Did it really happen

Tucker just defend what you said dont dance off on a tangent

The only real truths in life are things we can prove ourselves. For things we can’t prove ourselves we are reliant on other people. We know governments lie, particularly in times of war.

I don’t know what happened in the concentration camps. I’m fairly sure you don’t either. Therefore I support no versions of events, I’m open minded.

Based on your current logic

Everyone questioned your logic because there is none

I am interest though, is there not enough evidence of the holacaust to make you think it probably happened?

Nobody is saying that the holocaust didnt happen… And I was merely pointing out that you should never trust numbers that come from people who have an biased interest in the size of those numbers. Nobody is claiming anything different.

Only a complete and utter cretin would deny that the holocaust happened. Likewise, only someone of limited intellect would disagree with the idea that figures for deaths in conflict, written by the winners of that conflict, are at risk of being biased.

Tucker

The only real truths in life are things we can prove ourselves.

Which is a pretty big statement that seems to go wider than your view on a single topic and would make it rather tough to have a definitive view on most things.

I don’t know what happened in the concentration camps. I’m fairly sure you don’t either. Therefore I support no versions of events, I’m open minded.

You saw film footage. You have some idea what happened in there. To say you support no versions and you are open minded is vague and stubborn for no reason.

BTW – others were also baffled by your ‘logic’.

Likewise, only someone of limited intellect would disagree with the idea that figures for deaths in conflict, written by the winners of that conflict, are at risk of being biased.

None of which proves your law that it is in the middle of two extremes nor does it prove this risk has became a reality with the accepted figures- slur and innuendo [ i may be flattering your argument]
I think it is why some folk listed independent sources that you could look yourself

You will distrust NICE next for bias as it is govt funded etc

Nothing will be ever neutral as everyone has an agenda – except you of course you objective seeker of truth and righter of wrongs

The losers seem to be coming up with ever bigger numbers for WWII.

I’ve done a bit of Googling in German and the Germans themselves consider 6 million a reasonable figure. If you want a minimum then over 3 million recorded names[/url] is a start point (don’t forget the loss of records due to bombing) and some (probably biased) jewish researchers quote up to 14 million.

Names for 2/3 of jewish victims. Sorry, I got the wrong page in my last post.

But that can’t be right, that’d make some people look like unread buffoons. Oh wait…

what’s is quite surprising is that some seem to be presenting the opinion that the holocaust wasn’t all that bad because it wasn’t 5 million people, but more like 3million or so.

It’s still pretty bad even it was that number isn’t it?

Likewise, only someone of limited intellect would disagree with the idea that figures for deaths in conflict, written by the winners of that conflict, are at risk of being biased.

Actually it was in the Western Allies interests – specially the American’s, to play down the true extent of Nazi War Crimes, as German industrialists, scientists, etc, many of them heavily involved in the Third Reich, were desperately needed to contribute in the postwar Cold War. A strong and confident West Germany which wasn’t disadvantaged by an anti-Nazi witch hunt was therefore vital. The Germans were even allowed to have one war hero in the form of Field Marshal Rommel, despite the fact that in reality he was probably a committed Nazi just like the rest of the German High Command. And of course the American government needed former Nazi scientists to work on their space programme. All of which might explain Edukator’s reference to the losers coming up with even bigger numbers.

BTW the US also did an excellent job, imo, of playing down Japan’s Emperor Hirohito complicity – because it served their best interests to do so.

My mother, who’s german, was 18 when the war finished. She’d seen her home (and the rest of the city) in Cologne destroyed by bombs. Like most others her age she will have been in the Hitler Youth.
After the conflict had finished she was debriefed by british intelligence and when asked what she had heard about the systemic murder of Jews, she replied that that was all rubbish. She was then shown a shoebox full of photos taken in KZ camps. She changed her mind after that…

As mentioned above, most of the missile techs the US were interested in had walked by slave labour in death factories on their way to their drawing boards each morning.

I’d rather be an idiot that believed it happened than an idiot that thinks it didn’t.

I spent 13 years in Germany and never came across anyone who denied the holocaust although everyone was aware that there were those that lived in denial.

Genocide & mass-murder has been present all through history.. The largest genocide being the near extinction of Native Americans, yes ladies and gentlemen the Red Indians (in both North and South America) and the 2nd largest being the Jewish Holocaust in WWII with people like Stalin, hitler, Pol Pot, Mao being some of the most recent large-scale murderers with Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia being two of of the most recent places where atrocities have shocked.

Don’t even get me started on the religious based mass murders of the Catholic sanctioned Spanish Inquisition, or thecrusades of the Templar knights

Genocide & mass-murder has been present all through history..

