Happy Valentine’s Day from the city of Dresden
by Paul Eisen
Tuesday, February 14th, 2012
The famous photograph where August Schreitmueller's sculpture 'Goodness' surveys the city
Today is Valentine’s Day. It’s also the middle of three days when, in 1945 the German city of Dresden was bombed by the Anglo-Americans.
On a visit to Germany with Francis (Clark-Lowes) I visited the city. We trod the tourist route so my guess is that we saw what Dresden wanted us to see. But it was only in the Altmarkt that we saw any public memorial to the bombing. It was a partially obscured metal plate on the ground which marked the spot where, to cope with disposing of the bodies, the citizens of Dresden had set up a huge funeral pyre. The inscription read:
After the air-raids of 13/14 February 1945 on Dresden, it was at this place that the bodies of 6865 people were burned.
Then engraved in stone
“Germany brought war to the world and here it was brought back to Germany.”
Not 50 meters away in the Kreuzkirche was an exhibition – “The Yellow Star” about the fate of Dresden’s Jews – and through it passed a long stream of visitors all shaking their heads in the now-obligatory expression of Holocaust-horror and dutifully inscribing their “never agains” in the visitors book.
How is it that not fifty meters from where 6865 of their own citizens were incinerated the citizens of Dresden chose only to remember their Jews?
Posted by Paul Eisen
on February 14, 2012. Filed under History.
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77 Responses to Happy Valentine’s Day from the city of Dresden
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Chester
February 15, 2012 at 1:50 pm
Paul, you hit the nail right on the head.
I have lived in Germany for 15 years.
It amazes me that while it is virtually impossible to turn a corner in a large city here without tripping over a holocaust memorial (nothing necessarily wrong with that in itself, the evidence of the deportation and murder of Jews is overwhelming, it was a horrific crime) there is virtually nothing commemorating the fact that almost every German city was carpet bombed, with hundreds of thousands of people, mostly civilians, being indiscriminately incinerated. This, together with the forced ethnic cleansing of one third of Germany’s 1937 territory and the mass rape of German women by the Red Army and untold other horrors amounted to the German Holocaust. Denying or minimizing this Holocaust carries no penalty. In fact it is only in recent years that the topic has been discussed in public at all.
It goes without saying that the overwhelming majority of Germans had no say in the direction and conduct of the war. As a people, they were innocent victims of fascism and war like everyone else.
While Germany’s war criminals are (rightly) condemned as such, in Britain they build monuments to mass murderers like Bomber Harris.
Paul Eisen
February 15, 2012 at 4:02 pm
Thank you for your comment. I agree with you wholeheartedly.
Whatever crimes the German government of that time committed, the crimes against the German people constitute one of the great untold stories.
Chester
February 15, 2012 at 4:50 pm
A German teacher told me that he had once taken a coachload of school students to England. When they got off the coach the locals greeted them with the Nazi salute.
He said he would not return.
Unfortunately this experience is not uncommon and it is unsurprising.
I notice that British TV schedules are still full of programmes about the plucky Brits helping Jews to escape from the wicked Germans. Fact is, I doubt if anyone in Britain at the time thought they were fighting the Germans in order to save Jews. It is all retrospective justification for an appalling catastrophe in which tens of millions of people died unnecessarily (including close relatives of mine).
It seems that in an age when every other form of racism (except Islamophobia) is condemned, Germanophobia is the (other) last taboo.
Paul Eisen
February 16, 2012 at 11:27 am
I sympathise. Being a thinking German child must be a strange experience.
Regarding Germanophobia, considering the state of the discourse, it is unsurprising that it and Islamophobia are considered legitimate, while other ‘phobias’ are not.
Somoe
February 15, 2012 at 11:55 pm
Too true. It is sad how the Germans are the silent victims, tho’ it is indicative of the way they are more weighed down by the collective guilt for the actions of the Nazis imposed on them by the victors, than by the suffering of their kinsmen.
Paul Eisen
February 16, 2012 at 11:28 am
My feeling is that the Germans do what they have to do – as to some extent do we all.
Chester
February 16, 2012 at 11:22 am
The good news is that the misplaced sense of shame and guilt is lifting, but at the same time there is little enthusiasm for imperialist intervention abroad. Even the limited deployment in Afghanistan was unpopular.
The kind of chest-beating neanderthal chauvinism and warmongering that you get at (for example) Harrys Place would be unthinkable in Germany.
The downside is the Zionist grip on the media here. A journalist cannot even get a job at the Axel Springer Group without pledging loyalty to the state of Israel. On the other hand, the bias of the press (in particular the tabloid press, i.e. Bild) is so blatant that no intelligent or informed person could take it seriously.
Paul Eisen
February 16, 2012 at 11:44 am
Well, the good news is certainly good. As far as the bad news is concerned, let’s just hope and work for better days.
Roy Bard
February 16, 2012 at 1:02 pm
This thread reminded me of an Indymedia thread some years back:
Commemorating bombings just seems such a bizarre thing to do
Paul Eisen
February 16, 2012 at 1:27 pm
Some points in response:
That something is taken up by undesirable elements doesn’t necessarily de-legitimise that ‘something’.
The citizens of Dresden at the time were, in my view, as innocent or guilty as the citizens of any town in time of war.
Finally, what’s bizarre about commemorating this bombing? A lot of people lost their lives and Dresden has become emblematic (and not only for ‘neo-Nazis’) for German wartime suffering – a bit like Ann Frank is for Jews and Deir Yassin for Palestinians.
Roy Bard
February 16, 2012 at 1:54 pm
I agree about the innocence/guilt of civilians – we ourselves know that there is little we can do to stop the ruling classes starting wars, and also how much manipulation is used by the ruling classes to garner support for the wars.
I could understand commemorating the victims of the bombings, but respectful remembrance of the event itself I find more difficult. Maybe its just semantics because of the tone of the article.
The anti-Deutsch movement I find very difficult to understand or relate to though:
Paul Eisen
February 16, 2012 at 1:58 pm
I just went to that Indymedia thread and found this:
Two points:
To the extent that the “It’s your own fault” is directed at ordinary Germans (is it?), reminds me of a very anguished young German woman who told me about Dresden “It was good for us. We had to be stopped.”
Also, what’s wrong with Dresden becoming emblematic of German suffering? If it’s because it’s been taken up by neo-Nazis, why have ordinary Germans not been able to remember their suffering rather then leaving it to unrepresentative extremists?
Jay Knott
February 18, 2012 at 5:12 am
Anti-fascists in Germany do more than ‘mock’. They hold up signs saying “all that is good comes from above” with pictures of bombs, Bomber Harris, Israeli flags, and banners containing offensive words for Germans from Britain during World War II. This is an interesting example of white guilt taken to an extreme: they are in effect saying it would be better if their own grandparents had died, and they didn’t exist. It raises the question of to what extent milder forms of left-wing anti-racism are helpful in opposing Zionism.
