Deny the Holocaust- crime or no crime

[Brother None]

What proof do we have that the holocaust did take place? Do we have any proof that 6 million Jews were gassed?

Yah. There were, like, 6 million less jews after world war II than before it.

A coincidence, according to you. Ok then.

 

[Sander]

You overestimate the Nazi's. There was a brilliant generation of German scientists in the interbellum, yes, but that is hardly thanks to Nazi ideology. Nazis themselves were, obviously, usually of a lesser intellectual level. The whole lebensraum thing is a pretty obvious notion of that: the belief that any state will be more powerful when it has more agrarian land was already pretty dated by the time Hitler penned it down.

Secondly, the Nazi system was hardly tolerant of creativity or originality. A nazi europe would've gone the same way as the Soviet Union: once the initial generation dies out, an indoctrinational and traditionalist educational system would've delivered far lesser minds than the previous generation.

Thirdly, most of the brilliant minds of WWII were not, or hardly, nazis. Just think of all the great scientist that fled Germany, or military leaders like von Manstein or Guderian, that were disposed of by Hitler because they didn't follow his ideology.

Learn to keep things apart.

G.M. Gilbert disagrees.

 

[Brother None]

Seyss-Inquart was smart?

Well, he sucked at the whole ruling the Netherlands thing.

 

[Jebus]

You overestimate the Nazi's. There was a brilliant generation of German scientists in the interbellum, yes, but that is hardly thanks to Nazi ideology. Nazis themselves were, obviously, usually of a lesser intellectual level. The whole lebensraum thing is a pretty obvious notion of that: the belief that any state will be more powerful when it has more agrarian land was already pretty dated by the time Hitler penned it down.

Secondly, the Nazi system was hardly tolerant of creativity or originality. A nazi europe would've gone the same way as the Soviet Union: once the initial generation dies out, an indoctrinational and traditionalist educational system would've delivered far lesser minds than the previous generation.

Thirdly, most of the brilliant minds of WWII were not, or hardly, nazis. Just think of all the great scientist that fled Germany, or military leaders like von Manstein or Guderian, that were disposed of by Hitler because they didn't follow his ideology.

Learn to keep things apart.

G.M. Gilbert disagrees.

While that doesn't disprove my points, that list is odd in itself: Dönitz, Raeder, etc. etc. weren't even members of the Nazi party; people like Schacht, Raeder and Von Papen even publicly expressed their disagreements with nazi ideologies, and some people - like Seyss-Inquart, for example, fucked up almost everything they did.

Odd study, if you ask me.

 

[KQX]

I was wondering when this topic would be come up.

There is a very similar controversy present in my university. Arthur Butz, an associate professor of electrical engineering, wrote many articles and a book denying the Holocaust. Recently, he spoke out in support of Iranian President when he also claimed the Holocaust never took place. Butz's views can be read on his website (which is located on the University's official site carrying a .edu extension)

His recent claims were published by the student newspaper and also by the Chicago Tribune. This created a major uproar among certain students and other groups. Many students protested and urged students to boycott his classes as well as requesting that he be fired for his claims.

The president of the university responded by sending out this message:

Northwestern University Associate Professor Arthur Butz recently issued a statement commending Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s assertion that the Holocaust never happened. Butz is a Holocaust denier who has made similar assertions previously. His latest statement, like his earlier writings and pronouncements, is a contemptible insult to all decent and feeling people. While I hope everyone understands that Butz’s opinions are his own and in no way represent the views of the University or me personally, his reprehensible opinions on this issue are an embarrassment to Northwestern.

There is no question that the Holocaust is a well-documented historical fact. The University has a professorship in Holocaust Studies endowed by the Holocaust Educational Foundation. Northwestern offers courses in Holocaust Studies and organizes conferences of academic scholars who teach in areas relating to the Holocaust. In addition, Northwestern hosts a summer Institute for Holocaust and Jewish Civilization. And most recently, a fellowship in the political science department has been established in my name by the Holocaust Educational Foundation. In short, Northwestern University has contributed significantly to the scholarly research of the Holocaust and remains committed to doing so.

