David Irving

Neutronale

Wibbs wrote: »

John huston made a couple of documentaries on the war in the east. So? Hollywood was a big part of the US war effort, both in hearts and minds and used for expertise when documentary footage was required and lots of people from that industry waded in.

The film is shown as though it was a documentary but the people in it were being directed to act the part, trying to make it a more effective by playacting, it was shown afterwards as if it were reality but how much of it is faked or how much poetic license is used?

Its a small but important point, remember these films were shown throughout the world and are still shown without people knowing that at least some in the film are acting and are being directed etc.

PS if Wilder wanted to gee up the Zionist angle why pick Buchenwald? There were as many Russians and other nationalities incarcerated there. It was an "international" camp.

Presumably he picked whichever camp was available/suitable for the job in hand. Remember also that many of the camps in the west were reputed/claimed to have been death camps and there were stories of gas chambers etc. Even today most people, I suspect, would think the western camps had gas chambers, I know I did until recently.

jonniebgood1

Neutronale wrote: »

Even today most people, I suspect, would think the western camps had gas chambers, I know I did until recently.

Given your comments to date on this forum I don't think anyone would be surprised.

Jolly Red Giant

Jawgap wrote: »

I kind of tend to disagree.

I think people of that ilk need to be called out and the ridiculousness of their assertions subject to scrutiny. They should post their 'evidence' for all to see, only then will they be seen for what they are.

This is the wrong approach - this clown has no problem with anything that shows the nonsense of his rubbish - the objective is to entice you to engage so that repeated links to pro-fascist sites and articles can be stuck up on the forum under the guise of 'debate'. The objective is to flood the forum with fascist links in the hope that a few poor fools who will fall for this nonsense, will be directed to fascist recruitment sites and become cannon-fodder for the likes of Irving and his fascist masters.

jonniebgood1

Neutronale wrote: »

Are you going to confine your contribution to playing the man?

Neutronale wrote: »

Still cant resist the half-arsed insults :rolleyes:

You said you were finished ages ago...but you're still here...see u later

Neutronale wrote: »

....

Join away, make sure you dont sneak back now

Neutronale wrote: »

Aha, when you run out of arguments you turn to censorship, so much for free speech and democratic values :rolleyes:

There is a pattern in this thread as follows:

You make points that seem far fetched and link them loosely to comments on various right wing sites. There is no cohesion or even tentative links between most of your points. When numerous posters have pointed out some of the holes in your arguments you resort to throughaway shytogrophy like the comments quoted above. Due to the lack of any cohesive argument in your points I reckon you are trolling rather than actually misunderstanding what you are reading. You have a ban now for trolling for any of the above points. As it is your second ban due to repeat offence it will be made longer. I suggest you try reading some proper history lessons as your lack of knowledge in this subject shines through your half baked arguments.

Moderator

jonniebgood1

Apologies to other forum users. I was away from computer for a few days and had not spotted the troll.
Maybe he would approve of my censorship!!!:pac:

Wibbs

Neutronale wrote: »

The film is shown as though it was a documentary but the people in it were being directed to act the part, trying to make it a more effective by playacting, it was shown afterwards as if it were reality but how much of it is faked or how much poetic license is used?

Its a small but important point, remember these films were shown throughout the world and are still shown without people knowing that at least some in the film are acting and are being directed etc.

This goes for many, if not most documentaries of the time(and indeed even some today). The documentary as a realistic representation(in theory) is a more recent thing. Staged sections were very common in the past. Often because the bits needed to join the narrative didn't have movie cameras around at the actual event. Even today when all the footage is the on the ground, at the time, real deal, editing can make a helluva difference and many a director has come a cropper over such editing. TBH I can think of no documentary even with the best will in the world that hasn't some "poetic license". Nature of the beast. The ratio of exposed film to finished article is very big in the genre. You shoot 20 hours of footage and end up with a one hour film.

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

Given your comments to date on this forum I don't think anyone would be surprised.

To be fair, on this particular point there is the general trend to think of concentration camp = German/Nazi + Extermination camp. I have certainly seen examples of that online where Belson say is stated to have had gas chambers. Sadly given the appalling death toll at the camp it's not as if they needed them.

