Irving's War

From January 11, 2000, through March 16, 2000, an extraordinary trial captioned "Irving v. Penguin Books and Lipstadt" took place in London. The Holocaust was not on trial in London. Neither was this case merely about whether statements made in Prof. Lipstadt's book "Denying the Holocaust" (1993) about David Irving were false and defamatory. This trial was about the freedom to criticize bigotry masquerading as scholarship. This case was nothing other than a single battle in a war waged by David Irving to silence his critics.

In the sense that a historical event like the Holocaust can be put "on trial," the Holocaust has been in that position since the IMT trial at Nuremberg and it has withstood all challenges. The fact that the Third Reich engaged in the planned genocide known as the Holocaust has been established in hundreds of civil and criminal trials under American, British, French, Canadian, German and Israeli law in the half century since the end of World War II. None of the fraudulent allegations of the lunatic fringe which denies the Holocaust has even been established as worthy of belief in any of those trials.

We have a series of articles entitled Irving's War  by Yale F. Edeiken.  These articles do not deal with the issues, direct or indirect, of that trial. They are about the legal realities of the trial and reasons why David Irving failed to prove his case.

The Wannsee Protocol: Object of Revisionist Falsification of History

The Wannsee Conference - which was initially scheduled for December 9, 1941 but postponed on short notice - took place on January 20, 1942 at a suburban villa on the shores of Berlin's Wannsee lake. Chaired by Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the Reich Security Main Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt), 15 high-ranking officials of the German bureaucracy, the SS- and police-apparatus discussed the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question", while enjoying the lovely sight of the villa's gardens and the lake. It was only after the Protocol (minutes) of the conference was found in 1947 that the conference was named "Wannsee Conference" after its location.


The Holocaust History Project is proud to present a text based on a paper by Christian Mentel delivered in November 2009 at the memorial site House of the Wannsee Conference in Berlin, Germany. A longer German version is available here. An even more detailed German-language article with complete references can be downloaded here. In addition, the memorial site's multi-language webpage at www.ghwk.de offers a wealth of material, including scans of historical documents. For generous and invaluable assistance in translating the text and beyond, the author wishes to thank Gord McFee.

The Einsatzgruppen Reports (Ereignismeldungen)

Holocaust deniers claim there was never any Nazi policy to exterminate the Jews. They claim that no documents exist that are both unambiguous as to such a policy and unquestionably authentic. However, such documents do indeed exist: the Einsatzgruppen (Operational Group) reports filed by the units operating in the Soviet Union that carried out this extermination policy in the occupied areas. This series of questions and answers put together by Nick Terry demonstrates that the Ereignismeldungen (EM) are authentic and that the Einsatzgruppendemonstrably mass-murdered over a million Jews.

An Introduction to the Einsatzgruppen

Like every historical event, the Holocaust evokes certain specific images. When the Holocaust is mentioned most people immediately think of the concentration camps. They immediately envision emaciated victims in dirty striped uniforms staring incomprehensibly at their liberators or piles of corpses, too numerous to bury individually, being bulldozed into mass graves.

Those are accurate images. Those horrific scenes are real. They happened. But they are not all of the Holocaust. They are merely the end product of the systematization of the genocide committed by the Third Reich. The reality of that genocide began not in the camps or in the gas chambers but with four small groups of murderers known as the Einsatzgruppen formed by Himmler and Heydrich immediately before the invasion of the Soviet Union. They operated in the territories captured by the German armies during the invasion of the Soviet Union and, with the cooperation of German army units and local militias, murdered over a million men, women, and children. It was a story that did not end until 1952 when Otto Ohlendorf, the last surviving commander of an Einsatzgruppe (Einsatzgruppe D), climbed the steps of the gallows to pay for the more than 90,000 murders his command committed.

An article at the Holocaust History Project by Yale F. Edeiken introduces the Einsatzgruppen.

Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka, Holocaust Denial and Operation Reinhard

From the earliest days of their movement, Holocaust deniers have largely centred their arguments on the Auschwitz death camp. Surveying the literature which makes up so-called Holocaust Revisionism,  the obsession with Auschwitz is undoubtedly one of its defining features. Since the early 1990s, with the advent of the modern world-wide web, Holocaust deniers have taken to the internet to try and argue their case. Until recently, the ensuing online debates between advocates of Holocaust denial and their critics have likewise focused on Auschwitz.


