Is Holocaust revisionism (as opposed to denial) a legit topic?

Originally posted by christinaV
it doesnt matter if it was 6 million or 2 million,
did you see the pictures of what those people were put through?

What they were put through is terrible at any rate, everyone agrees. But let's
look at the numbers.

In applied sciences, there is sometimes a rule of thumb that a factor of 3 effectively
constitutes an order of magnitude (hope you can follow me here). That is, if you had
3 units of something, and multiply it by 3, you now have 9 which is approximately 10.

So in your post you are saying that an order of magnitude in estimates doesn't matter.
Where do you draw the line? Is there any line at all? If there were only 10 Jews killed by
murderous Nazis in WWII, would that warrant the creation of State of Israel?

reply to post by PuterMan


OK.

Heres my problem.

A lot of people died in the holocaust in WW2.

They were killed in an industrialised process. They were either lined up over pits and shot, gassed to death using carbon monoxide or hydrogen cyanide, or worked to death for the benefit of the Nazi war machine.

Now, be it 5000, 50,000, 500,000 or 5 million, the reason for their singling out, and the way in which they died merits rememberance, because it was one of the worst acts the human race has carried out against its fellow man.

I do not see,never have seen, and suspect I never will see - unless some smartarse reads this and decides to make the thread - anyone questioning the number of romany, disabled, homosexual, slavic, polish gentry, russian prisoners of war etc who died in the holocaust in WW2.

I do not see regular threads - to the tune of one or two a month - on ATS questioning the numbers killed in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, China, Ireland and the Soviet Union. In fact in four years I've only seen two other threads about a genocide.

Why not?

The answer is because no significant quanitites (if any) of jewish people were involved in those genocides.

The ONLY reason the holocaust numbers in WW2 are questioned is because jewish people were involved. If its not the case, why don't those other genocides come under the same scrutiny?

Now yes, people who choose to revise/deny the holocaust refer to those genocides and say "we weren't taught about them in school" and yet - think about this - they know about them enough to quote them and STILL they do not anally retentively refer to numbers killed, and question the methods of doing so in the same vein as they do the holocaust of WW2.

And what people who decided to play games with numbers utterly fail to realise is that the number doesn't matter for any other reason than to reinforce the scale of the atrocity, although they try and use figures as some kind of justification for their argument.

The act of what happened matters.

So - Is revisionism a legit topic?

No.

Its a pointless one put forward by people to reinforce their predjudices.

The minute anyone gets close to crossing the line and starts treating their fellow human as something less than cattle is the minute that EVERYONE needs to remember what happened in WW2, smack bang in the middle of the most civilised and advanced continent on the planet at the time.

Originally posted by PuterMan
reply to post by NichirasuKenshin

 

. Blanket repression of discussion is not a good thing and inevitably leads to suspicion.

That's my point. There's no such thing as blanket repression of discussion when it comes to the Holocaust. Thousands of Historians around the world work and research on the subject and there are allot of disputes about individual parts of the story, even strong dissent. Alas, none of these believe that it happened differently or not at all and that's after spending years in archives etc. doing research. There's no reason and no evidence for blanket repression of discussion. Review individual court cases and you will see that it takes quite allot to be dragged in front of court for writing about the Holocaust - honest research, new evidence and controversial theses are not repressed as long as they are made in a scientific, unprovocative, methododically sound way. I've never came upon a case of a scholar being indicted simply for researching and publishing - you'll have to jump the shark somewhere to be labelled a Holocaust Denier by historians.

Is revision legit,

Well here below is revision...

_The Times_ of London, July 7, 1966, p. 13. Letter to the Editor. THE DRESDEN RAIDS From Mr. David Irving

Sir, -- Your newspaper has an enviable reputation for accuracy, and your readiness to correct the smallest errors from one day to the next is an inspiration to your readers; but how can a historian correct a mistake, when once he finds himself to have been wrong? I ask the indulgence of your columns.

The bombing of Dresden in 1945 has in recent years been adduced by some people as evidence that conventional bombing can be more devastating than nuclear attacks, and others have sought to draw false lessons from this. My own share of the blame for this is large: in my 1963 book _The Destruction of Dresden_ I stated that estimates of the casualties in that city varied between 35,000 and over 200,000.

The higher figures did not seem absurd when the circumstances were taken into account. I had tried for three years to bring to light German documents relating to the damage, but the east German authorities were unable to assist me. Two years ago I procured from a private east German source what purported to be extracts from the Police President's report, quoting the final death-roll as "a quarter of a million"; the other statistics it contained were accurate, but it is now obvious that the death-roll statistic was falsified, probably in 1945.

