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How Relevant is Holocaust Revisionism? Skip to main content INSTITUTE FOR HISTORICAL REVIEW You are hereHome How Relevant is Holocaust Revisionism? By Mark Weber January 7, 2009 For more than 30 years, writers and publicists who call themselves revisionists have presented evidence and arguments questioning generally accepted accounts of the Holocaust. Some of these researchers have shown impressive fortitude -- defying smears, abuse, physical violence, and worse. /1 In countries where “Holocaust denial” is a crime, skeptics have been fined, imprisoned or forced into exile for expressing dissident views on this issue. /2 These victims of what amounts to a blatant suppression of free speech include Robert Faurisson and Roger Garaudy in France, Siegfried Verbeke in Belgium, Jürgen Graf and Gaston-Armand Amaudruz in Switzerland, and Ernst Zundel and Germar Rudolf in Germany. Revisionists have published impressive evidence, including long neglected documents and testimony, that has contributed to a more complete and accurate understanding of an emotion-laden and highly polemicized chapter of history. I have played a role in this effort. In published writings, in lectures, and in courtroom testimony, I have devoted much time and work to critically reviewing the “official” Holocaust narrative, to countering Holocaust propaganda, and to debunking specific Holocaust claims. But in spite of years of effort by revisionists, including some serious work that on occasion has forced “mainstream” historians to make startling concessions, /3 there has been little success in convincing people that the familiar Holocaust story is defective. This lack of success is not difficult to understand. Revisionists are up against a well-organized, decades-long campaign that is promoted in the mass media, reinforced in classrooms, and supported by politicians. /4 Tim Cole, a history professor and prominent specialist of Holocaust studies, has written in his book Selling the Holocaust: “From a relatively slow start, we have now come to the point where Jewish culture in particular, and Western culture more generally, are saturated with the 'Holocaust'. Indeed, the 'Holocaust' has saturated Western culture to such an extent that it appears not only centre stage, but also lurks in the background. This can be seen in the remarkable number of contemporary movies which include the 'Holocaust' as plot or sub-plot.” Between 1989 and 2003 alone, more than 170 films with Holocaust themes were made. In many American and European schools, a focus on the wartime suffering of Europe's Jews is obligatory. Every major American city has at least one Holocaust museum or memorial. The largest is the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, which is run by a taxpayer-funded federal government agency, and draws some two million visitors yearly. A number of countries, including Britain, Germany and Italy, officially observe an annual Holocaust Remembrance Day. The United Nations General Assembly in 2005 approved a resolution introduced by Israel to designate January 27 as an international Holocaust remembrance day. In the United States and western Europe, the Holocaust has become a venerated, semi-religious mythos. Prof. Michael Goldberg, an eminent rabbi, has written of what he calls a “Holocaust cult with its own tenets of faith, rites and shrines.” In this age of secular “political correctness,” Holocaust “denial” is the modern equivalent of sacrilege. A major reason for the lack of success in persuading people that conventional Holocaust accounts are fraudulent or exaggerated is that -- as revisionists acknowledge -- Jews in Europe were, in fact, singled out during the war years for especially severe treatment. This was confirmed, for example, by German propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels in these confidential entries in his wartime diary: /5 Feb. 14, 1942: “The Führer [Hitler] once again expresses his resolve ruthlessly to clear the Jews out of Europe. There must be no squeamish sentimentalism about it. The Jews have deserved the catastrophe that they are now experiencing. Their destruction will go hand in hand with the destruction of our enemies. We must hasten this process with cold ruthlessness.” March 27, 1942: “The Jews are now being deported to the East from the Generalgouvernement [Poland], starting around Lublin. The procedure is a pretty barbaric one and not to be described here more definitely, and there's not much left of the Jews. By and large, one can say that 60 percent of them will have to be liquidated, while only 40 percent can be put to work. The former Gauleiter of Vienna, who is carrying out the operation, is proceeding quite judiciously, using a method that is not all too conspicuous. The Jews are facing a judgment which, while barbaric, they fully deserve. The prophecy the Führer made about them for having brought on a new world war is beginning to come true in the most terrible manner. One must not be sentimental in