Butz is a tenured associate professor in electrical engineering. Like all faculty members, he is entitled to express his personal views, including on his personal web pages, as long as he does not represent such opinions as the views of the University. Butz has made clear that his opinions are his own and at no time has he discussed those views in class or made them part of his class curriculum. Therefore, we cannot take action based on the content of what Butz says regarding the Holocaust – however odious it may be – without undermining the vital principle of intellectual freedom that all academic institutions serve to protect.

Like the majority of the students and the president i do consider this professors to be an embarrassment. However at the same time i do not support many other students who criticize the school's president for not firing him and the school news paper for publishing Butz's claims. The Anti Defamation League said that “The Daily [the school newspaper] is wrong to argue that Holocaust denial is not hateful” and that “Holocaust denial is offensive.” Well, ADL, way to state the obvious. Of course it’s hateful and offensive. How can anyone deny that? But none of this has to do with freedom of speech and press. IMO, one of the most critical aspects of freedom of speech is protecting speech that’s hard to hear. This of course will allow a whole bunch of hate speech to go by unpunished (or in this case, just plain stupid speech), but i consider restricting speech of any kind to be far more dangerous. I choose to accept that I will be exposed to potentially offensive material since I choose to continue living in a free society.

they should be forced to wear a giant sandwich-board sign which reads "I am an utter idiot who can not understand concepts like "evidence" and "witnesses" and I completely lack the ability to comprehend the world around me", or something to that effect, for the duration of the sentence.

You know, i think that free speech already does this. By giving everyone a voice you are allowing them to show their true face. This is far more effective in reducing credibility to those who deserve it and preventing harms than restricting speech.

But this argument is, i think, primarily addressed to the issue of government and free speech. In this case, we are dealing with speech in a private university. Do the rules change in this situation? I would say no, but i think some students make a strong opposing claim.

A group of student protesters made this web site in which they claim:

We do not wish to silence Butz for what he says but rather for where he is saying it. If Butz wants to deny historical fact, so be it. We are not claiming he has no right to his denial. Free speech, however, does not necessarily apply to this case. In a private university, the First Amendment holds up only to a certain extent. Butz has passed that extent. As a private university, Northwestern sets standards of conduct that employees must adhere to. This includes upholding the principles of the academic and intellectual system and maintaining a safe and intelligent environment. Butz, a professor who should pride himself on accurate information, is spreading lies via his Northwestern-based web site and, most recently, a column in The Daily Northwestern. These comments incite a range of emotions from disgust to embarrassment to sadness to anger. This is not the demeanor a Northwestern professor should demonstrate.

I have to admit, i'm a little surprised that Prof. Butz is allowed to publish his writing on the school's .edu web site. If he claims his work has nothing to do with the school or with his occupation, then why use their web site? But bottom line, i say since he's not teaching any Anti-Holocaust classes, his writings and claims have nothing to do with his job.

So anyway what do you think? Should private universities censor professors (or anyone else there) with situations like these?

 

[DirtyDreamDesigner]

Pffft, this has nothing to do with freedom of speech, but the fact that any proffesor that denies holocaust is clearly too stupid to be teaching at a university.









Dumbass.

 

[Sander]

We do not wish to silence Butz for what he says but rather for where he is saying it. If Butz wants to deny historical fact, so be it. We are not claiming he has no right to his denial. Free speech, however, does not necessarily apply to this case. In a private university, the First Amendment holds up only to a certain extent. Butz has passed that extent. As a private university, Northwestern sets standards of conduct that employees must adhere to. This includes upholding the principles of the academic and intellectual system and maintaining a safe and intelligent environment. Butz, a professor who should pride himself on accurate information, is spreading lies via his Northwestern-based web site and, most recently, a column in The Daily Northwestern. These comments incite a range of emotions from disgust to embarrassment to sadness to anger. This is not the demeanor a Northwestern professor should demonstrate.

