they know what happened with the American pathologist Dr. Charles P. Larson, who didn’t discover any poison gas victims. That was a hoax, and he even said that. There is no doubt in my mind that the gassings over in Poland is a hoax as well. The fact that you can’t question the Holocaust in many European countries demonstrates the pseudo-scientific nature of these claims. It isn’t history, it is propaganda.

John D. McCallum, Crime Doctor [a biography of Dr. Charles P. Larson] (Mercer, Wash.: The Writing Works, 1978)

 
MetalBooger said:
If you think its laughable to criminalize holocaust denial, how do you address the possible negative results that stated earlier in this thread may arise from its tolerance, such as legitimizing notions of the Jewish Conspiracy and what not.

Creationist doctrine tends to have the underlying theme of peace and harmony associated with religion, facism and racism on the other hand can be associated in their dogmatic principles to violence.
Not saying that religion doesnt have radicals that wish to impose on others, but their core theology does not cause such things as genocide...
Click to expand...

Well there you have it, historically accuracy is undermined because of the potential political backlashes and a paranoid fear of a “Jewish conspiracy”. I guess the entire Western world should shut their mouths about the Arab world because now we have endless blind hatred by Westerners against Middle Easterners. But of course, not to many people advocate putting neo-conservatives and George Bush in jail because of the hate they have caused against innocent Muslims. Not to mention, they have destroyed America’s image across the world…it is they who cause anti-Semitism as well. So Jews, Arabs, completely distrust each other because of politicians…go figure.
 
Patrick R. said:

With historical revisionism, the name here is kind of overstated because history and science is always in a state of “revisionism”. You must make room for novel research and discoveries or it isn’t science, if not it would be a very poor method to research history. When this isn’t allowed, or denied, sometimes in the court of law, then it becomes sacred kind of like Holocaust propaganda and the Lux Ex Orient doctrine of the Middle Ages. Always remember the tactic scientist practice, including evolutionary biologist , the “potential falsification” employed by the scientific method, how many Holocaust proponents list a complete set of potential discoveries that would falsify the Holocaust? They wouldn’t dare do that, they know what happened with the American pathologist Dr. Charles P. Larson, who didn’t discover any poison gas victims. That was a hoax, and he even said that. There is no doubt in my mind that the gassings over in Poland is a hoax as well. The fact that you can’t question the Holocaust in many European countries demonstrates the pseudo-scientific nature of these claims. It isn’t history, it is propaganda.
Click to expand...

'Holocaust proponent?' You're positively deluded.

You're only seeing what you want to see if you'll select the 'evidence' put forward by one medical expert, or a few historical revisionists with extreme-right tendencies over the mountain of evidence concerning the Wannasee Conference, the progress reports by the Einsatzgruppen, the testimony of the Nazis themselves, the photographic and film evidence produced after the liberation of the camps, and the copious first-hand witness accounts all concisely collected for the Nuremberg trials. How are you any different than the ID proponent who cherry-picks natural history to make a big deal out of a misinterpretation of an event such as the Cambrian Explosion?

Anyways, maybe a better comparison is those who doubt that the Earth's climate has changed appreciably since the industrial revolution. You can make it seem as though there is a debate by putting forth one expert, but the fact is that there is no real debate.

The percent of legitimate historians who doubt the traditional account of the holocaust is actually probably much smaller still than the number of scientists who doubt anthropocentric climate change. Although, by the tin-foil-hat nature of your post you're probably a climate change skeptic your self and my example may again fall on deaf ears.
 
Yes. Basically you read the very few works of historians with arguable motives, and choose to completely ignore the massive ammounts of work done by historians that some of which may have arguable motives, but many of which don't. There are countless ammounts of evidence and countless testimonies againts the Nazis, but you choose to ignore these...
I'll answer one of your questions, why the Zionists collaberated with the Nazis. It's a serious question, that was questionable even at the time and was the source of much debate. Eventually the Zionist leadership decided to do this for one simple reason, millions of Jews were dying, millions, and they wanted to save them. They knew the cost would be great, but they couldn't just sit by and watch these people die. In a way it is like negotiating with a terrorist, on a much more extreme scale. Also, there wasn't as much collaberation as you make it seem. They continued trade with Germany and attempted to made certain deals with the Nazis that that they would pay them a certain amount of money, and in return the lives of hundreds of thousands of Jews would be saved, but in the end the negotiations mostly blew up and the Nazis killed most of them anyway...
 