Our friends at the Holocaust Controversies Blog have written an article that focuses on the Operation Reinhard camps, Treblinka, Belzec, and Sobibor, and the attempts to deny the reality of the murder at those camps by Holocaust deniers, Carlo Mattogno, Jürgen Graf, and Thomas Kues. They dedicated this work to the memory of Harry W. Mazal OBE.


The work is entitled, Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka, Holocaust Denial and Operation Reinhard: A Critique of the Falsehoods of, Mattogno, Graf, and Kues. 

Before the Wannsee Conference Expansion of the Combat Zone

Seventy years ago, in December 1941, Japan began a war with the attack on Pearl Harbor that was joined a few days later by the Nazi Reich with its declaration of war on the USA. Thereby the European and Pacific wars became a world war.

On January 20, 1942, fifteen high-ranking bureaucrats of the Nazi regime came together for a conference, which later would become known as the "Wannsee Conference". It was no longer necessary at that time to come to a decision about the murder of the European Jews because it had already been underway for some time. The hitherto disenfranchisement, persecution and expulsion of the Jews had been replaced in the previous months by the extermination of the Jews.

In the following article, which appeared on December 11, 2011 in the Berlin daily "Tagesspiegel", the Berlin historian Ernst Piper describes the beginning of the Holocaust. Piper is known for his biography of Alfred Rosenberg, whom he characterized as "Hitler's principal ideologue". We thank Ernst Piper for his friendly permission to publish his article on our site, as well as the English translation by Gord McFee.

The German version is available here:

http://www.holocaust-history.org/piper/piper-deutsch.shtml

The English translation here:

http://www.holocaust-history.org/piper/piper-english.shtml

What Holocaust Revisionism Is

This essay,  by THHP member Roger, a follow up to a previous article, Why Revisionism Isn't. I have been asked recently why THHP so vehemently opposes denial, and while the answer to me is blindingly obvious, let's look at it in light of recent statements from deniers. My thanks to David Irving, Germar Rudolf, and Mark Weber for making the matter so plain.

The "other day" mentioned in the Why Revisionism Isn't article has come. Holocaust denial is, always has been and always will be an outlet for irrational hate, using base dishonesty at every turn to feed inflated egos in an attempt to finance their lifestyle.

Read the full essay at: http://www.holocaust-history.org/revisionism-isnt/revisionism-is/

In the Nazis' Words

Gord McFee has put together a collection of quotations by Nazi leaders that speaks for itself. The common thread running through all of these quotations is the annihilation of the Jews. All quotations are from Nazi documents, books or speeches, and the German original has in most cases been provided.


The collection can be found at: http://www.holocaust-history.org/nazis-words/

The IHR at the Cross Roads

From its beginning in 1978 the Institute for Historical Review (IHR ) was in the forefront of the intellectual fraud of Holocaust denial.  Under the control its co-founder, Willis Carto, the IHR prospered as part of a complex of organizations with the common goal of propagating anti-Semitism in theUnited States.  "Liberty Lobby v. Dow-Jones Co." 838 F.2d 1287 (D.C. Cir.;1987) After Carto was ousted from his position, the IHR has been through a financial crisis caused by the loss of old followers and its failure or inability to recruit new ones.  As a result the current management of the IHR has evidently attempted to obtain new financing from the Arab states of the Middle East.


In an article at the Holocaust History Project, Yale F. Edeiken examines some recent history of this intellectual fraud:


http://www.holocaust-history.org/ihr/

Mazal Holocaust Library Launches Fundraising Drive

The Mazal Holocaust Library, the largest private institution of its kind in the world and long funded solely by its late founder Harry W. Mazal of San Antonio, has launched a fundraiser to continue its immediate work, executive director Aimee Mazal Skillin said. The 100K Challenge, begun Tuesday to mark three months since Mazal's passing in August, is being promoted on the library's Facebook page.

Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/Mazal-Holocaust-Library-launches-fundraising-drive-2285089.php#ixzz1f1S55GA5

General Semantics and Holocaust Denial

The challenges that the deniers apply to the generally accepted history vary widely in size and scope. For instance, they dispute the death toll at Auschwitz-Birkenau, resurrect early allegations about the Holocaust and Nazi atrocities that are now known to be untrue, e.g., soap production from human fat, and they claim that the Nuremberg trials were a sham and a perversion of justice.  Furthermore, they pore over documents from the Nazi era, and, disregarding any document that would further incriminate the Nazis, they find what might be an exculpatory document and seize on it as if its existence destroys the entire house of cards. The so-called Luther memorandum is a prime example here.