Michael Bentine, him of the Goons and Potty time(for my peers ) wrote well IMHO on that particular abomination;

"Millions of words have been written about these horror camps, many of them by inmates of those unbelievable places. I've tried, without success, to describe it from my own point of view, but the words won't come. To me Belsen was the ultimate blasphemy.

After VE. Day I flew up to Denmark with Kelly, a West Indian pilot who was a close friend. As we climbed over Belsen, we saw the flame-throwing Bren carriers trundling through the camp – burning it to the ground. Our light Bf 108 rocked in the superheated air, as we sped above the curling smoke, and Kelly had the last words on it.

'Thank Christ for that,' he said, fervently.
And his words sounded like a benediction."



*EDIT*For me I like the irony of a Black West Indian bloke piloting a captured German aircraft over such a place. If ever there was a time that the "right side" won even with both good and ill on their part with it, this was the time. Yes there was Dresden et al, which many cite as war crimes and TBH I sympathise with that sentiment in many ways. However there was one clear difference. If Germany had surrendered then the Dresdens would have stopped and indeed they did. If Jews, Russians, Gypsies and all the rest had surrendered to the nazis the murder would have continued at an even faster pace.

HansHolzel

This kind of thread is sickening, Wibbs, but my guess is the name Belsen rings a bell with a lot of people in latter years because of the Sex Pistols, for example.

I haven't read back but did the banned one even mention Treblinka e.g. to claim it as a 'hoax'?

The reason I ask is this: do you have a summary of Gitta Sereny's work on the camps, not least on her clinical differentiation of different types of Lager?

jonniebgood1

HansHolzel wrote: »

I haven't read back but did the banned one even mention Treblinka e.g. to claim it as a 'hoax'?

[/I]?

The nature of irving in relation to this type of information is not to be so blatant. His message is usually concealed within well researched general information.

boomchicawawa

Ireland's wannabe David Irving has had his 15 minutes of fame. From what I gather he has been banned off one thread, suspended off another for a week, one that he revived from the dead from 2009 incidentally!! and now he's off again. He was initially reluctant to post his opinions, I think I asked him for the 'one' that was the central doubt he had, but by God when he started he couldn't stop.

There was far too much jumping from one topic to another for anyone to be able to challenge him in any cohesive manner, and that was just the point. He bombarded the thread with multiple comments and questions as he just wasn't interested in engaging in educated discussions. How many more times will he be allowed to do this ? I'm a member of another History Forum an International one and Holocaust denial is not tolerated from the start. He needed to be ignored but it was hard to let him voice his lies without challenging them to set them straight. I fear we may not have heard the last from him

Wibbs

HansHolzel wrote: »

This kind of thread is sickening, Wibbs, but my guess is the name Belsen rings a bell with a lot of people in latter years because of the Sex Pistols, for example.

Oh it's notoriety is well before that. I'd say it's more because for that war generation Belsen was the camp because of the film footage and because so many servicemen were involved in it's liberation and rescue. It was also intact and within the western allies sphere of influence, so was much more convenient(terrible word but you get the idea) than say Auschwitz far in the east and under Russian control. All in all it was more "real".

What I find interesting about Bentine's quote above is that he sees Belson of all the camps "the ultimate blasphemy" and that was written a good while after the war ended. Yet today we'd likely put Auschwitz way ahead of it(of the surviving camps anyway).

I haven't read back but did the banned one even mention Treblinka e.g. to claim it as a 'hoax'?

The reason I ask is this: do you have a summary of Gitta Sereny's work on the camps, not least on her clinical differentiation of different types of Lager?

AFAIR(and I could well be wrong here) the deniers angle on her is that her interviews with the camp commander Stangl, especially his confession before his death had no witnesses/recording, just her word for it(EDIT, this is bollocks as he had admitted it in his trial citing the stereotypical "I was following orders/doing my duty"). Irving seems to hate her, so I'd imagine that's where that comes from.

boomchicawawa wrote:

How many more times will he be allowed to do this ? I'm a member of another History Forum an International one and Holocaust denial is not tolerated from the start.