Paul Eisen
February 18, 2012 at 6:05 am
Why do you say ‘white’ guilt? Why not ‘German’ guilt?
And could you expand on your last sentence? What do you mean?
Jay Knott
February 18, 2012 at 2:43 pm
Gentile Europeans are just about the least racist people ever recorded, yet they still wear sackcloth and ashes. The Guardian the other day had five headlines on its front page with the word ‘racism’ in them. Footballers are subject to anti-racist chanting. This doesn’t happen in China, or Turkey, or Israel, or anywhere else. German guilt is an extreme version of this, because Germans didn’t just kill aborigines, they killed Jews. It’s an extension of guilt about our racist past. Without that guilt, it would be impossible, and Germany wouldn’t be sending submarines to Israel from which it could launch nuclear armed missiles.
Jack number 2
March 3, 2012 at 7:57 am
It’s now ‘official’ – there’s been no actual shortage of Holocaust survivors:
‘The Israeli Prime Minister’s office recently put the number of “living Holocaust survivors” at nearly a million’ (extract from The Holocaust Industry by Norman G. Finkelstein of the City University of New York, published by Verso, London and New York, 2000, p.83).
Paul Eisen
February 18, 2012 at 3:14 pm
You imply (and I agree) that Germans are held to be particularly racist because the objects of their ‘racism’ have been Jews – i.e. this is another manifestation of Jewish power. Do you feel that the same is true for all white gentiles?
Jay Knott
February 18, 2012 at 3:34 pm
No, Paul, I wouldn’t go as far as to say white guilt is a manifestation of Jewish power. Although Jews are over-represented in the left-wing academic culture which produced the idea that white gentiles are exceptionally xenophobic (Franz Boas, Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Lewontin, Steven Rose, etc.), this doesn’t prove ‘Jewish power’. Other ethnicities have their fair share of guiltmongers too. And the most ferocious anti-gentiles are gentiles themselves.
redscribe
February 18, 2012 at 4:06 pm
I don’t think people holding up banners saying offensive things about Germans from World War 2 and evoking Bomber Harris et al is an example of left-wing anti-racism. It is anti-German racism, very simple.
Insofar as the people doing this are actually German, I suppose they could be called self-hating Germans.
Mind you, I do think now that, talking of ‘guilt’, where people like Paul are concerned we are now seeing the birth of a new form of it that I have no doubt is very significant. Jewish guilt over Israeli crimes, not really that different to German guilt over Nazi crimes.
In both cases it is a comprehensible response to terrible crimes. But guilt is ultimately a barrier to rational understanding. And related to this, people who are consumed by guilt can be manipulated into supporting other crimes because their perpetrators are objects of guilt. The ordinary, simplistic view that ‘the enemy of my current enemy is my friend’ can be massively aggravated by guilt feelings, with tragic results.
Paul Eisen
February 18, 2012 at 6:44 pm
Two points:
1. I’m not sure that German crimes are equivalent to Jewish crimes. They may be, but accounts of German crimes have been so subject to propaganda, that it’s hard to make a judgement.
2. A personal point: I don’t think I feel guilt for Jewish crimes (truly, I didn’t commit them though, like any self-identifying Jew I do have supremacist feelings), but I do feel responsibility. Jewish ‘anti-Zionists’ feel neither because they won’t acknowledge their Jewish supremacism.
redscribe
February 18, 2012 at 7:36 pm
I would not actually call them German crimes. The German people were subject to a dictatorship, most of them had little choice in the matter. But more than that, they were crimes of people of a particular ideology and the perpetrators were not just Germans – they were of many nations. Though of course the core of the Nazi movement was German.
Nor are the crimes of the Zionists IMO Jewish crimes per se.
Not all guilt concepts are individual though. Germans today have a concept of collective guilt that embraces even those too young to have been involved in Nazi crimes, and even arguably those not yet born at the time. ‘Guilt’ and ‘responsibility’ seem to me in that context to be very similar concepts if not identical.
Paul Eisen
February 18, 2012 at 9:39 pm
I didn’t call them German crimes. I said that it’s impossible to know if they were crimes or not.
But anyway, Germans were (as much as any group of people can be) complicit in National Socialist activities. My understanding is that they pretty well adored Adolf Hitler.
If that’s true, then for me, the question is why? Were they all mad? Were they hypnotised? Neither of these seem credible to me.
redscribe
February 18, 2012 at 10:34 pm
If that were true though, why would they need the kind of massive police state machine the Nazis put together? The Gestapo, the SS, you name it. In fact, not only did Hitler not consider the German population reliable, he even considered parts of the Nazi Party itself disloyal, he had to conduct a major purge in 1934 to effectively destroy the SA which could not be trusted. They were the street fighters that fought it out with the left for Hitler; if he could not trust them, how could he trust the population at large?
There was a significant popular base for Hitler’s politics, among the large class of ruined small traders and the like, and the desperate unemployed, but there was also a large following, many millions, for the Social Democrats and Communists who certainly did not worship Hitler. That is why the regime needed a very fierce police apparatus, to deal with them.
It was a totalitarian regime, and very deep going. It did have a fanatical base among parts of the society, no doubt about that, it absorbed the earlier Volkish movement that was fanatically nationalist, and they were indeed pretty mad, but there were millions of people who did not share that. They had to be terrorised into conformity, and they were. That was why Hitler needed a dictatorship.
Jack number 2
March 3, 2012 at 8:00 am
Dirty Little Secrets – the hidden, awkward origins of World War 2 – the unexpected views of four key diplomats who were close to events
Just consider the following:
· Joseph P. Kennedy, U.S. Ambassador to Britain during the years immediately preceding WW2 was the father of the famous American Kennedy dynasty. James Forrestal the first US Secretary of Defense (1947-1949) quotes him as saying “Chamberlain (the British Prime Minister) stated that America and the world Jews had forced England into the war”. (The Forrestal Diaries ed. Millis, Cassell 1952 p129).
· Count Jerzy Potocki, the Polish Ambassador in Washington, in a report to the Polish Foreign Office in January 1939, is quoted approvingly by the highly respected British military historian Major-General JFC Fuller. Concerning public opinion in America he says “Above all, propaganda here is entirely in Jewish hands…when bearing public ignorance in mind, their propaganda is so effective that people have no real knowledge of the true state of affairs in Europe… It is interesting to observe that in this carefully thought-out campaign… no reference at all is made to Soviet Russia. If that country is mentioned, it is referred to in a friendly manner and people are given the impression that Soviet Russia is part of the democratic group of countries… Jewry was able not only to establish a dangerous centre in the New World for the dissemination of hatred and enmity, but it also succeeded in dividing the world into two warlike camps…President Roosevelt has been given the power.. to create huge reserves in armaments for a future war which the Jews are deliberately heading for.” (Fuller, JFC: The Decisive Battles of the Western World vol 3 pp 372-374.)
