David Irving

Wibbs · 25-02-2014 11:20am

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

He claimed disease and lack of supplies in the last months of the war led to most deaths

In the case of Belson and a couple of other concentration camps there would be some truth to this D. Germany was crumbling, food was running out and this would have obviously impacted camps more than the general populace. However to extend that to the wider policy and actions towards those marked out as undesirable by the Nazi philosophy would be simplistic at best.

Wibbs · 25-02-2014 11:35am

Mister Trebus wrote: »

The same point I raise about Dachau.

Agreed. However can you show me where any even half respected historian has claimed Dachau or Belson had gas chambers and were extermination camps? That was my point. Historians are not the problem, public perception and ignorance is and that goes across the board, from all sides.

Media doesn't help either. A good example of this might be Band of Brothers the series. Damn good set of movies for my mind and pretty accurate and faithful to the book. However when we get to the concentration camp scene it get's "political" for want of a better word, heavy handed. The men of Easy company find a satellite camp of Dachau(IIRC) and there follows a realisation that there's an extermination policy towards Jews. Problem being that in the book of the same name it's a small paragraph and this isn't mentioned, the men couldn't have known at that time of the wider policies that were largely hidden in the east and Jews were actually in the minority in Dachau.

Is this a conspiracy? No. Not even close. It's very common in media and culture to egg on ones own viewpoint in films etc "based on historical fact". A German would have written and shot a very different scene, a Russian another, a Pole... etc. Remember the US made film U-571 about the U boat and capture of the enigma machine? Total nonsense, though "based on historical fact" blah blah.

Mister Trebus · 25-02-2014 3:12pm

Wibbs wrote: »

Agreed. However can you show me where any even half respected historian has claimed Dachau or Belson had gas chambers and were extermination camps? That was my point. Historians are not the problem, public perception and ignorance is and that goes across the board, from all sides.

Media doesn't help either. A good example of this might be Band of Brothers the series. Damn good set of movies for my mind and pretty accurate and faithful to the book. However when we get to the concentration camp scene it get's "political" for want of a better word, heavy handed. The men of Easy company find a satellite camp of Dachau(IIRC) and there follows a realisation that there's an extermination policy towards Jews. Problem being that in the book of the same name it's a small paragraph and this isn't mentioned, the men couldn't have known at that time of the wider policies that were largely hidden in the east and Jews were actually in the minority in Dachau.

Is this a conspiracy? No. Not even close. It's very common in media and culture to egg on ones own viewpoint in films etc "based on historical fact". A German would have written and shot a very different scene, a Russian another, a Pole... etc. Remember the US made film U-571 about the U boat and capture of the enigma machine? Total nonsense, though "based on historical fact" blah blah.

Bit like the scene in Croke Psrk and the armoured car, in Michael Collins

GideonMcGrane · 25-02-2014 6:30pm

Mister Trebus wrote: »

They were revised as in my previous post.

Ah I see, so if the four million is down to one, doesn't this mean the 6 million figure is down to 3 million, or has maths changed since I were a young 'un

GideonMcGrane · 25-02-2014 6:36pm

Mister Trebus wrote: »

Indeed, but it does raise questions in the minds of deniers as to what else is "wrong" .
And I still maintain that the deniers etc are doing a service by keeping this subject "alive" and making people continue to prove or disprove aspects of it....the drop in numbers killed in Auschwitz is a point showing this.
Is is important that this continues and that deniers offer new debunks, possibly new, and that non- deniers refute them or not .
Prussian blue is a case for this on its own.

Nobody was gassed as Dachau, but I have spoken to many people who are unaware of this. There are plenty of ideas people have about this dreadful time in history and it is important that they are informed if what happened and informed correctly ...or as best can be done now all these years later.

I still maintain the holocaust was more than the camps....pity so many latch onto this part of it without exploring the wider crime!

Surely the important thing is that people know 6 million people were murdered, I think the details should not be picked over like this, 6 million gassed to death its that simple.

Mister Trebus · 25-02-2014 6:43pm

GideonMcGrane wrote: »

Surely the important thing is that people know 6 million people were murdered, I think the details should not be picked over like this, 6 million gassed to death its that simple.

And this is exactly the issue...6 million were NOT gassed to death, this is what I am talking about...it is important that such details are known and "picked over" as you say...
Deniers make sure this issue stays in the public realm, and that the details are debated and discussed...because there was a lot of misinformation around...possibly still is, on both sides...and it needs to be examined.
Was it Eisenhower who said that film should be made of the liberated camps because people , in years to come, will not believe this happened...think it was him who said that.