What makes the the Holocaust different was that the mass murder was done on an industrial scale. Victims could be dead within minutes of arriving Auschwitz, and nothing more than ashes a couple of hours later. And that happen at the rate of 12,000 a day in Auschwitz – just one concentration camp. None of that compares with what happened in “former Yugoslavia” for example.

I think the Nazis originally just wanted the Jews out. The early ‘solutions’ did not involve genocide, one of them was to create a Jewish state / ghetto on Madagascar. It wasn’t taken up. The exterminations only started later as the allies started to approach.

Gosh … Massively edited from my initial reaction … Only a complete moron or a malicious fool can dispute the 6 million figure .. people did have a rough idea of the number of Jews and others in Europe before and after and without seeking to be racist about it Germans are quite meticulous record keepers . My godfather was in the propaganda unit that was amongst the first allied troops into the camps and took a lot the photos you can see today . Not a subject he liked to discuss too much .

The Germans were even allowed to have one war hero in the form of Field Marshal Rommel, despite the fact that in reality he was probably a committed Nazi just like the rest of the German High Command

Unless you can point to some reference, you might retract that. Rommel was linked to plot to assassinate Hitler, although he wanted Hitler imprisoned for his crimes. Rommel was a national hero and Hitler feared killing him. Rommel took cynaide in a deal with Hitler to avoid his family being persecuted.

I’m not saying he was a “good guy”, just that “committed Nazi” is not correct.

Unless you can point to some reference, you might retract that.

No I’m not going to retract that. I’ll stick with my comment that in reality he was probably a committed Nazi just like the rest of the German High Command. Feel free not to agree with me though.

“No I’m not going to retract that. I’ll stick with my comment that in” the history I made up on the spur of the moment “he was probably a committed Nazi just like the rest of the German High Command” .

History is something you can study you know there are books about it and records and everything. You don’t need to rely on random speculation and fantasy.

Indeed you don’t Crankboy. That’s why I’m aware that Rommel was a close and trusted personal friend of both Hitler and Goebbels, very involved in training the Hitler Youth, personal bodyguard to Hitler – even before the War had started, the intense rivalry which existed, and was encouraged by Hitler, in the security apparatus and military, how the coupe plotters were tortured to give the “correct” answers, how realising that Hitler was going to lose you the war and should be got rid of didn’t automatically make you an anti-Nazi, how a totally defeated and thoroughly demoralised West Germany without one single hero free of the Nazi stigma was no good to Churchill and the Americans, etc etc

I’m not convinced that Rommel was a “close and trusted personal friend of both Hitler and Goebbels”.

A fine general yes, fighting for “the wrong side” definitely, but a close friend of Hitler & Goebbels?

I can’t believe this debate is even going on 😯

Seriously? You actually believe that we went to war with Germany to obtain technology that nobody knew about when the war started? You are completely nuts.

no i don’t think i am nuts, tho i might be, what i meant was we didn’t go to war with germany over antisemitism, what happened to the jews came out much later, but i do think that there where many other reasons for going to war than german expansion, ie the acquisition of military secrets relating to long range missiles and nuclear technology, which the germans where pursuing.

Have a listen to this report by Richard Dimbleby, father of David and Jonathan Dimbleby, he was one of the first reporters into Belsen after it was liberated.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hLYavpMSFs

There was an interesting film on bbc 4 last night , michael Heneke’s White Ribbon– set in a village in germany just before the first world war— an attempt to warn/explain how an authoritarian/patriarchal society is a very dangerous thing……..

I didn’t see anyone say that the reason GB declared war was antisemitism.

There are other documented reasons, but I’ve never seen that one.

This thread was about how awful and whether it was a normal in other countries to deny the holocaust, not whether a war was fought over it.

Lest we forget…

Here’s a question. I think it’s a good idea that Germany, and indeed the rest of the world, always remember what happened so that we can hopefully prevent similar situations from arising again.

But isn’t it perhaps getting towards time that Germany, as a country, can stop apologising for it? It was seventy years ago, the vast majority of people alive today had nothing to do with it. I don’t really see why someone three generations down the line should be accountable for something that their great-grandfathers did, any more than I feel guilty that Adam and Eve ate some fruit.

Ie, can we move on and still remember?

Couple of replies,

Man visiting the moon isnt a debate.

Plenty of people think it was faked.

There are always going to be debates about numbers. Over the years the figure has come to be accepted as between 5 and 6 million.

I’m no expert, but isn’t that specifically relating to Jewish people? The total including non-Jewish is something like 10-20m IIRC.

I was merely pointing out that you should never trust numbers that come from people who have an biased interest in the size of those numbers….
only someone of limited intellect would disagree with the idea that figures for deaths in conflict, written by the winners of that conflict, are at risk of being biased.