The east German authorities (who had originally declined to provide me with the documents) have now supplied to me a copy of the 11-page "final report" written by the area police chief about one month after the Dresden raids, and there is no doubt as to this document's authenticity. In short, the report shows that the Dresden casualties were on much the same scale as in the heaviest Hamburg raids in 1943. The document's author, the _Hoehere SS- und Polizeifuehrer Elbe_, was responsible for civil defence measures in Dresden, it should be noted.

His figures are very much lower than those I quoted. The crucial passage reads: "Casualties: by 10th March, 1945, 18,375 dead, 2,212 seriously injured, and 13,918 slightly injured had been registered, with 350,000 homeless and permanently evacuated." The total death-roll, "primarily women and children," was expected to reach 25,000; fewer than a hundred of the dead were servicemen. Of the dead recovered by then, 6,865 had been cremated in one of the city squares. A total of 35,000 people were listed as "missing".

The general authenticity of the report is established beyond doubt, because within a very few days of receiving the first, a second wartime German report was supplied to me, this time from a western source. It repeats _exactly_ the figures listed in the above report, upon which it was evidently based. The second report, a Berlin police summary of "Air Raids on Reich Territory", dated March 22, 1945, was found, quite by chance, misfiled among the 25,000 Reich Finance Ministry files currently being explored at the west German Federal Archives. It was forwarded to me by one of their archivists, Doctor Boberach. I have no interest in promoting or perpetuating false legends, and I feel it is important that in this respect the record should be set straight.

I remain, Sir, your obedient servant, DAVID IRVING. 25 Elgin Mansions, W.9.

Source


And here below is the BS. that tries to negate that revision.

In the first edition, Irving's estimates for deaths in Dresden were between 100,000 and 250,000 — notably higher than most previously published figures.[17] These figures became authoritative and widely accepted in many standard reference works. In later editions of the book over the next three decades, he gradually adjusted the figure downwards to 50,000–100,000.[18] According to the evidence introduced by Richard J. Evans at the libel trial of Deborah Lipstadt in 2000, Irving based his estimates of the dead of Dresden on the word of one individual who provided no supporting documentation, used forged documents, and described one witness who was a urologist as Dresden's Deputy Chief Medical Officer. The doctor has since complained about being misidentified by Irving, and further, was only reporting rumours about the death toll.[19] Today, casualties at Dresden are estimated as 25,000–35,000 dead, probably towards the lower end of that range.[20]

Source


So what do you want ...........BS or truth ?

This are some very good summaries of the truth concerning the so-called holocaust on the web.

It is also a fact that one cannot link to some very good material because of censors. Therefore, it is up to each of us to do our own research with an open mind, and be wary of the "official" interpretation on any subject.


.

reply to post by ken10


So yeah, what do you want, BS or the truth?

It has been established beyond any reasonable doubt that no more than 25,000 people died in the Attack on Dresden - not that it matters or that it's relevant to the discussion, but just for truth's sake.

geschichtspuls.de...

reply to post by NichirasuKenshin


Which is what Irving has said in his letter to the editor of the paper.......He PUBLICLY revised his numbers as facts became available.

Or do you only see what you want to see ?

This is an excellent book, and the first chapter here...

www.debatingtheholocaust.com...

is a great resource guide in its own right. Check it out.

reply to post by Stewie


Sorry but Thomas Dalton is a prime example of the kind of fraudulent, confirmation-biased pseudohistorian that I described above. He is totally not legit. If you're interested in where he lies, fabricates and distorts visit this link

reply to post by NichirasuKenshin


The first one - the book - quotes no sources and gives no evidence of the claims made. The second, the one you quoted, is even worse being a rambling rant with again absolutely no evidence offered.

Neither publication is worth the 'paper' it is written on. Neither publication adds anything to knowledge of the events that took place, and both would seem to have an agenda that is not aimed at truth.

reply to post by neformore


I know this is semantics but I do not hold with firstly the suppression of discussion, and the laws do suppress discussion no matter what any one may say, and secondly I do not hold with the suggestion that revision means downgrading. This is the point I was trying to get over earlier. The word has been perverted in its meaning. The problem is that this sort of thing has become a derogatory labelling - and I am broadening this beyond the topic - which is aimed at belittling people and enforcing one particular point of view. This behaviour is not acceptable. I accept that what you say is correct but that does not mean that I have to accept that what you say is right. I will leave you to fit the meaning to those words. They are not as nonsensical as they may seem.

Peace.

reply to post by PuterMan


I don't know what your talking about. Thomas Dalton gets destryoed in the holocaustcontroversies-blog-article; they show him to be a liar and a distorter extraordinaire. I didn't link to any book, so I don't know what you're talking about.

You can't read the link I gave you and still believe in Dalton's intellectual honesty,....

reply to post by PuterMan


Please provide a source for your claim that the laws repress discussion. Do you have any evidence of a real discussion that was repressed by a law? Please cite.