I have to admit, i'm a little surprised that Prof. Butz is allowed to publish his writing on the school's .edu web site. If he claims his work has nothing to do with the school or with his occupation, then why use their web site? But bottom line, i say since he's not teaching any Anti-Holocaust classes, his writings and claims have nothing to do with his job.

So anyway what do you think? Should private universities censor professors (or anyone else there) with situations like these?

No. In most other cases where anyone teaches a class and at the same time continues to make such claims as denial of the holocaust I would probably support such an institution in firing or censoring him. However, this is a university, supposedly the home of free and critical thought. To silence or even fire a professor for having moronic and reprehensible views on a subject is completely opposed to the very principle universities are based on, so as long as the professor doesn't teach this in any manner to the students, I say it's fine.
The reason he's using that website is probably just because, hey, he has the webspace.

EDIT: For a professor in electrical engineering he has an extremely poor grasp of logic, considering the fact that he should be very well-acquainted with formal and mathematical logic. His site is full of false analogies and reasonings based on unproven assumptions.

 

[Megalomaniac]

What proof do we have that the holocaust did take place? Do we have any proof that 6 million Jews were gassed? A few hundred thousand could have died from disease and infections (such as typhoid). It is only logical that dead people were cremated to avoid epidemics.

Nazi reports, accounts from survivors of the camps (including non-Jews), accounts from nazi-officials, the existance of such death camps and statistics.
Really, denying the holocaust is, quite simply, idiotic.

Holocaust is by definition an act of great destruction and loss of life, correct? I do not believe six million Jews were gassed to death; instead, I believe many deaths can be attributed to infectious diseases. Typhoid was very common, it can be caught by drinking contaminated water. And many people died from starvation. However, it does not suggest that a holocaust have taken place. A holocaust would suggest that the Jews were almost exterminated, which was not the case. At the time, population statistics were far from accurate. Death camps would suggest that no one survived them; I believe concentration camps is a better word for it. Survivors from concentration camps can only confirm the conditions in these camps. Many older people died only from the conditions in these camps.

If the holocaust did take place, then why is Israel not located in Germany?

Eh? What? This really doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

Well, think about it this way; they who supposedly were responsible for the Holocaust, why should they not also be responsible to provide the Jews with a country of their own? The Israeli government use the same method to remove Palestinians from their homes as the Nazis did to the Jews during World War II. But we can't expect Germany to give up part of their country to the Jews, or can we? This is exactly what has happened to the Palestinians, who are prisoners in their own country. Israel does not allow the Palestinian leaders to leave the country. How long was Yasser Arafat not a prisoner in his own compound? Israel even bombed his cars. The West is accepting Israel's state terrorism. Menachem Begin, the 6th Prime Minister of Israel was a member of Lohamei Herut Yisrael (Lehi), a terrorist group supported by David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first Prime Minister. The idea to move Israel to Germany was first proposed by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran. I'm not saying I agree with it, but I understand the logic behind his reasoning.

Most of the Jewish families living in Israel only immigrated there, and therefore, how can they have the right someone else's country? Israelis and Palestines lived in peace before 1948. Israel claim that they have the right to Palestine by God's will. According to the Torah, the "Promised Land" for Jews extend from the Nile to the Euphrates.

Where do Iran come in? USA and Israel fear Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Israel already have nuclear weapons! India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons, too. Iran and Venezuela are being supported by Russia. Hundreds of Russian engineers are located in Teheran, perfecting Iran's weapons systems. Hundreds of billions DEM (Deutsche Mark) have been paid out to Israel by Germany. There is a Holocaust industry, earning billions of dollars. The Simon Wiesenthal Center is a very well known Jewish organization, and also one of the most corrupt. Simon Wiesenthal claimed to bring war criminals to justice, but what about all the Jewish war criminals he supported?