these matters.” April 29, 1942: “Short shrift is being made of the Jews in all eastern occupied territories. Tens of thousands of them are being wiped out.” No informed person disputes that Europe's Jews did, in fact, suffer a great catastrophe during the Second World War. Millions were forced from their homes and deported to brutal internment in crowded ghettos and camps. Jewish communities across Central and Eastern Europe, large and small, were wiped out. Millions lost their lives. When the war ended in 1945, most of the Jews of Germany, Poland, the Netherlands and others countries were gone. Given all this, it should not be surprising that even well-founded revisionist arguments are often dismissed as heartless quibbling. But despite a discouraging record of achievement, some revisionists insist that their work is vitally important because success in exposing the Holocaust as a hoax will deliver a shattering blow to Israel and Jewish-Zionist power. This view, however, is based on a mistaken understanding of the relationship between “Holocaust remembrance” and Jewish-Zionist power. Even before World War II, the organized Jewish community was playing a major role in the political and cultural life of Europe and the United States, and the Zionist movement was already very influential. Although propaganda about the wartime catastrophe of Europe's Jews was a factor in American society during the 1950s and 1960s, it was not until the late 1970s that “the Holocaust” began to play a really significant social-political role. It was not until the late 1970s and early 1980s that the term began to appear as a specific entry in standard encyclopedias and reference books, and became an obligatory subject in American textbooks and classrooms. In short, the Holocaust assumed an important role in the social-cultural life of America and western Europe in keeping with, and as an expression of, a phenomenal increase in Jewish influence and power. The Holocaust “remembrance” campaign is not so much a source of Jewish-Zionist power as it is an expression of it. For that reason, debunking the Holocaust will not shatter that power. Suppose The New York Times were to report tomorrow that Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust center and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum had announced that no more than one million Jews died during World War II, and that no Jews were killed in gas chambers at Auschwitz. The impact on Jewish-Zionist power would surely be minimal. Although “Holocaust remembrance” remains well entrenched in our society, its impact seems to have diminished in recent years. In part this is because the men and women of the World War II generation are nearly all gone. But another factor has been a major shift in the world-political situation. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the Soviet empire, the end of US-Soviet “Cold War” rivalry, the Nine-Eleven terror attack in 2001, the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, and current world economic crisis, have ushered in a new era – one in which the Holocaust imagery of the 1940s is less potent because it's less relevant. Criticism of Israel and its policies has become much more common in recent years, even in the United States. Among thoughtful men and women, and especially among the young, sympathy for Israel has fallen noticeably, while skepticism about the role of the Holocaust in society has grown. Tony Judt, a prominent Jewish scholar who lives and works in New York, wrote recently: /6 “Students today do not need to be reminded of the genocide of the Jews, the historical consequences of anti-Semitism, or the problem of evil. They know all about these – in ways our parents never did. And that is as it should be. But I have been struck lately by the frequency with which new questions are surfacing: 'Why do we focus so much on the Holocaust?' 'Why is it illegal [in certain countries] to deny the Holocaust but not other genocides?' 'Is the threat of anti-Semitism not exaggerated?' And, increasingly, 'Doesn't Israel use the Holocaust as an excuse?' I do not recall hearing those questions in the past.” This shift has also been noticed at the Institute for Historical Review. Over the past ten years, sales of IHR books, discs, flyers and other items about Holocaust history have steadily declined, along with inquiries about Holocaust history and requests for interviews on this subject. At the same time, and obviously reflecting broader social-cultural trends, there has been a marked rise in sales of IHR books, discs, flyers and other items about Jewish-Zionist power, the role of Jews in society, and so forth. This has been matched by an increase in the number of inquiries and requests for interviews on those issues. Jewish-Zionist power is a palpable reality with harmful consequences for America, the Middle East, and the entire global community. In my view, and as I have repeatedly emphasized, the task of exposing and countering this power is a crucially important one. /7 In that