Those figures are based at least in part on Nazi records. The allies didn’t just pull a figure out of their arse.

I mean, they may have during wartime propaganda, but we’ve since all had several decades to go back and work it out. It’s an accepted figure by all parties involved in the conflict. It’s not like Britain is claiming ten million and Germany is insisting it’s only two, in which case you might have had a sensible point for once, everyone is in agreement here.

Ernie i am not sure i have the tools to win this debate but in defence of Rommel
“very involved in training the Hitler Youth” was he not Wehrmacht liaison to the Hitler Youth and did the Nazis not resist his plans to try and draw them into Wehrmacht control?
Hitler may well have appointed a decorated war hero to his personal bodyguard that does not mean that appointee shared his ideology or they were mates .Hitler was at the time keen to show case his military pedigree. I would however be interested to see any evidence of actual friendship.

Rommel is on record as having opposed early Nazi anti jewish policy’s (which weakened the army). He also was publically contemptuous of Hitler’s orders in relation to captured commandos. He wrote a book entitled “War with out Hate” at a time when the Nazis were promoting a war to exterminate the “untermench” not exactly a good Nazi choice of title.

We may end up arguing over what we mean by as committed a Nazi as the rest of the high command but his career and death smack more of a professional patriotic soldier, who like many believed the German Army and people were robbed of victory in WW1, than a politically committed Nazi. He clearly shared Nazi goals in relation to rebuilding Germanys military might and territory but appears to have opposed or at least not shared their ideology.

The OP was asking how could this happen in a so called advanced modern state– don’t be fooled by the cry of ‘democracy’– its often used by all kinds to hide their intent.

is it coincidence that the germany, italy , and spain –three fascist regimes were bolstered by the RC church ?

I would say yes.

Adam and Eve ate some fruit.

On a slight but related tangent to this post partially quoted. There’s a large group of people on the planet, with it’s head office near Rome that still have a downer on 51% of the population because of that piece of fruit. In the light of this 70 years is still some way off being able to move on.

There are many things i would criticise religion for and the catholic church in particular. Fascism is not amongst these.

as said before authoritarian/patriarchy is a dangerous mix– the RC church is ideological conduit for this….

is it coincidence that the germany, italy , and spain –three fascist regimes were bolstered by the RC church ?

Did Franco commit any atrocities, or even Salazars Portugal, I though that Franco was even thanked for helping Jews escape Germany?

Franco– you serious ? hell yes , the persecution of all opposition, you must be a ukip guy ?

Ie, can we move on and still remember?

I think we have, and do.

If anybody has moved on, it’s the Germans.

The early ‘solutions’ did not involve genocide, one of them was to create a Jewish state / ghetto on Madagascar. It wasn’t taken up. The exterminations only started later as the allies started to approach.

Not so much. Einsatzgruppen started the wholesale slaughter in 1939 after the invasion of Poland in 1939. From the invasion of the Soviet Union onwards, there’s absolutely no doubt about the scale of mass murder committed and intended.

Unless you can point to some reference, you might retract that. Rommel was linked to plot to assassinate Hitler, although he wanted Hitler imprisoned for his crimes.

Linked but not actively involved by many accounts. Like a lot of the army, he only became anti-Hitler once the tables turned in the war not while they were winning so he may not have been an enthusiastic Nazi but by his inactivity (and that of other members of the general staff) the end result was little different to if they had been. Their goal was saving Germany once the scale of the impending defeat was clear not the removal of a tyrant who was responsible for a massive war. If they’d tried to do it a bit earlier it might have been more convincing.

Rudebouy – No, not a UKIP guy but judging by your reply you appear to be the kind of person who likes to ‘label’ others who don’t share your views, mmmmh, where have we seen that before?

I was referring to Francos treatment of the Jews (relevant to this thread) not his murderous dictatorship, guess I didn’t make it clear.

This thread was about how awful and whether it was a normal in other countries to deny the holocaust, not whether a war was fought over it.

can i just make it clear i’m not denying the holocaust or the numbers, i’ve been to dachau and seen the evidence. i just said that its possible there were other reasons to ww2 that maybe aren’t that well known

i just said that its possible there were other reasons to ww2 that maybe aren’t that well known

Its also entirely possible that I reproduce via a daffodil protruding from my backside. However, the real issue is: Is it likely? Much as it might be interesting, perhaps world shaking if either were true, the fact is that neither supposition is at all likely. However, given that the world in general was just getting away from the bi-plane at the outbreak of WW2, and that subsequently released documents and factual evidence all support the liklihood that you are talking nonsense. So I’d go with my Daffodil proposal if you want to avoid being pointed at in the street.