Palestines and true Israelis are the ones who have the right to live in Israel. Jews are paid by various Jewish foundations to move to Israel, which explains why there are so many conflicts with settlers. Historical revisionism is very dangerous. But what about 50 years from now, will the history books tell us that palestines used to live in Israel? Perhaps a slightly exaggerated comparison. but then again, how far from the truth is it? No Israelis will be left alive to tell us about life in Jerusalem before 1948.

...
What does this have to do with the subject at hand? 'Israel is teh evil!' isn't relevant at all.

These facts are relevant to the discussion at hand. Israel are responsible for a large number of massacres on Palestinians. Just like the USA, Israel are experts at historical revisionism. You judge a man by his actions, and the same way I judge a country by it's actions. I know how much money is at stake here. Israel have an interest in remaining the victim. Many Palestinians have lost their belongings, and yet they are given no money from the Israeli government.

What proof do we have that the holocaust did take place?

Take a little trip and visit our beautiful country.

I had a neighbour that was imprisoned in Auschwitz for a year. He didn't get exterminated right away, because he was a doctor, and the nazis were in need of trained personnel amongst prisoners. He regularly woke up screaming in the middle of the night, at the memory of what he saw at that time.

Also. Whereas I agree that some Jewish organizations have abused the holocaust's name to justify questionable actions solely by its existance, it's moronic to dismiss the fact that it took place. It's all easy to babble about shit you don't have a clue about when you live thousands of kilometers away from where it happened.

Following the same "logic", I could deny the Tutsi genocide saying human aid organizations in Africa are corrupt "and that they all probably died from malaria or something and, uuh the media, yeah, were paid and stuff".

Imbecile. Get a clue or put a plug on your mental diahrrea orifice

I have already been to Poland, thank you very much. I have relatives from both sides of the family that died in German concentration camps. My grandmother lost most of her older relatives but her father, who was a high-ranking army officer. I've no doubt that people went through horrible things during the war. When did I say that I live thousands of kilometers away from where it happened? Let's not draw any conclusions. I forgive you, Wooz. However, I think it can be debated whether a holocaust of Jews have occurred.

 

[Wooz]

I forgive you, Wooz.

Quote of the year.

 

[Sander]

Holocaust is by definition an act of great destruction and loss of life, correct? I do not believe six million Jews were gassed to death; instead, I believe many deaths can be attributed to infectious diseases. Typhoid was very common, it can be caught by drinking contaminated water. And many people died from starvation. However, it does not suggest that a holocaust have taken place. A holocaust would suggest that the Jews were almost exterminated, which was not the case. At the time, population statistics were far from accurate. Death camps would suggest that no one survived them; I believe concentration camps is a better word for it. Survivors from concentration camps can only confirm the conditions in these camps. Many older people died only from the conditions in these camps.

The Netherlands had a very accurate administrative system in place, one that greatly helped the Nazis in rounding up Jews. Numbers from this website indicate that the result was that 15% of Jews present in the Netherlands before the war survived that war. 85% dead cannot sanely be attributed just to typhoid and 'conditions'.
Also, what you may seem to forget, one popular method of getting rid of Jews and other prisoners was to work them to death, because then, at least, they did something productive.

Well, think about it this way; they who supposedly were responsible for the Holocaust, why should they not also be responsible to provide the Jews with a country of their own? The Israeli government use the same method to remove Palestinians from their homes as the Nazis did to the Jews during World War II. But we can't expect Germany to give up part of their country to the Jews, or can we? This is exactly what has happened to the Palestinians, who are prisoners in their own country. Israel does not allow the Palestinian leaders to leave the country. How long was Yasser Arafat not a prisoner in his own compound? Israel even bombed his cars. The West is accepting Israel's state terrorism. Menachem Begin, the 6th Prime Minister of Israel was a member of Lohamei Herut Yisrael (Lehi), a terrorist group supported by David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first Prime Minister. The idea to move Israel to Germany was first proposed by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran. I'm not saying I agree with it, but I understand the logic behind his reasoning.