· Hugh Wilson, the American Ambassador in Berlin until 1938, the year before the war broke out, found anti-Semitism in Germany ‘understandable’. This was because before the advent of the Nazis, “the stage, the press, medicine and law [were] crowded with Jews…among the few with money to splurge, a high proportion [were] Jews…the leaders of the Bolshevist movement in Russia, a movement desperately feared in Germany, were Jews. One could feel the spreading resentment and hatred.” (Hugh Wilson: Diplomat between the Wars, Longmans 1941, quoted in Leonard Mosley, Lindbergh, Hodder 1976).
· Sir Nevile Henderson, British Ambassador in Berlin ‘said further that the hostile attitude in Great Britain was the work of Jews and enemies of the Nazis, which was what Hitler thought himself’ (Taylor, AJP: The Origins of the Second World War Penguin 1965, 1987 etc p 324).
Etc etc etc etc – more detail at http://www.rense.com/general92/dirty.htm
redscribe
February 18, 2012 at 9:26 pm
One further point.
“Footballers are subject to anti-racist chanting.”
I suppose this means that footballers believed (rightly or wrongly, that is a different question) to have racially abused other footballers get barracked by the crowd.
I tend to think that is rather better than the situation 20 or 30 years ago, when black footballers appearing on the pitch would be met with a barrage of bananas thrown at them, or with chants of ‘trigger trigger trigger, shoot that n*****.’
Personally, I think that is progress.
Jay Knott
February 19, 2012 at 3:11 am
‘Redscribe’ – I was being facetious. Shouting ‘racist’ isn’t as bad as ‘n*****’. But I’m not being facetious about the anti-fascists in Germany. They are just an extreme version of their equivalents in other countries. If you question the Holocaust story, they try to get you fired from your job, graffiti your workplace saying you’re a Nazi, and sometimes use violence, unless you agree to ‘unlearn oppression’.
The question is – what kind of hate is this? Is it just hatred of dissenting opinions, or is there an ethnic dimension to it? Is it just anti-German racism, or is there also a more generic anti-white European thing going on?
redscribe
February 19, 2012 at 10:42 am
Those are two separate questions though, the Nazi genocide and endorsing atrocities such as Dresden. It is possible to regard both as terrible crimes, and indeed to condemn both sides in that war as imperialist (which they were). I am opposed to criminalisation of Nazi-genocide denial on grounds of freedom of inquiry and conscience, and I think there is nothing wrong with debating with people who honestly disbelieve in the Nazi genocide.
But on the other hands, many (not all) Nazi-genocide deniers ARE Neo-Nazis, this is true in England and it is likely to be even more true in Germany where the original movement was rooted. In England, the fact that Nazism is German and hence ‘enemy’ is a barrier to this taking hold, whereas in Germany that barrier does not exist. So I am not surprised that many anti-fascists in Germany are very fearful of those who deny the Nazi genocide. They have good reason to be.
I have never come across any significant anti-white sentiment and don’t even see it as an issue. In England though, there are right-wing parties that are anti-German, such as UKIP, and they have a base and use the narrative of the ‘anti-fascist’ war to argue against a ‘German Europe’ today. That is what some German ‘anti-fascists’, usually Social Democrats, are echoing with this nonsense about how Dresden was justified etc. The SPD supported the allied side in WWII and after the war became an American-funded anti-communist force in the Cold War.
This has nothing to do with ‘anti-white’ sentiment at all. In England, you have have right-wing nationalists who hate Germans with a passion. They tend not to like non-whites very much either.
Paul Eisen
February 19, 2012 at 4:52 pm
Could I respectfully ask you not to use the word ‘deniers’ to denote Holocaust revisionists?
The word ‘denier’ is pejorative and suggests that revisionists are like ‘flat-earthers’ and ‘deny’ that anything bad happened to Jews in those years. This is not true and not fair.
Jonathon Blakeley
February 19, 2012 at 5:32 pm
Indeed Paul, you are quite correct. It is grossly unfair to label people as deniers. Whether it is Holocaust deniers, 9/11 deniers or climate change deniers. This is just a smear tactic. They are not denying anything, merely questioning sceptically the accepted and prevailing narratives of historic and current events.
redscribe
February 19, 2012 at 7:22 pm
Hm, well I have no particular objection to the term revisionist in this context, as for me they mean the same thing anyway pretty much.
Not trying to be rude to anyone, but regarding things like 9/11 and climate change, is that not in danger of just becoming another form of ‘politically correct’ language?
It is counterproductive when debating serious issues to be gratuitously offensive to someone, but at the same time people have to be free to say what they think. Otherwise you are just repeating the same errors as others make – changing language does not actually change the reality behind what people are disagreeing about.
Jonathon Blakeley
February 19, 2012 at 7:41 pm
I agree… people should be free to say what they think. Yet I do think language matters greatly. Words have a tremendous effect for good and bad. When the wrong or incorrect words are used it can mislead people whether intentionally or unintentionally.
But you are right they are just labels for the reality of the situation and we must not get too dogmatic about words. We must look beyond words to the real meaning behind things.
One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.
Paul Eisen
February 19, 2012 at 7:57 pm
Well, if you think the term ‘denier’ simply refers to someone who studies the Holocaust/9-11/climate change and thinks the standard narrative is gravely flawed, then of course, you should use it. But I don’t think that’s what it means to most people. I think it’s a term of abuse.
Jonathon Blakeley
February 19, 2012 at 9:00 pm
Agreed. Being called a ‘denier’ is equivalent to being called a witch, or a heretic.
redscribe
February 21, 2012 at 4:38 pm
Sorry, my post appeared in the wrong place. Should be here. Anyway, I said:
“One further point on this. What then can be said to people who reject the historical truth of the Nakba?”
Jay Knott
February 19, 2012 at 3:37 pm
“Many anti-fascists in Germany are very fearful of those who deny the Nazi genocide. They have good reason to be”. And vice-versa, Redscribe somehow omits to add. The harassment we received from anti-fascists in Oregon was not for denying the Holocaust, but for seeing an alleged Holocaust denier speak. He wasn’t even talking about the big H. Zio/antifa collaboration is common in the US. The antifa even shouted down Alison Weir of If Americans Knew, a Palestinian rights campaign. But in the UK, the far right are Zionists too. The left shouted ‘Nazi’ at them for decades. If you were the BNP, how would you prove you’re not Nazis? Support Israel!
redscribe
February 21, 2012 at 10:52 am
One further point on this. What then can be said to people who reject the historical truth of the Nakba?
Paul Eisen
February 21, 2012 at 5:15 pm
I would say to them that they’re wrong.
BTW, the Nakba, like any historical event, is open to various interpretations. The main issue is one of intentionality. Although I believe it was fully intentional I can see how somebody can take a different view.
When the evidence is overwhelming (such as the “Their leaders told them to go” story) and they still hold a different view it can get pretty annoying, and one may begin to suspect that they have some interest in promoting their version.
