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Given that we've already had our bit of Holocaust "revisionism" this early in the week, I thought I'd share some interesting, trivia, I guess that I recently learned of in that community.
I am given to understand that the most "mainstream" source of Holocaust revisionism is an organization called the Institute For Historical Review (IHR). They appear to be a pretty standard research organization in some ways, publishing papers and web articles and holding conferences and such. While they do not claim to be solely dedicated to the subject, they sure publish a good bit of material that's highly critical of Jews and their influence on the world, the history of the Holocaust, and apologetic towards the Nazi regime. I understand them to be the original source of many of the standard Holocaust denier talking points involving such things as "resettlement in the east".
It turns out that, way back in 2009, the director of the IHR, one Mark Weber, published an article titled "How Relevant is Holocaust Revisionism?" in which he basically admits that the mainstream historical view of the Holocaust is accurate. He hasn't really changed his mind that much - no indication of some cabal "getting to him" somehow. Rather, he now takes the position that while "Jewish-Zionist power is a palpable reality with harmful consequences for America, the Middle East, and the entire global community", the Holocaust basically happened the way it's described, but it's not really that important of a factor in "Jewish Power" and it's not a good use of their time to attack it. Here's a pull quote that I think is representative of the basic point he's making:
There's also a 30 minute video interview with one Jim Rizoli, a considerably more enthusiastic Holocaust denier, in which he expresses basically the same view and goes on in more detail about a few points. IMO, he comes off as pretty calm and reasonable, while Rizoli comes off as rather unhinged and obsessed.
I think I agree with him in the sense that, if you wanna try and make a point about the role and influence of Jews in today's society, go ahead and make it, but quibbling over the details of exactly what happened to how many in the Holocaust is pointless.
One thing I learned from Run Unz's article on Holocaust denial is that it began as a sort of quirky, libertarian-adjacent focus group. Revisionism made a lot of headway in the 1980s and 1990s. The fall of the Soviet Union resulted in some major revisions that were a big victory for the movement, like the downward revision of the official death toll at Auschwitz from 4 million to 1.1 million, and the official revisions at Majdanek that proved the Revisionist archival research and criticisms of that extermination narrative to be correct. The internet promised an increase in reach for heterodox thinking of all stripes, including Revisionism. In 1994 David Cole debated Revisionism on the Phil Donahue show, where the Revisionists wiped the floor with the mainstream on national television. It's unthinkable now that a show with an establishment figure and reach like this would platform a Holocaust denier at all like this.
There was a very real inflection point in the 2000s. September 11th, the Iraq war, spreading Democracy with Israel as the greatest ally and such. There was also much greater pressure to censor and prosecute Holocaust deniers. David Irving, the historian, was arrested in 2005 and sentenced to three years in prison for the crime of Holocaust Denial (then imagine, people here point to his repudiation of Revisionism as being a victory for the mainstream after he was thrown in jail for his position- an academic gets thrown in jail for believing X, and then you celebrate him repudiating X as an academic win?). Most Holocaust Denial laws were not established until after the 2000s, it's a recent phenomenon in response to the Revisionist movement. Canada outlawed Holocaust denial only in 2021.
The internet, which promised the free flow of heterodox thinking, has become much more restrictive of Holocaust revisionism. Revisionism was the very first political content to be 100% censored on YouTube. All Revisionist books were banned from Amazon on 2017, a policy which is still strictly enforced. Revisionist subreddits were the first politically-oriented subreddits that were banned, long before there was any censorship at all.
To illustrate the point, take a look at the ADL's 2023 Online Holocaust Denial Report Card. The first thing you will notice is that no platform has a grade higher than a C+, imagine what these platforms will have to do to get their A from the ADL. You will also notice that there's an Action taken for trusted partner metric, which essentially means "can the ADL get this removed if we flag it", which is "Yes" for all platforms except Fortnite. Why is Fortnite on a report card for Online Holocaust Denial? Are they going to change their content policies as a result of their F?