Reekwind · 25-02-2014 6:46pm

GideonMcGrane wrote: »

Ah I see, so if the four million is down to one, doesn't this mean the 6 million figure is down to 3 million, or has maths changed since I were a young 'un

Nope. The six million figure (for Jewish deaths) remains unchanged. Which is one reason why this is all a red herring

Mister Trebus wrote:

Bit like the scene in Croke Psrk and the armoured car, in Michael Collins

And how is people spreading lies about the Holocaust going to help dispel popular Holocaust myths?

It's just adding a layer of obfuscation - particularly when in the area of popular culture, unlike academia, it is not a matter of calmly "debating and discussing". In the former it is the loudest voice that often wins. Hence the denialist love of a public soapbox, or any such platform, that let's them sow doubt and undermine the work of actual historians.

Mister Trebus · 25-02-2014 6:53pm

Reekwind wrote: »

And how is people spreading lies about the Holocaust going to help dispel popular Holocaust myths?

.

Surely if someone says something about the holocaust that another deems to be untrue and they can prove it so; will lead to that particular myth being dispelled, or debunked, ...although I have argued with deniers before and have had little to zero success with them even when they are presented with "proof".

jonniebgood1 · 25-02-2014 10:36pm

Mister Trebus wrote: »

Surely if someone says something about the holocaust that another deems to be untrue and they can prove it so; will lead to that particular myth being dispelled, or debunked, ...although I have argued with deniers before and have had little to zero success with them even when they are presented with "proof".

You are going around in circles here. A historian disproving a lie about the Holocaust does not do anything to change the facts about what happened. Holocaust denial is a murky place where half truths and half lies are mixed together. Irving, the subject of this thread is an example of this where he collates his information and intertwines fact with his own elements of what many people interpret as blatant denial of the Holocaust.

What point are you trying to make?

Mister Trebus · 25-02-2014 10:44pm

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

You are going around in circles here. A historian disproving a lie about the Holocaust does not do anything to change the facts about what happened. Holocaust denial is a murky place where half truths and half lies are mixed together. Irving, the subject of this thread is an example of this where he collates his information and intertwines fact with his own elements of what many people interpret as blatant denial of the Holocaust.

What point are you trying to make?

I have already made my point in previous posts

jonniebgood1 · 25-02-2014 11:37pm

Mister Trebus wrote: »

I have already made my point in previous posts

In which case you can stop reposting the same ramblings again.

Mister Trebus · 26-02-2014 7:13am

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

In which case you can stop reposting the same ramblings again.

Hah, show me where I am rambling?
GideonMcGranes post proves my point exactly!

Wibbs · 26-02-2014 10:47am

jonniebgood1 wrote:

A historian disproving a lie about the Holocaust does not do anything to change the facts about what happened.

Sorry JB am I missing something here? That makes no sense to me. Historians(not your Irving types) have shed a lot of light on the history of these events and have "debunked" some of the more fanciful stories(people being turned into soap/gas chambers at Belson/Dachau) while shedding light on the wider atrocities of the time that may have gone unrecorded.

Mister Trebus wrote: »

GideonMcGranes post proves my point exactly!

To be fair I'd have to agree with this. G's post was as historically incorrect as it could be, regardless of whether one is debating the actual number involved or not. It massively simplifies a very complex and horrific set of events. It's the Hollywood version of events. It's not even that.

The problem with this particular discussion can be its hot potato vibe. It's a sacred cow for the west, that is bound up in too much emotion at times. This leads, or can lead to hyperbole, or even simple ignorance/mistruths, See above "6 million gassed" as an example. Worse it can lead to a blanket ban on debate about the details.

Personally I think this discussion gets far too bogged down in specific numbers. The basic and plain facts should speak for themselves. The Nazis and their allies from very early on and publicly declared open season on "undesirables" in their societies, chief among them Jews and Bolsheviks, but encompassing the "non Aryan", the disabled, the "antisocial". They cast a wide and repugnant net and many millions were caught up in that net and millions of men women and children never came home because they were destroyed by all means at the Nazis disposal. Anyone who can with a straight face deny that is in my humble and not very academic view a thundering fcukwit.

