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General Lucius Clay, the military governor of the US zone of occupied Germany, explained the lampshade story, "Well, it turned out actually that it was goat flesh. But at the trial [of Ilse Koch] it was still human flesh." (Interview with Lucius Clay, 1976, Official Proceeding of the George C. Marshall Research Foundation Quoted in M. Weber, "Buchenwald: Legend and Reality," The Journal of Historical Review, Winter 1986-87 7(4), pp. 406-407.)... A similar statement from General Clay:
Moreover, Ilse Koch had left Buchenwald nearly two years prior to the liberation and PWD table display of these artifacts. If you are interested in a deep-dive into the circumstances surrounding this lampshade and shrunken head display, I would suggest this Revisionist film because the circumstances of these legends are far sketchier than you would probably believe.
The "mainstream consensus", however, is to categorically ignore the issue. They just don't talk about it.
Watched the doc, thanks for the recommendation. There were some mildly cringe parts (wanting to give Ilse Koch a hug lol), but whatever still interesting. Seems fairly clear the skin and heads were planted by the Allies, and this certainly does make me significantly revise my estimate of the likelihood of things. If the allies were provably engaged in conspiracies to fabricate evidence relating to the Holocaust in some cases, it has to make it more likely that other pieces of alleged evidence are merely fabrications as well
Unfortunately it's just the tip of the iceberg. I mentioned in another comment that Majdanek, near Lublin, was the first camp liberated by the Soviets in 1944 months before the liberation of Auschwitz, where identical claims of gas chamber extermination were later made. I would highly suggest This Revisionist film on Majdanek, keeping in mind that Majdanek was the first camp where the story of mass gas chamber extermination in the popular press went viral. There were Soviet investigations, trials, and executions all before Auschwitz was liberated in 1945.
That video was the most influential in gaslighting me to study these issues a lot closer. Revisionists are obviously correct about Majdanek. But mainstream historians maintain a policy of categorically refusing to acknowledge Revisionist arguments. They never do any concessions to Revisionists, they just shore up their own narrative by quietly making modifications to strengthen it against Revisionist critique. For example, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum only last year had this on their website, using the Wayback Machine, April 26 2021:
That page now reads:
With Majdanek excluded. It was Revisionists who did the research decades ago proving that Majdanek was a concentration camp, and not an extermination camp.
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