The point here is that Holocaust Revisionism went from being a quirky movement of libertarian-adjacent autists to a genuine political dissident movement. Being the public face of that movement is the least desirable job in the world. The current man who has that role, Germar Rudolf, is currently in hiding because his application for a Greed Card renewal was denied by the United States and his passport was not renewed by Germany. Despite the fact he has an American wife and American children, he is in hiding so he doesn't face deportation by the United States, prosecution in Germany, and years in jail. As mentioned, David Irving actually did face arrest and prison prior to his repudiation of Revisionism. Likewise, David Cole frequently talks about how threats of violence made against him from Jewish groups motivated him to step away from Revisionism. Weber's organization, the IHR, was firebombed in 1984 and it lost 90% of its inventory.
One pattern that I never respected, even when I was on the fence, was on the mainstream pointing at people who were chilled by authoritarian chilling effects, including threats of violence and prison, and then declaring an academic victory.
It's also easy to see Weber's perspective in that 2009 article. Who else here remembers 2009? It was the high watermark of Neoconservative influence on American policy and culture. The big issues of the day were Islamic terrorism, Middle East wars, and Health Care. It's easy to see Weber's perspective that Revisionism is a lost cause, with mounting pressure on Revisionism from all corners and with no apparent saliency to the problems of the day.
2023 is very different from 2009. The culture is radically different. There is a counter-culture of disaffected young people who are highly receptive to radical critiques of post-modernism, and it that does not resemble anything in 2009. Revisionism becomes an extremely potent, radical critique of post-modernism by inverting the work of the critical theorists. The critical theorists used the Holocaust to assert the psychopathology of gentiles, and propose post-modern culture as a therapy for the authoritarian personality. Revisionism turns the tables, it invites a psychoanalysis of Jews and their behavior that has contributed to the state of the culture and the Holocaust's prominence within it. It's not a populist aspiration- Joe Sixpack won't care about the truth of gas chambers disguised as shower rooms. But I suspect it would be highly disruptive to the thinking and world model of smarter people who potentially have more influence and status.
Nobody is acting as if the truth of those claims is irrelevant. The ADL isn't acting as if Revisionism is irrelevant, they and adjacent groups assert nothing less than enormous alarm over any Holocaust denial content anywhere. People here don't seem to think that this the truth is irrelevant, as I frequently see comments like one made only yesterday: "About the only thing that could make the Holocaust not be real is if the entire world isn't real and I'm just a brain in a jar." I can see how Weber felt that way in 2009, but if Revisionism gained any sort of foothold, even a non-populist foothold like HBD has, it would be highly disruptive to the thinking of many people.
My God. I was getting real deja vu. This is the exact sequence that happened four months ago. Down to the exact evasions about an “American wife” SS deployed after being challenged.
How often is the spouse of an American citizen who applies for a Green Card arrested and deported? He was in the United States illegally because he was actually escaping political persecution unlike the millions of asylum seekers who are welcomed with open arms while their cases are adjudicated, but it did not qualify as such in the eyes of the United States and his application for political asylum was rejected. The United States deported him even though he faced prison for what would be legally protected speech in the United States.
Good.
Dude was told he wouldn’t get asylum, then got married, then tried to appeal on grounds of the marriage, then tried to pull procedural nonsense.. No sympathy.
Nobody is asking for your sympathy, just a recognition of the fact that Rudolf has faced unfair treatment from the United States due to his holocaust denial. The US courts declared that he didn't prove he faced persecution "on account of imputed political opinion", and then deported him to a German prison where he was persecuted for his Revisionist work. I don't care if you have sympathy, but don't play dumb and pretend that his role as a prominent Holocaust denier didn't influence his treatment by the US immigration system.
Yeah, I looked into that.
He wouldn’t have committed a crime in America. That doesn’t mean he was entitled to our legal aegis. Germany would have prosecuted him just as hard if he voted for die Linke. Therefore, it wasn’t political prosecution. I expected a better case for “protected social group,” but for whatever reason, he didn’t make that appeal.
Out of curiosity, do you have a link to the IJ’s actual order? I can only find parts of it as quoted by the appeals courts.
Wait, what? So, if Saudi Arabia passed a law against Christians and then prosecuted them (after full "due process" of course!), they wouldn't be eligible for asylum in the US?
The definition of asylum can't be limited to just due process. It has to account for the laws that said due process is upholding!
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