The Poona of Peshwa
Not criminalizing an action is not the same as tolerating it. The fact is that holocaust denial is the expression of an opinion. Unless there's a direct threat uttered, it shouldn't be the domain of the courts. Speech isn't free unless it's free for those you disagree with too.
Click to expand...

I believe i already went through a rationalization of criminalizing it, supported by albeit outrageous George galloway's argument, that there are direct threats to this kind of propaganda. I guess this is just agree to disagree, unless you wish to reply to my earlier posts on the subject.
 
The Poona of Peshwa said:
'Holocaust proponent?' You're positively deluded.

You're only seeing what you want to see if you'll select the 'evidence' put forward by one medical expert, or a few historical revisionists with extreme-right tendencies over the mountain of evidence concerning the Wannasee Conference, the progress reports by the Einsatzgruppen, the testimony of the Nazis themselves, the photographic and film evidence produced after the liberation of the camps, and the copious first-hand witness accounts all concisely collected for the Nuremberg trials. How are you any different than the ID proponent who cherry-picks natural history to make a big deal out of a misinterpretation of an event such as the Cambrian Explosion?

Anyways, maybe a better comparison is those who doubt that the Earth's climate has changed appreciably since the industrial revolution. You can make it seem as though there is a debate by putting forth one expert, but the fact is that there is no real debate.

The percent of legitimate historians who doubt the traditional account of the holocaust is actually probably much smaller still than the number of scientists who doubt anthropocentric climate change. Although, by the tin-foil-hat nature of your post you're probably a climate change skeptic your self and my example may again fall on deaf ears.
Click to expand...


One medical expert? You could have thousands of medical experts, and they would all come to the same conclusion…that the Jews and everyone else in Dachau died from disease and other causes, not gassings. It is no longer claimed that Jews were gassed there, or in Nazi Germany itself. Instead they were transported to Poland and “gassed” in “death camps” such as Treblinka, Auschwitz, Belzec, Sobibor etc. All of which contain some very odd claims, such as Jews being murdered with “diesel exhaust”. Raul Hilberg is a notable scholar who has popularized this claim, especially in his work The Destruction of the European Jews. Diesel exhaust? I mean come on, mass murder with diesel exhaust? Just how retarded were the Nazis?

As far as this claim that I’m “cherry picking” evidence for the Holocaust, I will address the evidence you cited, so therefore the claim that I’m cherry picking evidence will go out the window. First the Wannsee Conference, what evidence of genocide does that conference reveal? Anyone who actually reads the Wannsee protocol will see that it doesn’t speak of mass murder, but rather transporting Jews outside of Germany. This of course didn’t include Jews who were veterans of the first world war (Jews who fought for the German Empire). These stunning facts forced Holocaust historian Yehuda Bauer to say “The public still repeats, time after time, the silly story that at Wannsee the extermination of the Jews was arrived at." He is of course a proponent of the Holocaust, and an Israeli, not an antagonist.

The Canadian Jewish News (Toronto), Jan. 30, 1992, p. 8.


The Einsatzgruppen reports don’t make any mention of genocide. They did indeed kill many Jews, many of them were active with the Soviets, Raul Hilberg mentions that the Jews who were killed were killed for security reasons. (Destruction of the European Jew, 1985 ed., p. 331.) In any case, American soldieries killed considerable numbers of Vietnamese “communist”, along with innocent civilians. Did America have a plan to exterminate all Vietnamese people?

As far as the testimony of the “Nazis themselves”, you should read their actual confessions more carefully. The Gerstein statement is perhaps the most important “testimony” cited by Holocaust scholars. As H. Roques has pointed out, there are at least (six) different translations have been published, some have different translations…which one should we consider authentic? In any case, if you read the one published by Léon Poliakov in his work “Harvest of Hate” , you will see that Kurt Gerstein refers to “wooden doors” and “glass windows”, but yet there is no mention of any Jews trying to break out. Surely if you were being gassed, you would try to break out. He also claimed that all were dead after “thirty-two minutes” .

But yet he doesn’t refer to how the diesel fuel killed anyone, was it carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, reduced oxygen? According to post war Holocaust historians such as Raul Hilberg, carbon monoxide was the lethal property in diesel exhaust that caused death. The only problem is, diesel exhaust doesn’t contain that much carbon monoxide, gasoline engines contain more carbon monoxide. Even under maximum load, diesel engines produce only about 0.4 % carbon monoxide. Any gasoline engine would of easily produced 7% of carbon monoxide poisoning, if gassing was there intention! Also, with slight modification of the carburetor, as much as 12%.