And what does this have to do with the validity of the holocaust and outlawing claims to the contrary? Whether or not Israel is on the wrong path or is a valid country at all has jack shit to do with whether Nazis killed those Jews or not. It's a completely seperate issue, completely irrelevant here.

These facts are relevant to the discussion at hand. Israel are responsible for a large number of massacres on Palestinians. Just like the USA, Israel are experts at historical revisionism. You judge a man by his actions, and the same way I judge a country by it's actions. I know how much money is at stake here. Israel have an interest in remaining the victim. Many Palestinians have lost their belongings, and yet they are given no money from the Israeli government.

Just saying that it's relevant doesn't actually make it relevant. Whether or not Israel is actually perpetrating any 'evil acts' has nothing to do with the holocaust and whether or not denying it should be punishable. I don't really see why you're trying to discuss Israel's actions here, while this discussion is about people from outside Israel and there critique of something that happened before Israel even really existed. This is an issue about free speech, not about the evils of Israel.

I have already been to Poland, thank you very much. I have relatives from both sides of the family that died in German concentration camps. My grandmother lost most of her older relatives but her father, who was a high-ranking army officer. I've no doubt that people went through horrible things during the war. When did I say that I live thousands of kilometers away from where it happened? Let's not draw any conclusions. I forgive you, Wooz. However, I think it can be debated whether a holocaust of Jews have occurred.

Then where do you live?

 

[Kamikaze]

I don't care. However I am AGAINST it being ILLEGAL but FOR killing the deniers.

 

[Lord 342]

I suppose the Holocaust is an act of war if you consider the concept of total war. But nobody wants to consider that because total war is UGLY. Burn buildings, rape the women, kill the men and children, sow the land with salt, that sort of thing. It breaks the will of the enemy and, hopefully, brings a swift end to conflict. Hitler didn't do it because he wanted to break anyone's will or end a war (Although I'm sure he would've loved it if everyone surrendered to him), but I understand the idea of total war. It was part of his goal. The notion of "war crimes" is preposterous IMHO, it's WAR, it's supposed to be bad. Yes, the holocaust happened, yes it was despicable and evil, but I don't see what is so wrong about being boneheaded and denying it. The scale is in my mind in debate, but it was definitely a grand scale as evidenced by photographs, film, and records.

Basically my point is that it was an act of war, and that giving it any special status makes it too easy to use it as a club to beat people with.

Re: Israel: I don't know why the west stands with them and I'm not proud of it, but we stand with other vile regimes and I suppose it's a neccesity of modern national relations to have allies who you wouldn't trust behind your back, but we seem to carry on about Israel as if they were completely innocuous and civil. What they do today is the same thing I said earlier: mistreatment breeds mistreatment. We can thank Hitler for Israel.

 

[Wooz]

I suppose the Holocaust is an act of war if you consider the concept of total war. But nobody wants to consider that because total war is UGLY. Burn buildings, rape the women, kill the men and children, sow the land with salt, that sort of thing.

That's different. We're talking about pseudo-rational, systematic, morally-justified extermination of undesirable people, everywhere, INCLUDING YOUR OWN COUNTRY.

but I understand the idea of total war

That has little to do with "total war", a concept unknown until WW2 in any case, since previous wars didn't label civilians as direct military targets.

Hell, even WW1 was still fought in battlefields.

And no, the main reason for "total war" is to break supply lines and production. There is a reason why Hiroshima and Nagasaki were wiped off the map instead of Tokyo.