Wibbs · 26-02-2014 11:05am

I'd also add that with these events because of the actual horror of them there can be a tendency to accept all accounts as valid, or at least it can feel squeamish to question them. EG earlier in the thread Vasily Grossman's report was held up as an historically important and accurate account, yet it was second hand, got many facts wrong, inc numbers, methods, camp chronology, with a side order of a couple of clear impossibilities. Shaul Ladany's account of Belson having gas chambers(in which he was actually placed) another. IMHO It's that sorta apparent faith in some accounts that gives the deniers far too much leeway into the wider public mind. The "oh look we can prove he was wrong about A B and C, therefore none of it happened!!!" method of BS debate.

Mister Trebus · 26-02-2014 11:11am

Wibbs wrote: »

Sorry JB am I missing something here? That makes no sense to me. Historians(not your Irving types) have shed a lot of light on the history of these events and have "debunked" some of the more fanciful stories(people being turned into soap/gas chambers at Belson/Dachau) while shedding light on the wider atrocities of the time that may have gone unrecorded.

To be fair I'd have to agree with this. G's post was as historically incorrect as it could be, regardless of whether one is debating the actual number involved or not. It massively simplifies a very complex and horrific set of events. It's the Hollywood version of events. It's not even that.

The problem with this particular discussion can be its hot potato vibe. It's a sacred cow for the west, that is bound up in too much emotion at times. This leads, or can lead to hyperbole, or even simple ignorance/mistruths, See above "6 million gassed" as an example. Worse it can lead to a blanket ban on debate about the details.

Personally I think this discussion gets far too bogged down in specific numbers. The basic and plain facts should speak for themselves. The Nazis and their allies from very early on and publicly declared open season on "undesirables" in their societies, chief among them Jews and Bolsheviks, but encompassing the "non Aryan", the disabled, the "antisocial". They cast a wide and repugnant net and many millions were caught up in that net and millions of men women and children never came home because they were destroyed by all means at the Nazis disposal. Anyone who can with a straight face deny that is in my humble and not very academic view a thundering fcukwit.

This is a superb post

jonniebgood1 · 26-02-2014 1:59pm

Wibbs wrote: »

Originally Posted by jonniebgood1

A historian disproving a lie about the Holocaust does not do anything to change the facts about what happened.

Sorry JB am I missing something here? That makes no sense to me. Historians(not your Irving types) have shed a lot of light on the history of these events and have "debunked" some of the more fanciful stories(people being turned into soap/gas chambers at Belson/Dachau) while shedding light on the wider atrocities of the time that may have gone unrecorded.
.

The history of these events does not change because somebody invents a story about soap (to use example given). Thousands of people died at Belsen- this is a fact and is widely recorded and recognised. If a person says (or comes up with a theory) that there was a gas chamber at Belsen and a Historian then disproves this, it does not change the fact that thousands of people died at Belsen. Neither does it uncover any new historical data about Belsen as this data is already well explored. With respect I think that is clear?

jonniebgood1 · 26-02-2014 2:08pm

Wibbs wrote: »

I'd also add that with these events because of the actual horror of them there can be a tendency to accept all accounts as valid, or at least it can feel squeamish to question them. EG earlier in the thread Vasily Grossman's report was held up as an historically important and accurate account, yet it was second hand, got many facts wrong, inc numbers, methods, camp chronology, with a side order of a couple of clear impossibilities. Shaul Ladany's account of Belson having gas chambers(in which he was actually placed) another. IMHO It's that sorta apparent faith in some accounts that gives the deniers far too much leeway into the wider public mind. The "oh look we can prove he was wrong about A B and C, therefore none of it happened!!!" method of BS debate.

To be fair I believe it was presented as a journalistic account (feel free to quote where it is presented as 'historically important and accurate account'). It should be considered for what it is, a first hand account.

Mister Trebus · 26-02-2014 3:10pm

Unfortunately first hand accounts can be the problem sometimes and leave the door open for deniers to use it as a debunking tool

Reekwind · 26-02-2014 3:51pm

Mister Trebus wrote: »

Surely if someone says something about the holocaust that another deems to be untrue and they can prove it so; will lead to that particular myth being dispelled, or debunked, ...although I have argued with deniers before and have had little to zero success with them even when they are presented with "proof".

Look, we can cut through a lot of crap here. Show me an example of where popular misconceptions around the Holocaust have been dispelled following denialist allegations.

Mister Trebus · 26-02-2014 3:59pm

Reekwind wrote: »

Look, we can cut through a lot of crap here. Show me an example of where popular misconceptions around the Holocaust have been dispelled following denialist allegations.

Soap and lampshades....there's two

Reekwind · 26-02-2014 4:09pm

Elaborate

Mister Trebus · 26-02-2014 4:15pm

Reekwind wrote: »

Elaborate

You know exactly what I am talking about ..,please, enough of the passive aggressive .
You know precisely what was believed about soap and lampshades for years, confronted and challenged by deniers and now accepted as not fact at all.

