Friday, October 30, 2009

Denier Legalism

1. Scripts and Anomalies

2. Coercion, Bribery and Sentencing

3. Conspiracism and Faith-Based Assertions

Denier Legalism: 1. Scripts and Anomalies

This table provides a framework for analyzing denier memes concerning the postwar trials of Nazi personnel. In this blog series, I illustrate the table with examples from denier literature.

Denier Legalism: 2. Coercion, Bribery and Sentencing

The second contradiction in denier legalism is the claim that trials were totally coercive but also required bribery. This in turn leads to a third contradiction, namely that sentences were either too light or too harsh in relation to the charges faced by the same defendants. Consequently, as my colleague Nick Terry has noted, denier writings on sentencing constitute a 'circular firing squad', whereby one denier directly contradicts another.

Denier Legalism: 3. Conspiracism and Faith-Based Assertions

When deniers discusses the trials of Aktion Reinhard staff, their 'researcher' masks slip and they descend rapidly into paranoia. Their statements become nothing more than faith-based assertions. For example, in this review of Schelvis's Sobibor study, Thomas Kues describes Sobibor perpetrator Gomerski in these terms:

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Nazi persecution and mass murder of Jews and non-Jews

A recent book about the subject matter in reference by German historian Dr. Dieter Pohl (Verfolgung und Massenmord in der NS-Zeit 1933-1945, 2nd edition 2008, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft Darmstadt) deserves special mention as a comprehensive yet succinct overview of Nazi state criminality between 1933 and 1945.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

NAFCASH and CODOH - A Public Embarrassment for HD

Since 2005, CODOH has publicly endorsed NAFCASH's bogus challenges, such as here. It allowed a Gerdes sockpuppet to claim here that "the members of NAFCASH have put their money where their mouths are." Yet it now transpires that NAFCASH had no members and that it continued to issue challenges on the NAFCASH site despite not having the status it claimed, as can be seen here and here. A Gerdes sockpuppet called Craig Curtis has attempted to excuse these facts here. Readers can make up their own minds about his sincerity from those replies. Bradley Smith and Jonnie Hargis may like to ponder how silly their endorsement of this charlatan makes them look.

UPDATE: As Dave Woolfe points out here, Gerdes congratulated Von Brunn.

Monday, October 19, 2009

Meet Robert Stacy McCain, a neo-Confederate wacko extraordinaire

[See my comment about McCain's reaction to this article at the bottom.
Also, after you read this article, be sure to read this old item at Eschaton.]


[Necessary clarification, 22.12.2009: note that in this posting I never characterize McCain as a "white supremacist". White supremacism is a very specific subset of racism and one doesn't need to be a white supremacist to be a racist. One can even be a white separatist without being a white supremacist. I hold no position on whether McCain is a white supremacist, and this posting is targeting his wacky neo-Confederate views. I also think that his words and certain actions (like publishing an article about "racial suicide" in an openly racist publication) show that he has at least a racist past.]

While our little blog is devoted mostly to debunking the specific arguments of Holocaust deniers, from time to time we write on the topics only casually related to the Holocaust and Holocaust denial.

After all, when you're dealing with the Holocaust denial, you're dealing with a great many topics at once - the historical and scientific methodologies, antisemitism, racism, conspirology, etc.

Thus, we've skewered a Stalinist professor for his Katyn denial, we've compared evolution deniers and Holocaust deniers, we've exposed a far-right author Robert Boatman, who was hiding behind his alleged support for Israel (at FrontPageMag, no less!), for the vile antisemite he was (sic; thankfully, he has died since).

And now we will fire a shot in the blogwar that has recently erupted over the former Washington Times assistant editor and popular conservative blogger Robert Stacy McCain.

But I guess an explanation is in order.

Sunday, October 04, 2009

Scan Scam Sends Nazi Fan Into Full Nutter Mode: Lunatic Gerdes Takes Over the CODOH Asylum

Below are three extracts posted by Greg Gerdes in the last few days. They show him in his full nutter glory.