 

[Jebus]

I suppose the Holocaust is an act of war if you consider the concept of total war. But nobody wants to consider that because total war is UGLY. Burn buildings, rape the women, kill the men and children, sow the land with salt, that sort of thing. It breaks the will of the enemy and, hopefully, brings a swift end to conflict. Hitler didn't do it because he wanted to break anyone's will or end a war (Although I'm sure he would've loved it if everyone surrendered to him), but I understand the idea of total war. It was part of his goal.

Nope.

For one, the 'Jews' did not pose any military or other value why there would be a reason to exterminate them to progress the war effort. The genocide on the Armenians could, perhaps, be considered an act of war: they were severely sabotaging the Ottomans war effort, and hence the Ottoman government took horrible measures. The 'Jews', as a group, were not even organised, let alone they hampered the military machine in any way.

Secondly, the OKW did not use the scorched earth tactic, simply because the scorched earth tactic does not fit with the Blitzkrieg strategy. The goal for the Germans was to capture enemy industry and use it for their war effort as quick as possible, to grow stronger while they weaken the enemy as they go along.

Thirdly, I don't see how murdering a your own citizens or citizens of nations you have already defeated would help the war effort agaisnt the allies or the Soviet Union in any way.

The notion of "war crimes" is preposterous IMHO, it's WAR, it's supposed to be bad.
[...]
Basically my point is that it was an act of war, and that giving it any special status makes it too easy to use it as a club to beat people with.

Yes, war is always terrible, but is in no way a cover for acts of genocide out of personal hatred. War is war, yes, but genocide is not war. The holocaust had nothing to do with WWII. It had everything to do with bloodcrazed maniacs and their perverted political beliefs.

Hence, it is a war crime - because the Nazi government used the power the war gave them to do it.

What they do today is the same thing I said earlier: mistreatment breeds mistreatment. We can thank Hitler for Israel.

That's an amazing warp of logic.

So while the whole of Europe got pacifist and hippy after WWII, only the jews became bellligerent and agressive?

 

[Montez]

You can debate the holocaust all you want, but it doesn't change the facts. The Nazi's had concentration camps where prisoners were starved and worked to death while festering in disease, and they had extermination camps where the people too weak to do slave labor were killed either through ovens or Zyklon-B or firing squads. These are documented, incontrovertible facts. At the end of the war, approximately 6 million jews were dead because of this. Whether or not you dispute the use of the term "holocaust" to describe this does not change those facts - all it does is make you look like an idiot, or else a racist who is too cowardly to openly admit to his racism.

Edit: This thread reminds me of Mr. Show

"You say we killed 24 jews.... this is an exaggeration..."

 

[Lord 342]

Jebus: Hitler's plan to exterminate the Jews was part of his ultimate goal of creating a master race. It certainly doesn't make it right or justifiable, but it makes it his goal. Innocents died. It's either war or a crime, but as far as I'm concerned it can't be both. Hitler was the only one willing to wage total war, hence all the atrocities that we can attribute to him. You can't set down a nice, polite, sporting limit on total war because the whole idea is that there is no limit and any means are used to achieve your goal, not just fight another nation. Hitler's goal just happened to be an evil one, hence most everyone turning on him and his deserved defeat.

Re: Israel: What I'm talking about here is that some of the people in charge of the creation of Israel and in charge of it today are affected by the mistreatment of the Nazis. Europe may be all "Passive and Hippy" but look at the rules in Germany about displaying Nazi symbols and such; free speech is stifled because someone long ago, among other things, stifled free speech. All this can safely be pinned on Hitler and Co.
Should Israel have been created? Probably not. (not because I think the Jews are/were undeserving but because of where it is... the can of worms is obvious.) But it's around now and I think we need to deal with it but it needs to conduct itself as a civilized nation now. I know that throughout history a lot of people have chosen to make the Jew their whipping boy and I don't know why, but I don't think it gives anyone licence to conduct themselves in a manner not unlike the very people who once treated them contemptuously.