Mister Trebus · 26-02-2014 4:58pm

Reekwind wrote: »

Look, we can cut through a lot of crap here. Show me an example of where popular misconceptions around the Holocaust have been dispelled following denialist allegations.

Quote: GideonMcGrane
Surely the important thing is that people know 6 million people were murdered, I think the details should not be picked over like this, 6 million gassed to death its that simple.

And...
On this very thread....this guy is under some misconception for sure....

Reekwind · 26-02-2014 6:36pm

Mister Trebus wrote: »

You know exactly what I am talking about ..,please, enough of the passive aggressive .
You know precisely what was believed about soap and lampshades for years, confronted and challenged by deniers and now accepted as not fact at all.

And I'm still asking you to elaborate. Because I'm still waiting for an explanation of how deniers were the ones to force a rethink of those stories and how that has filtered through to the popular conciousness

And...
On this very thread....this guy is under some misconception for sure....

So all we need is more deniers to sow more lies and then such popular misconceptions will disappear? Because historians will be forced by these denials to pay attention to a previously ignored aspect of the Holocaust (ie gas chambers)? Really?

But no, that's not an example of what I asked for

Wibbs · 26-02-2014 6:40pm

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

The history of these events does not change because somebody invents a story about soap (to use example given). Thousands of people died at Belsen- this is a fact and is widely recorded and recognised. If a person says (or comes up with a theory) that there was a gas chamber at Belsen and a Historian then disproves this, it does not change the fact that thousands of people died at Belsen. Neither does it uncover any new historical data about Belsen as this data is already well explored. With respect I think that is clear?

Not really JB, though clearer. If part of the narrative about an event is discovered to be hearsay, this changes that part of the narrative. It doesn't change the wider facts, but it does change the facts within it. If historians hadn't come out and said "eh no, that was innaccurate" these "facts" would be believed. That said I note the wikipedia page on Shaul Ladany, still has this down as "fact" with no discussion I can see, so some work yet to be done on getting things right, in the wider world at least.

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

To be fair I believe it was presented as a journalistic account (feel free to quote where it is presented as 'historically important and accurate account'). It should be considered for what it is, a first hand account.

However it's not a first hand account, unless that definition has changed. It's a secondhand account based on some witness testimony.

RW said this back in the thread;

Reekwind wrote: »

Aside from being an excellent writer, Grossman is a good and genuinely reliable source. Any issues from his account stem from the fact that he was a journalist (and journalists, in any country at any time, are not historians) and not that he was Soviet

Incidentally, keep in mind that this was published in 1944 in sources independent of the West and already the gas chambers are being noted and their operation detailed

Passersby reading that might conclude, yep genuinely reliable source, but subsequent historical research has proven it's inaccurate on more than a few scores. Numbers involved are tripled, the chronology of the camp is wildly out(by a whole year) and the operation of the gas chambers is muddled and contradictory, never mind the tearing apart of children by guards and genital biting dogs(the latter is at least physically possible).

Christ lads and lasses I'm really concerned I'm coming across as a gobshíte denialist here and I am most certainly not. I do find it weird that in places clearly dubious source material is apparently accepted with no filter, or critique, even lauded as a reliable source. Like I said earlier if a report on Hiroshima bombing written by someone who wasn't there, listening to a few witnesses, claimed three times the amount of casualties, 5 different bombs and a date out by a year it would be added to the "interesting take, but not good history" pile. No way would it be deemed a reliable source. Put it yet another way, if Grossman's report was the only one in existence it would be quite simply wrong in many aspects of the historical facts we know today.

Mister Trebus wrote: »

You know precisely what was believed about soap and lampshades for years, confronted and challenged by deniers and now accepted as not fact at all.

No, not even close MT. You're again confusing the world of the historians and historical narrative and the wider cultural narrative world. GideonMcGrane's "six million gassed" is an example of the latter. It's incorrect. Not by much to be fair, if he had written "six million murdered" it would be fine. The other stuff, like G's example may have been believed and promulgated in the non historian world, but no historian of any repute bought into it, not after the 60'70's anyway. It was not considered historical fact. From pretty early on too.

These are however examples of publicly believed half arsed theories that deniers always latch onto and claim some sort of historian(or wider, usually Jewish/Israeli/New world order/smurfs conspiracy where none existed in the first place.

