The Holocaust

From Metapedia

The Holocaust is according to politically correct history a deliberate genocide by National Socialist Germany in which approximately six million Jews were killed. In addition some non-Jewish groups claimed to have been killed by similar methods are sometimes included. Holocaust revisionists dispute that this deliberate genocide occurred.

Very briefly, most Holocaust revisionists argue that Jews were deported to concentration camps and used for forced labor, suffered many hardships and deaths during the war, but that there was no plan or attempt to genocide Jews, no homicidal gas chambers, and that the number of deaths is greatly exaggerated. A primary cause of the politically correct view is argued to be wartime Allied psychological warfare which was continued into the postwar period, in part due to this being being beneficial for various parties (both non-Jewish and Jewish), in part due to self-perpetuating processes similar to those occurring during witch-hunts.

Related issues include argued exploitation of the Holocaust, argued Holocaust uniqueness, argued religious aspects, and the status of the official Holocaust version as an official "Truth" that is in an increasing number of Western countries by law forbidden to be discussed and researched freely and with powerful lobby groups demanding that worldwide censorship on free speech and research must be implemented.

The politically correct view on the Holocaust can be found in numerous easily available sources. This article will mainly describe some of the less often mentioned arguments regarding the Holocaust.

Terminology

Map depicting the now "standardized" politically correct view on the Holocaust as a deliberate genocide: Jews and some other groups are claimed to have been transported from different parts of Europe to extermination camps in Poland which used gas (the delousing agent Zyklon B or carbon monoxide) to kill groups packed into gas chambers. Some are claimed to have been temporarily spared in order to be used as forced laborers but many of these died quickly due to deliberately harsh conditions intended to kill. In addition it is claimed that many were killed by the mobile Einsatzgruppen in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union by methods such as mass shootings and gas vans.

Notably, as discussed in the main text, it is no longer claimed that there were mass extermination camps using gas chambers in Germany itself despite this being "proven" during the Nuremberg trials and "documented" with even today often shown photographs and films of heaps of corpses (who had died of causes such as typhus). Also many other early descriptions of the Holocaust differ widely and contradictorily from the particular version which is now the "standardized" politically correct view.

The origin of the term "the Holocaust" is controversial with argued less politically correct aspects. See the article on the Etymology of the term "The Holocaust".

Holocaustianity

Various aspects related to the Holocaust have sometimes been compared with a religion. The term Holocaustianity has been used for phenomenon.

The Holocaust vs. other claimed large scale killings

The Holocaust is often described as a unique event as implied by the term "The Holocaust". The book The Holocaust Industry stated that one reason that this is seen as very important is because "unique suffering confers unique entitlement." The uniqueness claim may also be an important part of Holocaustianity. Even if accepting the politically correct description as correct, then this uniqueness claim is still dubious. There are many large scale killings (real or claimed) throughout human history (including by Jews).

See the article on Holocaust uniqueness.

Argued exploitation

Various groups are argued to have exploited the politically correct Holocaust version. Some of these arguments accept the politically correct version as correct but still argue that it has been used for exploitation.

Other exploitation arguments rely on the revisionist version of what happened. Revisionists also argue that such exploitation by various groups is the main explanation for why the politically correct version appeared and continues to be influential.^[1]

See the article on Holocaust motivations regarding more details.

The Holocaust as an official "Truth" and argued non-scientific attacks on Holocaust revisionism

Censorship, persecution, and prohibition of Holocaust revisionism

The historian David Irving was arrested in Austria and sent to prison in 2006. It should be noted that (contrary to presentations of him in the politically correct media) Irving's stated views on the Holocaust are quite different in many aspects from those of most Holocaust revisionists.

The Holocaust is in many Western countries an official "Truth" that is illegal to discuss and research freely. Some Western countries such as Canada and Australia do not have formal laws but have used other methods causing the same effect. Continued attempts are made to extend such mechanisms to the remaining Western countries that still allow free debate and research on the issue. In 2014 Russia and Greece implemented "Holocaust denial" laws. Romania in 2015 implemented such a law ("with help of the D.C.-based" United States Holocaust Memorial Museum‎).^[2]). Italy in 2016 implemented a "Holocaust denial" law. Lobbying efforts are ongoing in order to make the EU pass legislation prohibiting free discussion and research in all EU countries.

In 2013 the World Jewish Congress passed a resolution demanding that all the countries of the world must prohibit public "Holocaust denial".^[3]

Some notable convictions for "Holocaust denial" include against David Irving, Ernst Zündel, Fredrick Töben, Gaston-Armand Amaudruz, Germar Rudolf, Horst Mahler, Jean-Marie Le Pen, Jean Plantin, Jürgen Graf, Richard Williamson, Robert Faurisson, Roger Garaudy, Sylvia Stolz, and Vincent Reynouard.