effort, Holocaust revisionism cannot play a central role. One influential statesman who seems to understand this is the former prime minister of Malaysia, Mahathir Mohammed. In a much-discussed address delivered at an international conference in October 2003, he spoke forthrightly against Jewish-Zionist power, while making clear that he accepts the familiar “Six Million” Holocaust narrative. In the global struggle against this power, he said, “we are up against a people who think ... We cannot fight them through brawn alone. We must use our brains also ... The Europeans killed six million Jews out of twelve million. But today the Jews rule this world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them.” /8 Setting straight the historical record about the wartime fate of Europe's Jews is a worthy endeavor. But there should be no illusions about its social-political relevance. In the real world struggle against Jewish-Zionist power, Holocaust revisionism has proved to be as much a hindrance as a help. Notes 1. “Jewish Militants: Fifteen Years, and More, of Terrorism in France.” The Journal of Historical Review, March-April 1996 ( http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v16/v16n2p-2_Faurisson.html ) 2. M. Weber, “Toben's Arrest: A New Assault Against Free Speech.” Oct. 2008 ( http://www.ihr.org/other/oct08toben.html ) 3. Robert Faurisson, “The Victories of Revisionism.” Dec. 2006 ( http://www.fpp.co.uk/Auschwitz/Faurisson/at_Teheran_conf_2005.html, and, http://www.codoh.com/viewpoints/vprfvict.html ); R. Faurisson, “Impact and Future of Holocaust Revisionism.” The Journal of Historical Review, Jan.-Feb. 2000. ( http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v19/v19n1p-2_Faurisson.html ) 4. M. Weber, “Holocaust Remembrance: What's Behind the Campaign.” Feb. 2006. ( http://www.ihr.org/leaflets/holocaust_remembrance.shtml ) 5. These Goebbels diaries quotes are from: Louis P. Lochner, ed., The Goebbels Diaries (Doubleday, 1948), pp. 86, 147-148, 195; Wilhelm Staeglich, Auschwitz: A Judge Looks at the Evidence (IHR, 1990), pp. 88-89; David Irving, Goebbels: Mastermind of the Third Reich (London: Focal Point, 1996), pp. 387, 388, 392. 6. Tony Judt, “The 'Problem of Evil' in Postwar Europe,” The New York Review of Books, Feb. 14, 2008, pp. 33-35. ( http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21031 ) 7. M. Weber, “In the Struggle for Truth and Justice.” August 2008. ( http://www.ihr.org/other/aug08weber.html ); M. Weber, “The Israel Lobby: How Important Is It.” Nov 2007. ( http://www.ihr.org/other/0711_webereugene.html ) See also: M. Weber, “A Straight Look at the Jewish Lobby.” Dec. 2007 ( http://www.ihr.org/leaflets/jewishlobby.shtml ) 8. J. Aglionby, “Fight Jews, Mahathir tells summit,” The Guardian (Britain) , Oct. 17, 2003. ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/oct/17/malaysia ) Quoted in: M. Weber, “In the Struggle for Peace and Justice: Countering Jewish-Zionist Power.” August 2008. Mark Weber has been the director of the Institute for Historical Review since 1995. He studied history at the University of Illinois (Chicago), the University of Munich, Portland State University and Indiana University (M.A., 1977). In March 1988 he testified for five days in Toronto District Court as a recognized expert witness on Germany's wartime Jewish policy and the Holocaust issue. Some Comments on “How Relevant is Holocaust Revisionism?” I had seen some of the criticism leveled against your position paper, and was just as puzzled as you are, for as you noted in your [Feb. 13] response to critics essay [ http://www.ihr.org/weber_revisionism_feb09.html ] , this is not new. I recall you introducing the topic at the 2002 Conference. As you have noted, 1945 is behind us, and the problem of this new Century seems to be Jewish/Zionist power, a point on which I am in agreement with you. It is important for any dynamic organization to remain both flexible and responsive to its environment, changing emphasis and adjusting course where necessary. Failure to do so insures fossilization and eventual irrelevancy. There is an unfortunate tendency among some in the “revisionist community” to engage in personal sniping, based on the misbegotten assumption that they, and only they, have a lock on Orthodoxy, and that anyone working in the field who dares to deviate from that Orthodoxy must be denounced as a heretic. But revisionism is not a religion, and there is no sane reason to treat it as one. Unfortunately, the revisionist ranks have a few unstable or dishonest persons working in the field. To your credit, you have avoided such brawls, and have always conducted yourself as a gentleman, avoiding the temptation of ad hominem attacks. I think that part of this is that folks get into a “single issue” frame of mind where one's psychological eggs are all in one basket. Leaving personal psychology aside, and there is probably a lot to personal issues in this regard, the old deadly sins of envy and so on, the enormity of our problems impose a special burden on