I agree 100% that trolls that won't engage should be taken out, but I think a blanket non discussion is not so good at all. No historical subject should be off limits or pickled forever as a given(in the details, not the overall of course), but that's just me.

Wibbs

On the point of the smaller details, with Belsen there are a couple of oddities. Belsen had no gas chambers, brutality, disease, starvation and overcrowding were the methods used. However one well known witness Shaul Ladany, who as a child was an inmate there claimed he actually went into the gas chamber in the camp, but was reprieved at the last moment. His testimony is repeated in many places, but it is clearly historically incorrect. He also claimed his family were "turned into soap" in Auschwitz. Also historically incorrect. Now he was a child at the time(under ten IIRC) so memories can play tricks at that age and he likely added in such details to an already incredibly traumatic time in his life*, but it can't be taken as historical fact.




*He then went on to survive the Munich Olympics massacre. Jesus.

boomchicawawa

Wibbs wrote: »

I agree 100% that trolls that won't engage should be taken out, but I think a blanket non discussion is not so good at all. No historical subject should be off limits or pickled forever as a given(in the details, not the overall of course), but that's just me.

I hear ye 'Wibbs' and I won't disagree because I'm torn on it myself, I do think that suppressing these people without airing the subject is wrong but as we've seen here, no matter what evidence you come up with, they will call black, white. Anything that's as plain as day to the majority was forged or falsified according to our 'friend'.

You could go around in circles all day with them. I know there were stories that have emanated over the last 70 years that have gone out in the public perception as true, but I'd prefer to leave it up to accredited historians to put these wrongs to right in a proper manner. I have read Jewish people bemoaning the fact that so many say they survived the camps that their numbers just don't add up. I know people have said this happened or that happened and they have been proved to be lying. But these stories will get ironed out in time.

Holocaust deniers have an agenda for many diverse reasons, many these days to use it as a stick to beat Israel with, they should have a voice if they are truly concerned with uncovering something they feel was untrue, but from our example here, it seems that our doubter has a shed load of things that he took exception too, meaning there was more of an agenda going on rather than a troubled soul who was just trying to uncover the truth.

Wibbs

boomchicawawa wrote: »

I know there were stories that have emanated over the last 70 years that have gone out in the public perception as true, but I'd prefer to leave it up to accredited historians to put these wrongs to right in a proper manner. I have read Jewish people bemoaning the fact that so many say they survived the camps that their numbers just don't add up. I know people have said this happened or that happened and they have been proved to be lying. But these stories will get ironed out in time.

I agree B. For me what I hate about the outright deniers and the neonazi types is that irony of ironies they, far more than "hardline Zionists", are the ones that have made it harder for historians to ask such questions/iron out the inconsistencies. Their denial has made it a very very touchy subject that would scare off many, for fear of being lumped in with the Irvings of this world. EG if the narrative of a generation ago was the historical given today, publicaly stating people weren't turned into soap/lampshades and Belsen had no gas chambers would have many thinking "aha, Holocaust denier" and could even land me in court in Germany. For all this I blame the deniers. Again irony of ironies the nuttier element of Zionism must love them.

HansHolzel

Wibbs wrote: »

What I find interesting about Bentine's quote above is that he sees Belson of all the camps "the ultimate blasphemy" and that was written a good while after the war ended. Yet today we'd likely put Auschwitz way ahead of it(of the surviving camps anyway).

But the Bergen-Belsen death toll was minuscule in comparison with Auschwitz-Birkenau and Treblinka, to give just two examples.

boomchicawawa

I presume with Bentine it was the fact that he saw all the human suffering with his own eyes. There was a great drama made from the British Medical teams view about Belsen, even after the liberation they were losing 100's of inmates a day due to the disease and starvation that they had been subjected to. It took them a while to get the formula correct for the food as many could not digest properly anymore. I think the British were completely shocked to the core by what they saw there and it made them more aware that they really had been fighting evil.