The number of convicted less well-known individuals is unclear. Germany alone has convicted many thousands of individuals each year for "right-wing" "thought crimes" (but how many of these involved the Holocaust is unclear).^[4]

Persecution and/or censorship have occurred also for groups such as defense witnesses and defense lawyers who dispute the politically correct version of the Holocaust or are perceived of doing so.

"Holocaust denial" laws may or may not also include more general prohibitions of free discussion and research on many other aspects of the history of National Socialist Germany. See National Socialist Germany revisionism.

In some countries there may be laws against "genocide denials" more generally but the Holocaust arguably has a special position regarding to the amount of criticisms against the official version and also regarding the degree of repression of such criticisms.

Holocaust revisionism and "hate speech"

Official reasons for "Holocaust denial" laws have included that the revisionist arguments are "hate speech" against Jews. One supposed reason for this is that revisionists argue that some Jewish "witnesses" have deliberately lied for various forms of gain. However, this does not mean that all Jews are responsible for these argued lies (in the same way that not all citizens of warring states are responsible for argued war crimes committed by some individuals during a war).

• See the article on Holocaust motivations and the section on "Argued exploitation" on revisionists arguing that many non-Jewish individuals and groups have deliberately lied about and gained from the politically correct version.
• See the article Holocaust awareness on most "Holocaust survivors" never themselves witnessing any genocidal mass killings according to the politically correct version. See also the article Holocaust testimonial evidence on there being many possible reasons for giving inaccurate testimonies other than deliberate, voluntary lying. Thus, criticizing the politically correct Holocaust version does not mean that every "Holocaust survivor" is accused of being a deliberate, voluntary liar.

Revisionists also argue that the political correct version in practice cause collective guilt and hatred against Germans in general and has contributed to large scale crimes against German civilians (see the article on Claimed mass killings of Germans by the WWII Allies). Thus, it is possible to see the politically correct version of the Holocaust as "hate speech".

An established Jewish author who visited a Holocaust revisionist conference wrote regarding hate that "I would see none of it, certainly less than I would see when Jews were speaking of Germans. No one had ever said anything remotely like Elie Wiesel, ‘Every Jew, somewhere in his being, should set aside a zone of hate–healthy, virile hate – for what persists in the Germans,’ and no one had said anything like Edgar Bronfman, the president of the World Jewish Congress. A shocked professor told Bronfman once, ‘You are teaching a whole generation to hate thousands of Germans,’ and Bronfman replied, ‘No, I am teaching a whole generation to hate millions of Germans.’"^[1]

Also, if the politically correct version is false, then numerous people (including researchers not advocating any form of violence) have been falsely punished in various trials and sometimes executed.

Another official reason is that "Holocaust denial" may increase support for "racism" generally. A counter-argument is that the political correct version and propaganda using it cause hatred against Whites and anti-White policies generally. Furthermore, the politically correct version is used to attempt to suppress/dismiss scientific research on race and even genetics in general which causes ill-informed and therefore often harmful decisions for society in general.

Another argued reason for "Holocaust denial" laws consists of ad hominem by arguing that the researchers are far right. However, Germar Rudolf have argued that "the extreme right wing" are only a small minority among revisionists researchers who span the political spectrum including the far left.^[5]

There may also be illogical circular reasoning, such as Holocaust denialism being dangerous, since if it is proven that the National Socialists did not commit a genocide then this may revive National Socialism which is dangerous, since National Socialism committed a genocide.

More generally revisionists argue that historical research in general and science more broadly often may cause perceived offense for some individuals or groups. This is in other cases not seen as a reason for censoring science.

More unofficial reasons for laws against "Holocaust denial" may be that the evidence supporting the politically correct version is weak and cannot stand open debate, that many groups have gained from and have vested interests in the politically correct version, pathological altruism, and white guilt and exploitation of such guilt. Comparisons have also been made with blasphemy laws. See the Holocaustianity article.

The term "Holocaust denial" and straw man revisionism

The term "Holocaust denial" instead of "Holocaust revisionism" is disfavored by revisionists since "denialism" is sometimes interpreted as meaning denying reality. Also, only some aspects are denied while other are accepted. In addition revisionists do not deny some events but argue that the politically correct version of what happened is incorrect. Furthermore, non-revisionists are argued to incorrectly deny, minimize, and/or ignore many events as described elsewhere in this article. The term "Holocaust denial" can be seen as a form of ad hominem.