everybody, etc., which does not excuse behavior, but explains some of it. The IHR exists today only because of the efforts of Mark Weber. He has persevered under very trying conditions, uncertain financing, unending legal battles, and increasing attacks from within the revisionist "community.” IHR and Weber must present an intellectually reasoned approach in order to sustain and increase interest in historical revisionism. The average person is unable to accept a bald statement that the "holocaust" is a hoax, but he/she can be gradually conditioned to question it after having been shown that other historical facts are indeed false. The speculation about Mark's total control over IHR finances is wrong. I've been similarly disappointed by the needless attacks on Mark for his public acknowledgment of revisionism's failure to make political headway. All these recriminations are very counterproductive. Unfortunately, Holocaust "denial" retains a stigma only one notch above child molestation. It's a thankless job to say the least, with great negative consequences both economically and socially for those who dare to challenge this supreme taboo/myth. Weber, like David Irving before him, is being treated like a traitor by the very people who should be rushing to his side. It's worth noting that, in the weeks since Mark's offending essay first appeared, he's circulated many fine revisionist articles, including one that he himself previously authored! So this public spat is basically all about nothing. What a waste. I have read a lot of critical letters on your yahoo group list about Mark Weber's recent article, "How Relevant is Holocaust Revisionism." I want to first point out that, and contrary to what some critics are saying, no where in the [Jan. 7] article does Weber renounce Holocaust revisionism or otherwise indicate he has changed his views. In fact, he raises an important question: Is the promotion of Holocaust revisionism an effective method of undermining Zionist power and influence? Many on your forum obviously believe that it is. However, the truth of Holocaust revisionism, and its effectiveness in turning public opinion against US support for Israel, are two different issues. While I count myself as a revisionist, I have other interests and objectives as well. Many people on your forum, it seems to me, are obsessed with revisionism, at the expense of the larger picture. What is the purpose or goal of Holocaust revisionism? If you care about public opinion and current US policy towards Israel, you should ask yourself: How effective has revisionism been as a means to influence and change public opinion? On the whole, I think that it has obviously not been effective. Despite the historical and intellectual merits of revisionism, it has not been successful in undermining support for the state of Israel. In combating Jewish power, Holocaust revisionism should be regarded as one tool in a box of tools. I don't think it's the primary or the most effective tool. For those who believe that it is, I ask: When and how will Holocaust revisionism break into the mainstream of society and undermine support for Israel among the general public? I know from personal experience that Mark Weber has not abandoned the cause. On the contrary, he is working hard to make the IHR a more effective organization. No other organization in the world is doing the work of the IHR. Those people who criticize Mr. Weber for what he's not doing should tackle those projects themselves. Their criticism is unconstructive. It only entertains and amuses our opponents. It's distressing to see the feeding frenzy directed at Mark, even if one makes the assumption he's wrong about everything. I've not always agreed with Mark, but I have seen with my own eyes incontrovertible evidence that not only is he an honorable man, but he is an honorable man when the honorable course was greatly to his personal disadvantage. The tone of Grubach's criticisms, and of others, is hysterical. I think I will send IHR a check. I have been shocked at the hysterical and unfair responses to Mark Weber's recent piece titled "How Relevant is Holocaust Revisionism." Mark is supposedly lazy, he talks on the phone, he surrenders, he is only concerned about attacking Israel, he is overpaid, and the IHR/LSF Board of Directors are stooges. Perhaps I missed it, but I did not see one fair critique. What I did see reflects poorly on those who complained. Mark Weber has the full support of the LSF/IHR Board of Directors. I am just writing to let you know that I've been following some of the hoopla over your recent article, "How relevant is Holocaust Revisionism?," and that personally I feel that the criticisms have gone beyond the pale. I have printed many of your articles on my online news service ... I just wanted to give you my best, and say Keep up the good work. I've been following IHR news for a long time although I haven't attended any of the events. Do not get sidetracked by irrelevant comments about your work. Kee… truncated (16,788 more characters in archive)