With this in mind, is it any wonder that 25 Holocaust scholars tried to drop the diesel gas claim, and replace with it with gasoline engines? This type of distortion took place in a piece of work known as “Nationalsozialistische Massentötungen durch Giftgas” which was published in Germany in 1983. This of course is contrary to the claims of “the copious first-hand witness accounts all concisely collected for the Nuremberg trials”. A far better claim would have been that the Nazi murder weapon was a was Holzgas, (producer gas), which contained at anywhere from 18% to 35% gas! The vehicles that used producer gas were called “Gaswagen”, not the “gas vans”, that used diesel fuel. If they burned wood, they were referred to as “Holzgaswagen”. This would have been a far better and sufficient murder weapon.

Then of course, we have the John Demjanjuk where he supposedly committed monstrous crimes against Jews. The diesel engine story was brought up again, but we all known the outcome of this case, the Israeli supreme court through this one out. The eyewitnesses were wrong or lied. As far photographic evidence filmed after the war, they prove nothing of any gassing. The same is true with the Aerial reconnaissance photographs, taken in 1944, show nothing either.


In a nutshell, I’m not cherry picking evidence, but of directly addressed your claims which are very popular, but not very accurate. There is a lot more actually.
 
TheAnonymous said:
Yes. Basically you read the very few works of historians with arguable motives, and choose to completely ignore the massive ammounts of work done by historians that some of which may have arguable motives, but many of which don't. There are countless ammounts of evidence and countless testimonies againts the Nazis, but you choose to ignore these...
I'll answer one of your questions, why the Zionists collaberated with the Nazis. It's a serious question, that was questionable even at the time and was the source of much debate. Eventually the Zionist leadership decided to do this for one simple reason, millions of Jews were dying, millions, and they wanted to save them. They knew the cost would be great, but they couldn't just sit by and watch these people die. In a way it is like negotiating with a terrorist, on a much more extreme scale. Also, there wasn't as much collaberation as you make it seem. They continued trade with Germany and attempted to made certain deals with the Nazis that that they would pay them a certain amount of money, and in return the lives of hundreds of thousands of Jews would be saved, but in the end the negotiations mostly blew up and the Nazis killed most of them anyway...
Click to expand...

No, I didn't ignore them, they only prove how silly the extermination claims really are. If millions of them were dying because of Nazi brutality, why did they go with the Nazis rather then wait for the Soviets to liberate them? Many of the people in war time Germany were dying, Jews and Germans alike...it was from the allied bombing campaigns, not the Nazis.
 
Agreed. Nothing happens in the present without rellevance to the past, and by forgetting the past we only open oppurtunities to make the same mistakes of the past. Unfortunately most leaders (and people, for that matter) aren't too concerned with history, which is why those mistakes are made over and over again.
Holocaust remembrance is something very important for the world. If what happened will be forgotten, or denied (...), the same things will happen again. Genocides have happened since then in Africa, and the world hasn't done enough to prevent or even stop it, but if such an act will happen again in the western world, it could destroy the democratic world we live in, which still is not fully built.
 
I'm all for learning the lessons of history, but the way the Holocaust is 'remembered' in America has far more to do with scoring contemporary political points than with any serious, measured judgment of the past.

Plus, it leads to lots of reductive thinking, as with TA's faulty comparison with African democides. The Holocaust doesn't really provide a great historical parallel to modern third world democide, nor are there many useful lessons we can take from it and apply to, say, Darfur or Somalia.
 
I mean, it's all well and good to say 'never again,' but museums and readings of the names don't really get us any closer to developing solutions to the problem of essentially spontaneous inter-tribal violence conducted by paramilitaries and other 'asymmetrical' types, often at a subnational or transnational level. To try and make the kind of thing that happened in Rwanda, for instance, into a Holocaust allegory is to compare apples to gefilte fish.
 
Both apples and gefilte fish are food.
Obviously they're not the same, but certain things about one exist in the other, just like the Holocaust and the things happening in Africa. Name reading is not what teaches us anything. But stories do. By hearing these stories and being educated on what happened, it can change perspective completely. If every person really understood deep down the atrocity of the Holocaust. Both the actions and reasons behind them, they could really understand how horrible it really is to kill someone simply because he belongs to a certain race, country, tribe or whatever...
If Holocaust remembrance would also exist strongly in Africa (and I'm talking about the real remembrance, not politically correct remembrance), then I belive those genocides will end.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back