This usage can also be seen as only one part of a more general straw man revisionism where what revisionists argue is misrepresented or anti-revisionists only replying to old arguments while ignoring newer research (such as only replying to the first Leuchter Report while ignoring later reports and arguments on Zyklon B derivatives measurements, see the article on Holocaust material evidence).

Agreement among Holocaust revisionists

Another example of straw man revisionism is by claiming that revisionists are extremely divided regarding what happened. Instead, most scholarly revisionists likely generally agree on what is argued to have happened, although they may disagree on specific details. The exception to this are a few who support Holocaust revisionism lite views, as discussed in the article on this topic.

"Conspiracy theories"

The first photo shows Joseph Stalin with the "Vanishing Commissar" (Nikolai Yezhov) in 1937 before Soviet retouching.

The second photo is after Soviet retouching, with Yezhov entirely removed. Also non-revisionist historians admit that the Communist Soviet Union had long "conspired" to deceive the genral public by using such fabrications and false propaganda in order to rewrite history before the war but revisionists argue that such fabrications and false propaganda did not cease with the start of WWII but continued during and after WWII.

Examples of revisionist criticisms of claimed Holocaust photographs: External link.

The revisionist version is often criticized as being a "conspiracy theory" which is implied to be dubious in itself. However, it is now admitted that the Allies made false claims of Germans atrocities for propaganda purposes and in order to deceive the general public already during the First World War. Examples include false allegations of production of human soap, false allegations of mass atrocities against the Belgian civilian population, and false allegations of hundreds of thousands Serbs being killed by methods such as poisonous gas.^[6][7][8][1]

The Communist Soviet Union since its creation routinely falsified history using a variety of sophisticated methods.

A common straw man is to state that revisionists argue that everything is part of an exclusively Jewish and carefully planned conspiracy. As noted in the article Holocaust motivations revisionists have instead argued that there were and are many different parties who would have had or have an in interest in supporting Holocaust propaganda for variety of different reasons. An especially important Holocaust propaganda producer is often argued to have been Stalin's Soviet Union despite the Jewish influence having been greatly reduced during the Great Purge before the war. Furthermore, all the Allies need not necessarily have planned the wartime propaganda together but may instead have copied, imitated, and added to useful propaganda from other Allies without any central coordination.

See the article Allied psychological warfare on topics such as secret Allied organizations engaged in "psychological warfare" and spreading propaganda (including black propaganda).

Furthermore, also the non-revisionist version involves a "conspiracy theory". Germans are argued to already in 1941 while they were victorious to have started to massively falsify and ignore their official communications and written orders and instead rely on secret "code words" and verbal orders. The Germans involved in the argued conspiracy also almost totally destroyed all traces of the millions of corpses from the mass murders ("Aktion 1005") and almost all incriminatory documents (but supposedly instead confessed the mass murders in recorded public speeches, did not kill the massive numbers of potential witnesses alive in the camps at the end of the war, and did not destroy the other evidence argued to support the non-revisionist version).

In the summer of 1944 Soviet Union forces reached the the first concentration camp, Majdanek. There they found, according to revisionists, crematories, delousing chambers, and cans of Zyklon B, which had been used to save lives but which were turned by Soviet propaganda into their opposite. The Soviet Union also released photos of skeletons laying next to cremation furnaces (which must have been staged according to revisionists since cremation would not have produced such a result). Germans (not part of the alleged Aktion 1005) did destroy crematories after this but this is argued to be due to a likely desire to avoid similar future false propaganda. Also, at Auschwitz neither the alleged gas chambers or a massive amount of camp documents were destroyed and the remaining prison population (potential witnesses) was not killed (in particular, the Sonderkommando members allegedly working in the gas chambers were not killed). This is argued to demonstrate that the purpose was to prevent Soviet crematoria propaganda but not to conceal the existence of the alleged mass gassings.^[1][9]

Regarding individuals who, for example, may have used coercive methods on National Socialists in order to obtain confessions, this must not necessarily be due to being part of a secret conspiracy but may have been due to a sincere belief that the Holocaust did occur according to the politically correct version and that coercion was needed to obtain confessions from lying perpetrators. Similarly, even individuals who may have have fabricated/edited Nationalist Socialist documents must not necessarily have been part of a conspiracy but may have done so, for example, in order to ensure convictions of accused that were viewed as guilty even if clear evidence for this was lacking. Furthermore, possibly deliberately false witness testimonies need not have been due to the witnesses being part of a secret conspiracy but may have been due to coercion, personal gain, group gain, and/or a variety of other factors as discussed elsewhere.