In relation to the stories about the furniture and lampshades made out of human remains, would I be right in thinking the Martin Bormann's children had something to do with that account and it's be subsequently disputed ? I know my mother told me the 'soap' story when I was young, frightened the life out of me. These stories should be questioned and corrected In order that the deniers don't use them to prove their other half baked theories. Having seen the mountain of hair etc. at Auschwitz I can see how peoples imagination worked overtime to second guess perhaps what else was collected and for what purpose.

Wibbs

Oh yes but that was my point HH. That for someone of his generation Belsen was seen as above them*. Likely for the reason I gave earlier and what boomchicawawa notes above.

On the lampshade front it seems to have come from a few sources, but mostly hearsay and oft heard before the end of the war and the discovery of the reality of things. Ditto for the soap story. That had a long history attached to Germany. Even in the first world war a rumour went around that the Germans were boiling up allied corpses to make soap. It seems it regained legs in the second world war and that many people, even some Jewish witnesses add it into the accepted narrative then and after the events. When you see that someone that was hounded by and finally captured by the nazis would say they went into gas chambers that didn't even exist at the site it shows how such such "memes" can travel. At that stage of the war the rumours of such death camps were getting out and making their way back to other camps. So it's easy to see how a terrified child after hearing of such horrors would think he would be next if he ended up in an actual shower room. Plus given how he had experienced how Jews like him were hounded and murdered he'd hardly expect kindness in his captors. TBH I'd have thought the same.

I think this is where a lot of the deniers get their material too. From the war time rumours later winnowed out when the realities came to light. EG you'll see them say that originally the story was that Jews were killed by steam or even electrocution, so therefore(biiig leap) the rest of the story is false. But all those stories as far as I can see were wartime current rumours, that fell away when there were allied eyes on the ground and actual witnesses came forward.





*Even as a kid I knew of Belsen as a "thing". I clearly recall as a very young child my dad(who had been in the war) describing a chap he knew who was very sick as "the poor man looked like someone from Belsen". I couldn't have been more than five at the time. I'd say for me anyway the first I really heard of the actual death camps aimed at Jews was when the World at War documentary series came on the telly.

Jawgap

I think the issue with Bergen-Belsen was that it was 'real' for the British - when they liberated the camp they saw terrible things and documented and recorded what they saw.

The had faces to put on the victims, names and personalities. The soldiers who liberated the camp experienced it through sight, sound and smell - compared to the Auschwitz complex where they were dealing with numbers, statistics and written accounts conveyed by others.

The circumstances surrounding its surrender must have been fairly intimidating, especially being told about the typhus - among soldiers typhus seems to have been particularly feared, so being told you have to go into an infected area must have been pretty sobering.

On the use of human skin - I think some of those stories originated from a Czech doctor who was incarcerated at Auschwitz and forced to carryout post-mortems on murdered inmates. The suggestion is he embellished his deposition as a way to 'get back' at the various people on trial.

jonniebgood1

Jawgap wrote: »

I think the issue with Bergen-Belsen was that it was 'real' for the British - when they liberated the camp they saw terrible things and documented and recorded what they saw.

The had faces to put on the victims, names and personalities. The soldiers who liberated the camp experienced it through sight, sound and smell - compared to the Auschwitz complex where they were dealing with numbers, statistics and written accounts conveyed by others.

Whilst the above is true the scenes at Belsen after liberation also gave a larger logistical problem given the massive population still there. Auschwitz had been evacuated to a large extent when uncovered by the Russians. It is also true that post war accounts of war and liberation in the Western sphere would be dominated by British and American accounts. These took preference in media space over translated accounts of Russian liberation particularly as the greater horrors witnessed on the Eastern front may have prepared the Russians for what they found at various concentration camps. one of the more prominent Russian accounts is 'the hell of Treblinka' written by a wartime correspondent Vasily Grossman: Copy here

Wibbs

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

one of the more prominent Russian accounts is 'the hell of Treblinka' written by a wartime correspondent Vasily Grossman: Copy here

Aye, but in reading that account one has to wade through the soviet style hyperbole, exaggeration and propaganda to pick at the truth beneath. As solid history it leaves much to be desired IMH.