Regarding the Holocaust, the evidence for the standard narrative is very far from overwhelming – in fact it’s pretty scanty.
redscribe
February 19, 2012 at 7:13 pm
Well, I have to say that in my view, hostility to fascism is completely justified, whether it be the old type or the new type. The old type glorified Hitler. The new type being the one that takes Muslims instead of Jews as the enemy and supports Israel.
They are actually the same thing, in a different suit. It is a confusing metamorphosis for some, it can confuse some on the left – and some may even accidentally find themselves in the wrong place when that happens and political chaos reigns.
It may even confuse some on the far right for all I know, but in the end, behind appearances, the questions are the same.
The ‘vice-versa’ does not really make sense. It is fear of another genocide that I was talking about, not fear of some ruck at a meeting.
All the more reason to sort out this kind of confusion and clarify who is promoting a racist agenda and who is not.
That may also apply to some who claim to be anti-fascists if they are in fact promoting a Zionist agenda, as happened with the campaign against Gilad Atzmon in Bradford a little while ago, led by ‘Hope not Hate’.
Jonathon Blakeley
February 19, 2012 at 7:27 pm
Israel & USA are without doubt are promoting a racist agenda that demonises Muslims with the 9/11 suicide-bomber brush. Zionism and Nazism are very similiar but Zionism predates Nazism, has lasted longer and has become the prevailing theme underpinning our Western politics.
Paul Eisen
February 19, 2012 at 8:00 pm
My feeling is that I have very little idea of what ‘Nazism’ really was. Like everyone, from birth I’ve been told what the victors wanted me to believe about ‘Nazism. That may of course be true – but it also may not.
Jack number 2
March 3, 2012 at 8:15 am
Quote:
“Hitler, who was born in an Austrian village, frequently spoke of his love for France, and especially for Paris..”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/9088865/Hitler-had-son-with-French-teen.html
Britain and France declared war on Germany, not the other way around. Hitler wanted peace with Britain, as the German generals admitted (Basil Liddell Hart, The Other Side of the Hill 1948, Pan Books 1983) with regard to the so-called Halt Order at Dunkirk, where Hitler had the opportunity to capture the entire British Army, but chose not to. Liddell Hart, one of Britain’s most respected military historians, quotes the German General von Blumentritt with regard to this Halt Order:
“He (Hitler) then astonished us by speaking with admiration of the British Empire, of the necessity for its existence, and of the civilisation that Britain had brought into the world. He remarked, with a shrug of the shoulders, that the creation of its Empire had been achieved by means that were often harsh, but ‘where there is planing, there are shavings flying’. He compared the British Empire with the catholic Church – saying they were both essential elements of stability in the world. He said that all he wanted from Britain was that she should acknowledge Germany’s position on the Continent. The return of Germany’s colonies would be desirable but not essential, and he would even offer to support Britain with troops if she should be involved in difficulties anywhere..” (p 200).
Paul Eisen
March 3, 2012 at 12:48 pm
Some say that organised international Jewish organisations declared war on Germany in 1933. People may remember the iconic daily Express headline “JUDEA DECLARES WAR ON GERMANY”
How equivalent this is to a nation-state declaring war is for discussion.
But if it is seen as the same, it certainly puts a new light on our understanding of WW2.
Paul Eisen
February 19, 2012 at 8:12 pm
Redscribe,
Perhaps you could define ‘fascism’. Then we can discuss it.
redscribe
February 19, 2012 at 8:51 pm
Ok, I think fascism is a movement that is the final defence of the ruling class in this (capitalist) society against their system being superseded by a historical successor. Its real aim is to make that impossible by destroying the existing collective organisations that have that potential – mainly working class organisations such as trade unions and working class political parties.
It is no accident that Hitler came to power in the midst of the greatest economic crisis (so far) in the history of capitalism. I do not think that the crisis that we are going through now, severe as it is, is as extreme as in the 1930s. But there are similarities.
As capitalism goes into such a major crisis, it tends to divide into two camps – one centred around the working class organisations. The other being the ruling class itself. But this is actually a very small minority, and has not much real weight. Plenty of wealth and power, but when millions actively oppose it or begin to do so, not much real weight.
So it looks for allies, to try to mobilise others on its behalf. There are such people, at least potentially. People who are ruined and pauperised by the crisis, but have no means of collective economic organisation and thus cannot offer a collective solution. In Germany this was an enormous number of ruined petty traders and the like, and a huge number of desperate unemployed.
The aim of fascism is to use these people as a weapon against the working class organisations, to use violence against them and to smash them, and establish a dictatorship over them to keep them down. If the working class organisations are paralysed for some political reason, if they do not use their power in such a major crisis, they can indeed by destroyed by such people, if they can be so mobilised.
The way that this is done is for demagogues to utilise every form of bigotry and backwardness they can seize hold of to mobilise such people. Racism, any form of racism actually, does the job very well, as long as it is widespread. If the most widespread form of racism is against Jews, then fine, for them that will do. If, as today, the most widespread is against Muslims, that will do nicely also. They use other hatreds of course, homophobia, male chauvinism, middle class dislike of trade unions, anything really.
Successful fascist leaders have tended to be this kind of demagogue. Sometimes former socialist leaders like Mussolini, other times depraved but charismatic individuals like Hitler.
The Ku Klux Klan is a classically American form of fascism. Thankfully it never achieved power.
Meir Kahane in Israel was a similar type. Le Pen in France aspired to the same role. In many cases they never get the chance. But Hitler did, and he carried out this political programme, smash the German working class movement – which was the strongest in Europe by the way – and established a pure form of capitalist dictatorship.
This is a very complex debate because once you embark on it you get involved in such questions as analysing the nature of capitalism itself. And then you have to deal with some other complex questions about the nature of the Stalin regime in Russia and its various imitators, and all the questions that were posed by the revolutions and counter-revolutions between the two world wars.
I would not claim to have an answer to every aspect of this – but I do have a basic framework for understanding it. It poses questions that go well beyond the framework of ‘liberal’ capitalist democracy, which you might understandably wish to avoid – because the history is not peaceful at all. But I think that current events, and not only the historical events like WWII, pose these sorts of things anyway and they cannot really be avoided.
Paul Eisen
February 20, 2012 at 11:35 am
Redscribe,
I’ve read your definition of fascism two or three times and you seem to be saying that it’s what capitalism, in its death agony, creates to smash working-class movements. Is that right? Well that’s one way of looking at things, I suppose.
But what I find more interesting is the way that your apparent ideology is evident in everything you present – your name, your opinions and the way you present those opinions. For me, this makes it very much harder to understand your ideas.
Absolutely no offence intended, but I think this is a very important matter.
redscribe
February 21, 2012 at 11:08 am
That is fair enough. Though I would maintain that everyone has an ideology or worldview to a greater or lesser extent. The real problem with those is when they become dogmas and ossified, unable to cope with developments that appear to contradict them. I am quite prepared to contradict conventional Marxist ideas when facts contradict them, and quite prepared to go out on a limb when necessary.