 

[alec]

I'm not sure about that figure, though: 6 million jews? They only found about 3 million corpses, you know. The other 3 million can't just have gone up in smoke now, can they? (Hehe, get it?)

And something else that's pretty funny: Zyklon B was developed by... a jew! Isn't that friggin' hilarious?



Ah well, I still think negationism should not be considered a crime. I'm sure postmodern thinkers will back me up when I say that history, the account of history, the stuff you find in books, documentaries, films, recordings and pictures can never be trusted. Sure: Photoshopping wasn't exactly hot during and after WW2, but what you see is never what it was/is. Who was that Frenchman who stated that the war in Iraq did not happen because all he saw where those subjective reportings on CNN? That's not a retarded statement. In fact, if you follow a certain train of thought, it is perfectly reasonable to say these kind of things.

History books contain lots of mistakes, flaws, 'coloured' information. I'm sure no one is exactly sure how many jews died during WW2. I mean, come on: did someone travel the globe and count all of them before the war started, and did someone travel the globe again afterwards to check that figure? That's bullshit. 6 million is most probably an exaggeration. It looks nice in propaganda pamphlets and it makes people think. 'Wow, 6 million, that's a lot, that's what they mean with German gründlichkeit, those nazis sure didn't fuck around, we better watch our back that a thing like that never ever happens again, let's invest in American companies so that they can get an economic boost, build a super army and protect us again when a new Hitler comes to power somewhere sometime.'

Pffft... I'm telling you, I've got it all figured out.



alec's statement of the day:

[1] WW2 did not happen! It's not because some books say that it did, that it actually took place. Hell, when I was 10 I read books about some guy called Sherlock Holmes, I even saw movies about him, but when I was 11 I discovered that he belonged to the realm of fiction. Talk about disappointment! From that day on I swore never to trust words again. As Jeanette Winterson wrote: it's all about 'Art and Lies', reality is - ultimately - a work of fiction. Deal with it.

[2] I'm willing to believe that somewhere between 1939 and 1945, a few million jews 'disappeared' or 'went up in smoke' as they say. It is however my opinion that these jews did not die in so called concentration camps, but instead that they climbed aboard giant space ships and fled this sad and lonesome planet to find their salvation on Titan, one of Saturn's moons.

[3] Hitler did exist. He started out as a painter, but soon discovered that he was way more skilled with words. That's when he wrote the only book he ever wrote: Mein Kampf, a true masterpiece which sold millions of copies. Mein Kampf is a novel (an thus fiction) about a man who hates jews and who wishes they all just climbed aboard giant space ships and left earth for good. Which a lot of them actually did.

I uh rest uh my uh case uh!

 

[Ashmo]

It's a bit moronic to attempt to disprove the Holocaust when there are more facts proving it than disproving it and those that can be used to disprove it rely on different interpretations of facts that were used as proof. Also, most of these interpretations tend to give Occam's Razor a nervous breakdown.

The Holocaust most likely HAS happened. The Holocaust (whether you like the term or not) is an established fact.

I wouldn't call it a warcrime because it began before the war and was not directly related to the war other than that it happened in the occupied territories as well.

Also it was considered a crime against humanity more than anything else. Taking it to territories you have occupied in wartime may have constituted a warcrime, but it already was a crime when it happened in Germany alone.

Further it didn't help the war. If anything, it made it more difficult by convincing everybody but the Italians and some other dipshits that it's a bad idea to let the Nazis win.
It wasn't a strategy to win the war, it was a retarded application of a retarded ideology that can only be described as ethnic cleansing.

In fact I'd dare to say that killing them was the least disturbing part of it. The concentration camps were a worse fate than being gassed IMO. It's not even as if the work the detainees had to do was at least productive or useful for the Nazis -- most of the work was just made up on the spot to keep them busy and weak and punished. It was entirely sarcastic and degrading.