Reekwind

Aside from being an excellent writer, Grossman is a good and genuinely reliable source. Any issues from his account stem from the fact that he was a journalist (and journalists, in any country at any time, are not historians) and not that he was Soviet

Incidentally, keep in mind that this was published in 1944 in sources independent of the West and already the gas chambers are being noted and their operation detailed

Wibbs

Reekwind wrote: »

Aside from being an excellent writer,

Maybe something is lost in the translation for me. I found it rambling and overbloen in the extreme.

Grossman is a good and genuinely reliable source.

Really? He repeatedly gives a figure of three million dead for that one camp and suggests that this is probably too low a figure. Subsequent historians give the figure at one million*. He throws in stories of children being ripped apart by the bare hands of one of the guards(physical impossibility) and numerous other unreliable bits. As I said IMHO you have to pick through the hype and propaganda to glean the historical stuff. Given the reality doesn't need any hype...

Any issues from his account stem from the fact that he was a journalist (and journalists, in any country at any time, are not historians) and not that he was Soviet

Have you read it RW? It's full of the Soviets are best and while the west was sleeping we are the liberators and all that. It couldn't be more soviet in it's vibe.

Incidentally, keep in mind that this was published in 1944 in sources independent of the West and already the gas chambers are being noted and their operation detailed

Actually there seems to be some confusion. He says steam is used, then vacuum, then engine exhaust and then some other poisons. We know the steam explanation is bogus, though much believed at the time. He also describes the victims bodies as being unnaturally yellow as a definitive symptom of the gassing, yet CO poisoning does not result in yellowed skin, but flushed red skin. Yellow is not associated with death by asphyxiation either. AFAIR cyanide poisoning results in pale blue pallor.

Now before anyone gets confused here, I state quite clearly that I believe millions of Jews were transported to such camps and were brutalised and murdered there like livestock and it is one of the greatest stains on humanity's history and should never be forgotten or allowed to happen again. However it's the too many oft repeated as fact inconsistencies that still surround these horrific events that deserve questioning and clarity. All those murdered men, women and children deserve nothing less than knowing the whys and hows of how this horror came to be and was acted out. Plus and as a bonus it means we can reduce the deniers "arguments" to nothing once such questions are answered. As it is for me they have a little too much leverage as it is(even if it is nonsense)




*though given the scale involved it matters not morally or emotionally, but for the sake of accuracy.

Reekwind

Wibbs wrote: »

Maybe something is lost in the translation for me. I found it rambling and overbloen in the extreme

Grossman was writing in a strong literary tradition, not 'here are the facts ma'am' Western style journalism. Admittedly, Russian and Soviet literature has rarely been considered particularly austere but this should not be conflated with official and pompous Soviet propaganda

And Grossman is rated highly and not just by myself. His Everything Flows and Life and Fate (which were both banned in the USSR) are bona fide classics that rank up there with Bulgakov, Babel, Paltonov and other giants of early Soviet literature. He's very well regarded in both East and West. In short, I like him

Really? He repeatedly gives a figure of three million dead for that one camp and suggests that this is probably too low a figure. Subsequent historians give the figure at one million*. He throws in stories of children being ripped apart by the bare hands of one of the guards(physical impossibility) and numerous other unreliable bits. As I said IMHO you have to pick through the hype and propaganda to glean the historical stuff. Given the reality doesn't need any hype...

As I said: journalist writing in the immediate aftermath. Do I believe that there was a dog trained to bite people's genitals off? Possibly, this was a place of horrors, but I'd be certain that someone told Grossman this; ie it was more than an invention or propaganda

Have you read it RW? It's full of the Soviets are best and while the west was sleeping we are the liberators and all that. It couldn't be more soviet in it's vibe.

Admittedly it's been a while but I don't recall any of that triumphalism in the piece. Is there a particular passage that you have a problem with?

Even just skimming through it again now, it is quite restrained. Just a handful of mentions of fascism or Hitler, no word of invaders. In fact, just checking, my memory is correct: it ends on a pretty sober note and an extremely early variant of that philosophical question that would plague Europe for decades: how could this have happened?