I actually believe that historical materialism produces better explanations of events in the real world than other ways of understanding things. That is why I advocate those ideas. But I am open to something better if I come across it. But so far, I have not come across it. Usually I find that when something apparently contradicts some conventional Marxist view, it is because someone has failed to use the tools of analysis available to them properly, or simply failed to think things through using that method of analysis (which amounts to the same thing).
But regarding fascism, the analysis I put forward over Germany actually fits the facts. There was an incredibly severe political and economic crisis in Germany from 1929; Hitler’s movement did attract large-scale support from big business in those years unlike in previous times, and the first act of his regime in power was to crush the previously powerful German working class movement. My contention that this was the whole purpose of it is hardly a massive leap of logic.
Paul Eisen
February 21, 2012 at 11:59 am
Despite your qualification “to a greater or lesser degree’ I don’t think I agree that everyone has an ideology.
I certainly have had ideologies thrust on me but they are something I struggle against.
I suppose my worldview is that anything is possible (and that includes that black is white)
Would you call that an ideology?
redscribe
February 21, 2012 at 12:18 pm
You could call it pragmatism or empiricism.
There are ideologies that you do not struggle against, because you do not notice them. Usually the ones people are brought up with. You may struggle to break from one aspect of that, but not notice other aspects.
I don’t claim to be a ‘pure’ Marxist either. No one is immune to the influences of the environment they are brought up in, and that includes people on the left. I have a set of political beliefs, as do most people.
But if those beliefs did not engage with reality, they would be pointless.
Even those who maintain that they are non-political, when you examine it, have such beliefs which I would describe as ideological.
If this were not true, for instance, those politicians who pride themselves on manipulating ‘public opinion’ would not be able to do so.
Paul Eisen
February 21, 2012 at 2:32 pm
Your argument is convincing.
Cite some ideologies that you think I may be unaware of but to which I passively subscribe
redscribe
February 21, 2012 at 2:57 pm
Probably some form of liberal humanitarianism I guess.
Reading your document ‘Holocaust Wars’, for instance, I was struck by the motivation for your argument which I thought was basically horror at Israeli crimes, which you identified as Jewish crimes. I don’t agree with that identification, but I can see why if you are brought up to identify as Jewish, you might make that identification.
You also feel ‘responsibility’ for those crimes, as you say, which means that in some you identify with those who carried them out even if you abhor them.
You appear to ascribe those crimes to a particular group – your own group – as opposed to looking for the divisions in that group and in whose interests those crimes were really serving.
Actually, you appear to apply the same approach to Germans, only in reverse. Since you suspect they were innocent of what they are accused of, instead of looking for the divisions among them and who may have aimed to benefit (or not) from what happened (and I accept completely that you do not deny every aspect of this), you take it as read that there is a general, ‘German’ attitude to this. Thus you made the generalisation above:
“Germans were (as much as any group of people can be) complicit in National Socialist activities. My understanding is that they pretty well adored Adolf Hitler.”
I don’t think, as Tony Greenstein does, that this generalisation is because you are sympathetic to Nazism. I think it is because you have a liberal worldview, and look at nations as basically coherent entities with a kind of ‘general will’.
Whereas when I, as a Marxist, look at nations I immediately look for the class divisions among them, and begin to analyse them in that way.
Paul Eisen
February 21, 2012 at 3:43 pm
Liberal humanitarianism? Only insofar as I like people to be treated decently and I do believe in tolerating all opinions and as wide a range of behaviour as is humanly possible.
Thank you for your comments on “The Holocaust Wars”. Do you know you are the first person in about 5 years to have responded critically but reasonably?
However, I don’t agree and I think our disagreements are rather like two people speaking to each other in different languages. For example, you say that as a Marxist, when you look at nations for analysis, you look for the class divisions among them. Obviously I don’t. If I’m looking at any society I look at class, ethnicity, religion, families, language – the list goes on and on – and I’m not sure I see any one as being of over-riding importance.
And yes, I think you’re right – I do see some kind of general identity – though again, this by no means over-rides all other considerations. But I don’t think I do this because of any ‘liberal ideology – it just seems like common sense to me (Of course you might say that’s just my ideology concealing itself)
Would you agree that the fundamental difference between us, is that you see humanity as governed by some ‘laws’ or truths and I don’t? You also may think that there are answers and again, I don’t – unless it’s God which I imagine for you is a complete no-no but for me cannot be ruled out.
redscribe
February 24, 2012 at 11:18 pm
Sorry for the tardy response. I think humanity is not governed by laws that come from anywhere else but the world we live in. So that rules out any god for me. It does not mean that the current level of understanding cannot be improved on though, or that religion is completely irrational.
But I do think that ideas are a reflection of material reality, and not the other way round. And in the end, though with lots of meandering and tortuous twists and turns, what we argue and fight about at humanity’s current level is whose material interests will prevail over that of others. Even though often it takes very complex and perplexing forms that appear to be about something completely different!
That will be the case until we create a society where no part of it has a functional economic interest in the subordination of other part(s) of society to itself.
In my view, as long as that kind of fundamental division exists, it will always overshadow other considerations in politics and life in general. Its not an eternal law, but something to be overcome like our one-time powerlessness in the past before all kinds of diseases (i.e. before modern medicine). So no eternal laws, but class divisions and class struggles are the biggest issue in modern society, and at the root of most of the others (ethnic conflicts, religious wars, you name it).
Though the mechanisms of this can be very complex. In my view, Marx was not an omnipotent figure, but the founder of a scientific approach to politics along these lines. But that does not necessarily mean he was right on any given thing. Within the framework of that approach, there is enormous room for getting things wrong, and of course he often did just that.
But it does produce analyses that stand the test of time, and the fact is that only 20 years after the supposed collapse of ‘communism’, Marx is still seen as a major figure because of what he said about the fundamental contradictions of capitalism. Those things still ring true. There is nothing mystical about that, it is because it was rooted in material reality in its fundamental approach, and therefore was not just a passing ideological fad.
Paul Eisen
March 3, 2012 at 8:53 pm
Why could my motivation not be that I believe the Holocaust narrative is false and I just wanted to tell the truth?
redscribe
March 4, 2012 at 1:13 pm
I take that as read, since I believe that you are honest about your beliefs about this – its no secret that I disagree with you. I was talking about motivation in a broader sense
though.
Such as David Irving, who is not a disinterested historian but someone who was an important activist in trying to create a Neo-Nazi party in Britain in the 1950s and 1960s – and was still sympathetic to that much later if no longer so directly involved.
Whether he sincerely believes what he says I have no idea, but I know what his political agenda is because of his neo-Nazi activism.
I don’t think those are your aims though. If I thought they were I would have a very different attitude to you.
It depends what you mean by the ‘Holocaust narrative’. There are several ‘holocaust narratives’ including one that says that the only victims that really mattered were the Jews. The one that is used to justify Israel today.