Looking at such Holocaust-denial tactics through the lens of general semantics, we can find at least three main shortcomings:

1. Over- and Under-Defining the Holocaust. The use of “the Holocaust” as an over/under-defined term, allowing for the “disproof” of victim numbers and atrocity stories.

 2. Extending the Definition over Time. The inability (or refusal) of the deniers to accept multiple time-based definitions of the Holocaust, as seen in their reading of the Luther memo.

3. The Two-Valued Orientation. The overwhelming use of the two-valued orientation in presenting the so-called revisionist version of the Holocaust, for example, in their allegations about Nuremberg.

A strong working definition of the Holocaust with consideration of its development over time, along with the exposure of two-valued orientations wherever they are used, can enable us to see the faulty logic on which Holocaust denial is built.

Andrew E. Mathis, PhD. Mathis examines this subject in a peer-reviewed article origininally published in ETC: A Journal of General Semantics, and reprinted with permission at the Holocaust History Project Website: 


http://www.holocaust-history.org/gen-semantics/

The Fuhrer Myth

An essay by Stig Hornshøj-Møller on how the source-critical analysis of the film "The Eternal Jew" was performed; what we learn by taking it as a source document on the decision-making process that led to the Holocaust.


he book of the Fuehrer-Myth has now sold more than 10,000 copies in Denmark, and there are negotiations going on concerning translations into English and into German. For the moment, though, there exists only a short description and a few key chapters of the book in English. We're pleased to present that material here.


http://www.holocaust-history.org/fuehrer-myth/

The Forensic Sins of Carlos Porter

Among the staple texts of those who deny the Holocaust are the writings of Carlos Porter. One of his articles "War Crimes Trials" can be found on the CODOH website. It claims to discuss the 1907 Annex to the Hague Convention dealing with the laws of war, and this essay is so highly regarded in the denier community that it has been cited by deniers as authoritative on the subject of the Hague Convention. A close examination of Porter's work, however, demonstrates that it is inaccurate both as to the text of the Convention and the conclusions that are derived from the distorted citations. This analysis will deal with both of those issues.


In an essay on the Holocaust History Project website Yale F. Eideken analyzes these inaccuracies.  The essay can be found at: 


http://www.holocaust-history.org/forensic-sins/

Final Destination Treblinka

As part of the greater Nazi effort to exterminate the Jews of Europe, the Treblinka concentration camp was second only the the more famous Auschwitz-Birkenau in terms of deadliness. With thousands of cattle cars stocked to the gills with Polish Jews converging on it day after day for months on end, its facilities orchestrated the annihilation of at least 800,000 of them, and quite likely more. All this we know from what remains of eyewitness testimony and physical evidence despite Nazi efforts to destroy both, and most especially train schedules whose 'final destination' declarations take on a macabre connotation with the understanding of what really occurred at the end of the line.


Massive and systematic executions at the Treblinka camp fell under the aegis of Aktion Reinhard (alternatively Einsatz Reinhard and Aktion Reinhardt), a facet of the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" (Endlösung der Judenfrage) devoted to physically exterminating the Jews of the Generalgouvernement of former Poland.


A article by Stephen Potyondi at the Holocaust History project demonstrates the evil purpose of the Treblinka death camp.


http://www.holocaust-history.org/operation-reinhard/final-destination-treblinka

Der ewige Jude ("The Eternal Jew")

Der ewige Jude ("The Eternal Jew") is the most famous Nazi propaganda film. It was produced at the insistence of Joseph Goebbels, under such active supervision that it is effectively his work. It depicts the Jews of Poland as corrupt, filthy, lazy, ugly, and perverse: they are an alien people which have taken over the world through their control of banking and commerce, yet which still live like animals.


Dr. Stig Hornshøj-Møller (Danish mag. art.) has been studying the film The Eternal Jew since 1970. He is the author of Der ewige Jude: Quellenkritische Analyse eines antisemitischen Propagandafilms ("Source-Critical Analysis of an Antisemitic Propaganda Film"), Institut für den Wissenschaftlichen Film, Göttingen, 1995. (This work is also available in a special free printing, which interested readers can order from the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, Postfach 1369, 53111 Bonn.).  he has an essay on the topic at the Holocaust History Project Website:


http://www.holocaust-history.org/der-ewige-jude/