Also it wasn't only the Jews who were sent to the death camps. That's why I don't like the term "Holocaust" so much. Ethnic cleansing by prosecuting a minority is one bad thing, but they didn't even stick to that. They also prosecuted homosexuals, political opponents (read: anyone who dared to say something bad about them and wasn't put against the wall by a firing squad) and people with disabilities. Jews weren't the only to be prosecuted for their ethnic background either -- the Sinti and Roma weren't Jewish.

Fuck the Jews. It doesn't matter that it happened to the Jews. What matters is that it happened at all. They killed millions of humans. The fact they were mostly Jewish doesn't make it any better or worse.

My condolences to every Jew who lost a loved one over it, but it would have been as bad had it been anybody else.

This is also why I twitch whenever someone points out anti-Semitism as if it were any worse than any other racist ideology.
Racism is bad. No reason to treat anti-Semitism any different. Anti-Semitism isn't "worse", it's the SAME.

That kind of favouritism only gives people all the wrong ideas and lastly leads to anti-Semitism itself by giving people the idea that Jews are being favoured.

Saying the Nazis didn't kill millions of humans is stupid. The facts say they did. And if they didn't directly kill all of them, at least they attempted to break their will to live and destroy them from the inside, which is possibly even worse.

Should it be a crime? Only if you know better.

I don't know whether a court should hold people responsible for that kind of thing more than any other public statement. That's probably down to national law.

However I think people like teachers should be held responsible for it by the institution that employs them, just like any biology teacher stating that "evolution is just a theory and not an accepted fact" and that there were a real dispute among the scientific world about it should (unless you live in 'Merka, where people tend to mix up stupidity with freedom of speech) or any geography teacher teaching that the world is only a few thousand years old, should.

Why? Freedom of opinion doesn't apply if you are supposed to teach the commonly accepted facts. Even if the world really was flat, you can't teach it as a fact until it has become a commonly accepted one among the scientific world.

If at all, the denying of the Holocaust should be mentioned as disputed, but that's it. Just like Creationism should be mentioned, but not stated as an accepted rival of Evolution, in biology.

Otherwise we should teach all the other religions in religion class or all the other possible pipedreams about the origin of species in biology, such as the theory of the Raelians, that we all originate from extra-terrestrials.

Everybody is free to have an opinion, but education should be based on what opinion is commonly considered as factually correct.

Not like that's the way it is, but that's the way it should be, if Enlightenment has taught us anything.

Otherwise we can go back to ye olde days when everybody only ever read the Bible, if they could read at all, and nobody gave a fuck about what might have happened a hundred years ago.

 

[Jarno Mikkola]

Otherwise we should teach all the other religions in religion class or all the other possible pipedreams about the origin of species in biology, such as the theory of the Raelians, that we all originate from extra-terrestrials.

Actually in my skull, at the religion classes they teach the basic principals of all the (major) religions, not just our own, and in biology it isn't denied that the life didn't come from the outhear space, it just is sayid to be formed from something, and it is theorized that it might have formed from the gases and lighting strikes and so on and so on. It is just sayid that we and all the other life forms have evolved from the same kind of single celled organisms.

The straight theories really don't give, but a guidelines to the reality cause they have endured the tests of times.

To me, Hitler use the Jews as an scapegoat as an excuse to get the peoples loyalism and support, "to shape the battered Germany in to an economical super power". From the devastated WWI's Germany in to an industrialized war machine.
Just like the soviet union killed the rich(the land owners and so on)
The Germany killed the jews.
It was a time for scapegoats, so the governments gave one that fitted to their purposes and didn't have as previously sayid connections and armed forces to back themselves up and were easy to blame.

 

[Ashmo]

Actually while he DID use them as handy scapegoats and would probably have failed without a scapegoat like that, it is very likely that he believed what he preached -- in other words: he believed the Jews were to blame for everything rather than just making that up to get into power.

After all he had been blaming the Jews way before he made it into the NSDAP and is said to have been very emotional about them in private as well.