The Nazis had a programme of extermination of a whole range of people who they considered racially inferior, not just Jews but also Roma and Slavs. Not to mention others who were not ‘racially’ defined such as gays, the disabled, communists. They did not exactly make a secret of it. They also planned to exterminate Slavs to make way for German settlers, but that was thwarted when they lost the war.
Strangely their allies the Croatian Ustashi made a start in the extermination of Slavs, despite being Slavs themselves, killing hundreds of thousands of Serbs. At the time they were brought to power by the German invaders they were actually a rather small organisation whose membership numbered in the low thousands. They were also specifically chosen by the Nazis to run a puppet state as against other, larger fascist organisations that were considered too soft and insufficiently racist, being pro-Mussolini and not Hitler. Their ideology was a fanatical clerical-fascism, aiming to wipe out the Serbs though a combination of mass killing and forcible conversion to Catholicism.
The evidence that the Nazis did actively try to exterminate those they hated for racist reasons is overwhelming. The direct experience of this as stated by people from every conceivable set of political beliefs is also overwhelming.
Paul Eisen
March 4, 2012 at 1:48 pm
“It depends what you mean by the ‘Holocaust narrative’”.
The aspects of the Holocaust narrative that I believe are false are as follows:
1. That there never was a state policy or
plan to physically exterminate the Jews of
Europe
2. That there were no homicidal gas chambers
3. That the six-million figure of Jewish
fatalities is inaccurate and probably
wildly excessive.
That’s it. Whatever cause I or anyone else may promote is irrelevant other than it should cause us to examine their claims more carefully
“The evidence that the Nazis did actively try to exterminate those they hated for racist reasons is overwhelming.”
I know nothing about Serbs, Croats, or anyone else but as far as the Jews are concerned, the physical, photographic, topological, forensic, documentary etc. evidence for those aspects is far from overwhelming – in fact it’s very sparse indeed.
What is overwhelmingly supportive of the established narrative is piles and piles of so-called ‘witness testimony’ – always the lowest form of evidence and in this instance, grossly flawed.
I’m not a revisionist scholar so I don’t want to get into a detailed discussion about that evidence (e.g. hydrogen cyanide traces in brickwork, the actual meaning of a pile of eye-glasses etc., etc.) – the case and supporting evidence on both sides is freely available for all to study.
I am very happy to discuss any other aspects of the Holocaust controversy.
Jay Knott
February 20, 2012 at 12:35 am
Redscribe answers my equation of the fascists and the antifa by citing the former in the 1940s – genocide – and the latter in the 2010s – a ‘ruck at a meeting’. This is false equivalence. From 1917 to 1945, anti-fascist and fascist parties alike murdered millions. Look at the title of this article! Today, antifa boast “Irving’s Chicago event was shut down when dozens of masked anti-fascists stormed into the Edelweiss restaurant, turning over tables, destroying his merchandise, and assaulting attendees”, but Noam Chomsky meetings don’t get attacked by the KKK! And fascism isn’t the final defense of capitalism. The left had defeated the Spanish working class before the fall of Barcelona. The social democrats had done the same in Germany by 1933.
fool me once...
February 20, 2012 at 1:19 am
Interesting reading your view of fascism.
For me, “the most brutal oppressor hierarchy tree”, is an agenda filled distraction. Whether you’re getting your lips, ears and nose cut off by the Lord’s Resistance Army in Africa, blitzed by the IDF in Gaza, vaporized by the U.S in Japan or killed by the British in any of their “crusades”, etc, isn’t it all the same to the innocent victims?
Focusing on fascism as the big baddie just allows those equally at fault, to line up behind you, pointing their guilty fingers.
Remember, Africa is still paying, big style, for centuries of “non-fascist” British and European intervention.
The common theme in all oppression, state or religious, is the populous being led a merry dance by psychopathic ego-trippers. A trick they use is to make you feel part of a one and only, self-righteous, infallible family.
Jews and Muslims etc are not races.
As you know, racists use the religion angle as a cover for their vile bigotry.
Subscribing to a religious/state belief system does not make you part of one race with your fellow believers.
Once you join that dance, intoxicated on a few glasses of vintage ideology, you soon forget that you’re not listening to your tune anymore. You just become another peanut for the Organ Grinder’s monkey.
Cameron, Ratzinger, Obama, Monti, Netanyahu, Calderón etc – choose your Grinder.
For me there is only one race, the human race, and if we take the time and listen carefully, we will hear our own unique tune, and surely, it is the rhythm of life.
redscribe
February 21, 2012 at 12:55 pm
“Whether you’re getting your lips, ears and nose cut off by the Lord’s Resistance Army in Africa, blitzed by the IDF in Gaza, vaporized by the U.S in Japan or killed by the British in any of their “crusades”, etc, isn’t it all the same to the innocent victims?”
Obviously for the victims all these things are terrible. That does not mean all these things are equally powerful or destructive though. Some things are more dangerous than others; you need to know which to be effective in opposing oppression.
I don’t like the ideas of ‘hierarchies of oppression’ either.
I was actually arguing that both sides in WWII – Germany vs the United States/Britain – were imperialist, and committed terrible crimes.
The Stalinist regime in Russia also was guilty of terrible crimes, including against Germans at the end of the war, though how you analyse that is controversial and I know that many here likely strongly disagree with each other on what that was all about.
I totally agree that Jews and Muslims are not ‘races’. In fact, I would go further, and say that there are no races anyway, the differences are purely superficial and inconsequential and mean nothing. Race may have no existence, but racism – which includes the concept ‘race’ does – it is a creation of people who have racist belief systems.
Jack number 2
February 27, 2012 at 1:19 pm
WW2 Allied vs German bombing philosophies compared
One way of comparing the British and American philosophies concerning their attacks (primarily on civilian targets, using incendiaries to burn people alive, including women and children) on German cities with the quintessentially-evil Nazi tactics is to compare the nature of bomber designs by the Allies and those of the Germans. The maximum bomb loads and number of engines make an interesting and revealing comparison.
Bomber name – Max bomb load (No. of engines)
WW2 German bombers
Dornier Do.215 – 2,200lbs (2)
Heinkel He.111 – 4,400lbs (2)
Junkers Ju.88 – 4,190lbs (2)
WW2 British bombers
Avro Lancaster – 22,000lbs (4)
HandleyPage Halifax – 13,000lbs (4)
Short Stirling – 14,000lbs (4)
WW2 American bombers
Boeing Flying Fortress – 9,600lbs (4)
Consolidated Liberator – 12,800lbs (4)
Being Superfortress – 20,000lbs (4)
Jack number 2
February 27, 2012 at 1:31 pm
The British and American incendiary-and-high-explosive fire-bombing campaigns against the civilian populations (primarily women and children and old people) of Germany and Japan in WW2 comprised ‘Terrorism on an industrial scale’, enabling their political successor-regimes to have a high level of expertise on just what is ‘terrorism’ and what is not ‘terrorism’. Whereas the Germans are alleged to have used gas first on their victims before cremating them, the British and US regimes eschewed this apparently more humane procedure, as it is alleged to have occurred, in favour of directly burning their victims alive – skipping the intermediate stage in the interests of economy?
pgg804
March 1, 2012 at 3:37 pm
The historian David Irving, who has interviewed many important figures in the war and in the case of the Germans often their widows wrote that when he interviewed Sir Arthur Harris (Bomber Harris) he said the same thing. Harris would have preferred the gas chamber to being burned to death. While this makes sense if you think about it, I don’t think the New York Times or Wall Street Journal are ready to express an opinion like that yet.