Revisionists have differed regarding to what degree they see the politically correct Holocaust version as being deliberately fabricated. For example, some have viewed documents often cited as evidence for the Holocaust as fabricated/edited, others have viewed them as authentic but misinterpreted. Many would likely argue that much of the initial wartime propaganda was (like the WWI wartime propaganda) at first deliberately fabricated by various parties but that many others started to sincerely believe that the claims were true. Such views were immensely strengthened and seen as verified at the end of the war by the discovery of camps which did contain many corpses. Regarding the continuation of the wartime propaganda into the postwar period, some have seen this as deliberately organized falsehoods (especially by Stalin's Soviet Union), others as akin to the European witch hunts and witch trials which self-propagated into a massive movement in which many of the participants sincerely believed (based numerous "witnesses", "confessors", and other forms of "evidence") that witches existed and needed to be severely persecuted for the good of society.^[1][10]

Revisionist views: Overview and general arguments

The Auschwitz commander Rudolf Höss at the Nuremberg trials. Revisionists argue that he and others were tortured (sometimes by Jewish torturers) into making confessions that also non-revisionists now agree are false (such as three million being killed at Auschwitz) and that sometimes are absurd (such as using dynamite to blow up the bodies in order to dispose of them).^{[11][12][1][13]} See the article on Höss for more details.

What revisionists do not argue

Germar Rudolf has stated that "Most people have misconceptions about what Holocaust revisionists (frequently pejoratively labeled as “Holocaust deniers” or “negationists”) claim and what they do not claim. This is caused by disinformation spread by the mass media, some of it due to journalists innocently yet irresponsibly copying from others, some of it spread with malicious intend. The brief list below is meant to give you a brief overview as to what we revisionists say and what we do not say... Not all revisionist scholars might agree with all the points listed, but in general the broad consensus among us does probably look like this:"^[5]

Many earlier Holocaust claims have been admitted to be incorrect

Revisionists argue that many early Holocaust claims which were presented as definite truths have later been admitted to be incorrect. For example, during war crimes trials claims were made that that Germany produced human soap out of human fat and artifacts made from human skin. Allied prosecutors produced evidence to support these charges. Similarly, claims were made of large scale mass gassings in western Holocaust camps in Germany itself. Today, many of these allegations have been abandoned or modified. It is still argued that large scale mass gassings occurred in camps in Poland (and sometimes comparatively small scale gassings in western camps) but revisionists argue that the evidence for these claims is not qualitatively different from those claims that have now been abandoned. There were also earlier false propaganda claims of Germany committing atrocities during the First World War.^[1][5]

A 2014 revisionist articles stated that in 1986, experts estimated 1.38 million Jewish deaths at the Majdanek camp. Today the curator of the camp museum claims just 59,000 fatalities—a reduction of 96%. Prior to 1990, 4 million were argued to have died at Auschwitz. On July 17 of that year, the Washington Times announced: “Poland reduces Auschwitz death toll estimate to 1 million." The estimated number of homosexuals who died in the camps have seen a drop from 500,000 to perhaps 5,000.^[14]

See also the Nuremberg trials article regarding problems such as now admitted use of torture in order to get confessions and admitted document forgeries.

Argued admitted weak mainstream evidence

Revisionists have argued that some mainstream historians have in effect admitted that the evidence supporting the politically correct version is very weak.^[15]

Argued reasons for the camps and deportations

See the Holocaust motivations article.

Hierarchy of evidence

Revisionists argue that in courts there is a generally agreed on hierarchy regarding how valuable different forms of evidence are (the most valuable mentioned first):^[1]

• Material evidence (for example, gas chambers, corpses)
• Documentary evidence (for example, National Socialist documents)
• Neutral witness testimony (for example, by Red Cross inspectors of camps)
• Party testimony (for example, "Holocaust survivor" statements, trial "confessions", political speeches by National Socialists, and so on)

The evidence argued to support the non-revisionist version is argued to mostly consist of the weakest form of evidence (party testimony).

The following sections will roughly follow this hierarchy.

Revisionist views: Material evidence and alleged killing methods

See Holocaust material evidence.

Revisionist views: Documentary evidence

See Holocaust documentary evidence.

Revisionist views: Testimonies and confessions

See Holocaust confessions and testimonies.

Revisionist views: Demographics

See Holocaust demographics.

Revisionist views: Holocaust awareness

See Holocaust awareness.

Revisionist views: Fictional descriptions

See Holocaust fictional descriptions.

Revisionist claims regarding other claimed mass killings by National Socialist Germany

See Non-Holocaust claimed mass killings by National Socialist Germany.

External links

See Holocaust revisionist websites.

References