Wibbs

Reekwind wrote: »

As I said: journalist writing in the immediate aftermath. Do I believe that there was a dog trained to bite people's genitals off? Possibly, this was a place of horrors, but I'd be certain that someone told Grossman this; ie it was more than an invention or propaganda

Regardless, it contains errors and suppositions that have since been clarified. No way can it be called a reliable source on a fair few points and you have to dig around, hence my original point. Another major one is the passage on the prisoner uprising. He tells it that the prisoners essentially won, the coward Germans folded and the camp was burned to the ground and was finished as a camp from that point. After August 2, Treblinka ceased to exist. Problem is that few of those brave rebels made it across the fences because of withering machinegun fire and of those that made it beyond most were caught and killed. Only 70 escaped, but escape they did. However the camp, far from ceasing to exist kept operating for another year. That's a huge inaccuracy on the part of this source.

Admittedly it's been a while but I don't recall any of that triumphalism in the piece. Is there a particular passage that you have a problem with?

Oh I don't have a problem with it RW, I just find it personally rambling, overblown and awkward in parts(but that's likely down to translation and losses in same. Plus I was never big on Russian writers so that might be it too ). On the soviet front, well it's clear it's not from the hand of a British or American writer.

Even just skimming through it again now, it is quite restrained.

Many of the descriptions are decidedly purple, but again no real problem with that, as you say he was a journalist. The problem I have with him is describing him as a good and genuinely reliable source. He's not. It's one source, an interesting and valuable source, but thank god there are others, because if it was just this as a source actual history would suffer.

HansHolzel

“I used to think freedom was freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of conscience. But freedom is the whole life of everyone. Here is what it amounts to: you have to have the right to sow what you wish to, to make shoes or coats, to bake into bread the flour ground from the grain you have sown, and to sell it or not sell it as you wish; for the lathe operator, the steelworker, and the artist it’s a matter of being able to live as you wish and work as you wish and not as they order you to. And in our country there is no freedom – not for those who write books nor for those who sow grain nor for those who make shoes.” (Vasily Grossman, Everything Flows, p. 99)

Another thing, I think Gogol would would have got a lot of inspiration on Boards.

HansHolzel

“We leafed through a series of the [1941 Soviet] Front newspaper. I came across the following phrase in a leading article: 'The much-battered enemy continued his cowardly advance'.”

― Vasily Grossman, A Writer at War: Vasily Grossman with the Red Army

Wibbs

HansHolzel wrote: »

'The much-battered enemy continued his cowardly advance'[/I]

I like that.

jonniebgood1

Wibbs wrote: »

As solid history it leaves much to be desired IMH.

Its a first hand account and as such should be treated as a raw report by a journalist with all that entails

Wibbs wrote: »

Aye, but in reading that account one has to wade through the soviet style hyperbole, exaggeration and propaganda to pick at the truth beneath.

As opposed to the usual Anglo American style hyperbole... just saying

jonniebgood1

Wibbs wrote: »

Many of the descriptions are decidedly purple, but again no real problem with that, as you say he was a journalist. The problem I have with him is describing him as a good and genuinely reliable source. He's not. It's one source, an interesting and valuable source, but thank god there are others, because if it was just this as a source actual history would suffer.

The points are fair.

Give an example of a similar first hand account that you find fills the criteria better regarding the concentration camps?

Wibbs

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

Its a first hand account and as such should be treated as a raw report by a journalist with all that entails

Oh I agree JBG, I was just questioning the "genuinely reliable source" aspect of it. When he gets a pretty big detail wrong such as the length of time the camp operated for after the uprising, never mind the triplication of the numbers murdered I'd be concerned about relying on it if it was the only source. Put it another way, if a journalistic account of Nagasaki tripled the numbers of victims and got the date of the bombing wrong by a few months would anyone call it a genuinely reliable source? Still as you say it's a first hand account, more a collection of witness accounts and further detail was to emerge after.

As opposed to the usual Anglo American style hyperbole... just saying

true enough.

Give an example of a similar first hand account that you find fills the criteria better regarding the concentration camps?

Richard Dimbleby on Belsen?

HansHolzel

Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved, is essential reading. For me anyway.