When German citizens were being murdered by the thousands every day, Hitler had no problem with German civilians killing allied airmen that were captured, while many of his military leaders opposed this. Some people may remember the name Leon Jaworski. In the 1970′s he was well known to the American public and became well respected as the Special Prosecutor in the Watergate Scandal against Nixon and his staff and associates. But not many people know about his role in WW II. It was in one of Noam Chomsky’s books where I read that after WW II (1945 or 1946) Chomsky prosecuted a group of German civilians and had them all hung for killing captured allied airmen after they had just destroyed the Germans’ town or city and killed many of its citizens. Contrast that with the trials that have been conducted in France, Italy and countries all over Europe ever since the end of WW II, when German soldiers or “NAZIS” have been convicted for killing civilians after German soldiers were killed by civilians. German soldiers were constant targets for the Free French and partisan forces in Italy and all over east Europe. These were mostly people not in uniform.
Only last year Germany convicted several former German soldiers (“NAZIS”) now in their 90′s for suppposedly killing Italian civilians after some German soldiers were killed by Italian partisans.
Was Jaworski a war criminal? I think if he was a German he would be considered one. Maybe the people who killed the German soldiers in the Warsaw uprising should be prosecuted.
Contrast the discussion of the un-uniformed heroes of the Free French and partisan forces that attacked Germans throughout the war (this was an important part of Stalin’s forces in the east) with the discussion of “terrorists” and Al-Qaeda that are being killed all over the middle east. Are Bush and Obama war criminals?
pgg804
March 1, 2012 at 10:02 pm
I need to make a correction to the above comment: I wrote, “It was in one of Noam Chomsky’s books where I read that after WW II (1945 or 1946) Chomsky prosecuted a group of German civilians…”. It should say “It was in one of Noam Chomsky’s books where I read that after WW II (1945 or 1946) Jaworski prosecuted a group of German civilians…”.
redscribe
March 4, 2012 at 3:20 pm
For many historical events though, this is the main evidence. Certainly the most durable, physical remains decay, artifacts also, but witness testimony remains assuming it is not lost. why is this the ‘lowest form of evidence?’
And witness statements, especially for terrible events, often contain inconsistencies. In fact, that is normal. It would be suspicious if they did not, since human being are fallible and prone to small errors in complementary ways, depending on quirks of character and experience.
Many of the people who gave them were in many cases traumatised people whose recollections are often less than perfect. Traumatised either by being directly involved, or by witnessing aspects of the horror, or in some cases by being involved in carrying it out in some capacity. Such people are more likely than most to misremember small details. But they are very unlikely to be wrong about the big picture.
So even if there are ‘flaws’ in it, you cannot discount it.
Simorgh
April 4, 2012 at 4:23 am
An analogy– Survivors of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire (holocaust?) were young girls, and they were surely traumatized. In the trial against the owners of the building who had done numerous things that contributed to the deaths, the testimony of one of the survivor/witnesses caused the court to decide in favor of the defendants/building owners and against the victims. This came about because the court concluded a witness had been coached: when asked the same question, she repeated the same sentences and phrased.
Surely it is “very unlikely she was wrong about the big picture.”
Paul Eisen
March 4, 2012 at 8:11 pm
No, for this crime witness testimony is not the only necessary evidence. A crime of this magnitude and complexity, committed at this time by this particular political structure would have generated far, far more concrete evidence.
As for the witnesses: sure, the vast majority (not all, there are some shameless charlatans out there) suffered terribly and they witnessed many horrible things – beatings, shootings, exhaustion, typhus. What they did not witness, and could not witness were homicidal gassings. Why? Because there were none.
This is well borne out by their all-to-rare appearances in the witness box where their testimonies to extermination by gassing have been torn to shreds. And BTW, this applies to some serious big-hitters like Rudolf Vrba.
But you don’t need evidence. Use your common sense. Think about it. Think about what it took to execute safely (for the executionors) one felon by gassing in the U.S. Now look at the Holocaust narrative. Is it possible?
It’s tough to face, but the reality is that the Holocaust narrative, as we know it, is gravely flawed.
redscribe
March 4, 2012 at 9:24 pm
Well, obviously they do not describe gassings first hand since no-one was likely to survive being in a gas chamber. Have such testimonies been ‘torn to shreds’? That seems doubtful to me – if there was ever any consensus on this it would be a major, public sensation? Though some may console themselves that such-and-such was given a hard time when talking about this from a clever cross-examiner, that does not amount to a refutation of their evidence or make it false. Even if something appears flawed that does not make it false, as I said before. We are still on the terrain of eye-witnesses here in any case.
The people who created the apparatus of the death camps had state power, one of the mightiest in the world at the time. That also gave them the power to systematically try to destroy the evidence of their very worst crimes when they began to fear that they would lose the war. They did not entirely succeed, but did enough to make this an argument that some could reasonably believe. I do not find this surprising.
The main concerns with US executions by poison gas has been not safety of the executioners – though this has been an issue – but complying with the constitutional prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, that made it very difficult to justify even when the death penalty was uncontroversial. Because it is extremely cruel and people suffer terribly as they die.
Obviously, the Nazis were not bothered about that. As long as they could protect themselves from the poison gas – which I don’t doubt they had the technical capacity to do, I don’t see this as contrary to ‘common sense’ at all.
More to the point, they had the motivation, in their racial theories and programme of racial purification, which they had more or less shouted from the rooftops of Europe beforehand. Given the particular intensity of that – which you can see even by observing any of Hitler’s propaganda rallies for instance – it defies common sense for me that they would not carry that out. In my view people were probably too slow to catch on to what Hitler was really all about. Or more likely, they did not like to think about it.
Paul Eisen
March 5, 2012 at 3:16 am
Well, I think you’re starting with the assumption that it’s all true and working back from that. That’s no way to conduct a trial – and certainly not a trial on a whole people and their place in history.
Try it the other way – much harder for sure, but in my view well worth the effort.
Jay Knott
March 5, 2012 at 12:01 am
There’s a discussion between me and a guy called Mathis at http://pacificaforum.org/continued-from-walt-forum
He claims to be an expert on the big H, and defends the orthodox view. I don’t really know enough to argue with him, and I’m thinking of pointing him here. Could he be invited to present the orthodox view in a short piece for the site, I wonder?