Put it another way MT, the denialists harp on about numbers being changed. OK, but is that not a perfect example of good historical research at work? If there was some mad conspiracy going on then numbers would have remained the same. After all the deniers would still be considered odd, or extremists, so no issue there.

People also forget that the Holocaust was largely ignored, brushed aside in the immediate post war years. Germany was vanquished but needed to be born again as good guys, a bulwark against the commies. Anti German feeling in the west was not encouraged. If there was any truth to the denier point of view then you can be damn sure the post war allies would have ran with it. Raul Hilberg who undertook the first real decent historical approach to the subject struggled to get his paper published and this went on for over a year and through various publishers. This was in the 1960's. If any conspiracy existed it was to keep the whole thing quiet, not ramp it up. The Soviets took the opposite approach and kept the anti German feeling going. Now when you consider that both sides of the Iron Curtain pointing nukes at each other at the very height of the cold war agreed over the basic facts of the period, this says a helluva lot.

Wibbs · 26-02-2014 6:47pm

Reekwind wrote: »

And I'm still asking you to elaborate. Because I'm still waiting for an explanation of how deniers were the ones to force a rethink of those stories and how that has filtered through to the popular conciousness

Exactly. One obvious problem with the theory is the simple fact that deniers really only got wider exposure on the interweb, so we're talking 15 years maybe. These debates have been going on and historical accuracy fine tuned long before that. I remember reading books in the 80's that dismissed both the soap story and the gas chambers at Belson.

EDIT I remember the ten million killed dropping to six million too, though as I've said for me arguing over the numbers is a sideline and IMH a ghoulish, even distasteful sideline. When you see a figure of 100,000 Jews dying in the Warsaw ghetto alone, starved to death, beaten, the "lucky" ones felled by disease in under a year and these were German figures. They even made propaganda films showing the "rats".

GideonMcGrane · 26-02-2014 7:23pm

Reekwind wrote: »

Nope. The six million figure (for Jewish deaths) remains unchanged. Which is one reason why this is all a red herring.

Ok, I'm obviously in over my head and I dont mean to harp on but this is rather confusing.

The figure of 6 million hasn't been altered despite the fact that the Auschwitz 4 million is officially down to 1 million?

Can someone explain to me how this is so?

Mister Trebus · 26-02-2014 8:21pm

Reekwind wrote: »

And I'm still asking you to elaborate. Because I'm still waiting for an explanation of how deniers were the ones to force a rethink of those stories and how that has filtered through to the popular conciousness

So let me ask you how many tonnes of soap were made from humans and how many lampshades were made from skin?

Wibbs · 26-02-2014 8:25pm

GideonMcGrane wrote: »

Ok, I'm obviously in over my head and I dont mean to harp on but this is rather confusing.

The figure of 6 million hasn't been altered despite the fact that the Auschwitz 4 million is officially down to 1 million?

Can someone explain to me how this is so?

Back in the 70's I recall a ten million figure overall. It varied quite a bit, except it was accepted it was many millions.

I'm probably way off here, but I think when the Berlin wall came down etc historians had much more access to each other and access to more records and documentation and the sites themselves(and witnesses too). While there were concentration camps throughout Nazi territory(and of their allies), the extermination camps were in the east in areas within the Soviet Bloc. So more solid detail emerged and what had been guesstimates to some degree became much more solid.

Just to add sometimes there is confusion about concentration camps versus extermination camps and often the two are conflated. Very broadly concentration camps were work/punitive camps for various types of prisoners, whereas extermination camps had but one purpose as the name suggests. Of course concentration camps inmates died/were murdered in their droves, starved or were simply worked to death, but it wasn't an automatic death sentence. Many more survived such camps. On the other hand extermination camps were essentially slaughterhouses and had significantly fewer survivors. Some camps were at times depending on the need for labour a mixture of both, Auschwitz for example.

Mister Trebus · 26-02-2014 8:25pm

GideonMcGrane wrote: »

Ok, I'm obviously in over my head and I dont mean to harp on but this is rather confusing.

The figure of 6 million hasn't been altered despite the fact that the Auschwitz 4 million is officially down to 1 million?

Can someone explain to me how this is so?

There are plenty if sites around to look up this subject from general ones to fairly in-depth ones

Try Nizkor
http://www.nizkor.org

Also if you are on Facebook a really good site to "friend" is the Auschwitz site , there is some excellent stuff there to get you going and it is pretty easy to get some info from.

You will have to decide if you want to visit sites that are more on the denial side, I would think it is important to do so, as it is important to get as much info as you can to see what's what so to speak.

David Irving

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