Paul Eisen
March 5, 2012 at 3:20 am
Without following the link my guess is that this is Dr Andrew Mathis
Dr Mathis once berated me as a Brit for the expulsion of Jews in the 14th (?)century.
Only a Jew could hold a grudge for 600 years.
Whether he should present his case for the Holocaust here is not for me to decide but, as I said, I’m no Holocaust scholar (neither is he BTW) so I wont be participating.
aemathisphd
March 5, 2012 at 4:14 am
I have arrived.
Mr. Eisen, on your three points:
>1. That there never was a state policy or
plan to physically exterminate the Jews of
Europe.
I would suggest you read the verdict against SS-Untersturmführer Max Täubner and reassess that statement.
>2. That there were no homicidal gas chambers
See below.
>3. That the six-million figure of Jewish
fatalities is inaccurate and probably
wildly excessive.
I suggest you bone up on the Höfle telegram as well.
Regarding the gas chambers, you write, “I’m not a revisionist scholar so I don’t want to get into a detailed discussion about that evidence (e.g. hydrogen cyanide traces in brickwork, the actual meaning of a pile of eye-glasses etc., etc.) – the case and supporting evidence on both sides is freely available for all to study.”
I suggest you back up what you believe with some honest investigation because despite your claim that only eyewitness testimony is available, there are several documents and lots of forensic examinations to support claims of gassing at six camps in Poland.
The best case can be made for the gas chamber in Krema II at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Two documents clearly designating that room as a gas chamber, four forensic examinations finding cyanide on the walls (including one by a “revisionist”), and the testimony not just of survivors but of 69 members of the SS. That’s a slam dunk, evidence-wise. And half a million Jews were killed it that gas chamber.
So please tell me why the evidence for Krema II is insufficient. And if is isn’t, then explain to me why the other six gas chambers at Auschwitz weren’t gas chambers. And if they were, then why not the gas chambers at the other camps?
Final point: I don’t recall accusing you as a Brit for the Edict of Expulsion. It’s been a while. Certainly you aren’t responsible, any more than I am for what was done to the Sioux.
Paul Eisen
March 5, 2012 at 5:33 am
Hello Dr Mathis
As I’ve said repeatedly, I’m not a Holocaust scholar nor am I that interested in being one, so I’m neither able nor willing to enter into this kind of discussion. There are however very many revisionist scholars and researchers who you could contact. Nor do I think the comments section here or anywhere else is the place for what is (or should be) a highly technical and specific subject. No doubt you have access to various academic fora (?) to which you could invite revisionist researchers.
Regarding your berating me for the expulsion of Jews from England, that’s my clear recollection. Perhaps you were just in a bad mood that day.
aemathisphd
March 5, 2012 at 4:16 am
Oh, and apparently I am scholar enough on the Holocaust to teach the topic at the university level.
Paul Eisen
March 5, 2012 at 5:37 am
That you teach about the Holocaust at university level, in this day and age and in the current climate, means very little and is really not to your credit.
We’ve all got to earn a living but if I were in your shoes, I’d keep quiet about it.
Jay Knott
March 5, 2012 at 2:48 pm
Thanks, Paul ;}
Simorgh
April 4, 2012 at 2:47 am
Dreadful — ““Germany brought war to the world and here it was brought back to Germany.””
No, Germany did NOT “bring war to the world.”
There is a large and growing body of evidence that Winston Churchill and Franklin D Roosevelt lied to draw their nations into a war in Western Europe that no one — certainly not Hitler and Germany — sought. Herbert Hoover’s recently published journal, “Freedom Betrayed: Herbert Hoover’s Secret History of the Second World War and Its Aftermath,” offers compelling first-hand witness that Hitler did not “bring war to the world,” and that Churchill and FDR at best “erred” in deliberately involving Great Britain and the US in a war with Germany.
After private meetings with Hitler, Goering, and later Neville Chamberlain, Hoover & Chamberlain assessed that Hitler’s ambitions were to redress Versailles; root out Bolshevism from Germany; and expand to the EAST — not west. Hoover counseled that the British, French & Americans — and democracy — would be best served “for the next hundred years” if Germany & Russia were left to fight it out.
The zionists who, Esther-like, lobbied Churchill & FDR into war with Germany starting in 1933 were the same cast of characters who achieved a double triumph at Versailles and dominated the Weimar republic.
Simorgh
April 4, 2012 at 3:13 am
It should also be noted — fully noted — that Eric Mendelsohn collaborated with US Air Force to design and build “German Village” at Dugway in the Utah desert. The buildings were exact renderings of working class Germans in Berlin. With Mendelsohn’s assistance, US Air Force & a chemical company experimented & rehearsed the “most efficient” way to create a firestorm in order to incinerate the greatest number of working class German civilians. The goal was terror — Allies sought to break the morale of German civilians so that they would urge their fighting men to lay down arms.
After debasing the education he had received in German universities by using it to deliberately incinerate the people who had provided the universities, Mendelsohn designed the Weizmann Institute for his good friend Chaim, and created the “International Style” that dominates the Israeli skyline.
In a series on the Palestinian diaspora, Lauren Booth interviews Laila Shawa, an artist who was dispossessed from Gaza, who comments that the building Israel is erecting on Palestinian land are “brutal” and designed to declare, “We are now in control of you, and you are the alien Other.” http://www.deliberation.info/shawa-family-plight-of-palestinian-families-in-exile/
In his book on the Weimar Republic, Eric Weitz has nothing but praise and plenty of it for Mendelsohn, but the facts are that he played a major role in the incineration of tens of thousands of German civilians.
The reality of the fire bombing of 3/4 of Germany’s cities brings a nagging question to the fore: given that Mendelsohn designed German Village to create a firestorm in Berlin, particularly; and given that the largest concentration of Jews in Germany resided in Berlin. How many Jews died in Berlin as a result of allied firebombing? Were Jews forewarned and deliberately evacuated from Berlin in advance of firebombing? We know that most Jews had been evacuated from Dresden in advance of its firebombing, and that those very few who remained had been ordered to report for deportation in advance of the bombing of Dresden, but their orders were mixed up and deportation did not take place.
So Dr. So Expert on holocaust that you teach college courses, answer this question: Were Jews evacuated from cities that were to be firebombed in advance of their firebombing? Or did Eric Mendelsohn design a tactic to create a firestorm that incinerated his fellow Jews as well as working class German civilians?
Simorgh
April 4, 2012 at 3:17 am
EDIT:
“Eric Mendelsohn collaborated with US Air Force to design and build “German Village” at Dugway in the Utah desert. The buildings were exact renderings of working class Germans in Berlin.”
SHOULD READ:
“Eric Mendelsohn collaborated with US Air Force to design and build “German Village” at Dugway in the Utah desert. The buildings were exact renderings of RESIDENCES FOR working class Germans in Berlin.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Village_%28Dugway_proving_ground%29