No one to debate? [Rudolf vs Vann on Jake Shields]

[DotMat]

tbh, I'm not really interested in the content of the debate as much as in its implications.
That the Holocaust takes place in an online debate space is something, and even more so when it is genuinely understood as a position (which may or may not be wrong) and not as a joke.
Jake including it as a position that should be respected and not imprisoned is very good, considering its diffusion and reach on social media.

I remember some 12-13 years ago, debating with Dr. Terry (SanityCheck) at JREF, he argued that revisionism was on its way out, that it had no appeal to anyone, and basically wouldn't exist but in the smallest, most isolated pockets of society within just a few years.

Never underestimate the power of memes. And I'm serious.

[Archie]

tbh, I'm not really interested in the content of the debate as much as in its implications.
That the Holocaust takes place in an online debate space is something, and even more so when it is genuinely understood as a position (which may or may not be wrong) and not as a joke.
Jake including it as a position that should be respected and not imprisoned is very good, considering its diffusion and reach on social media.

I remember some 12-13 years ago, debating with Dr. Terry (SanityCheck) at JREF, he argued that revisionism was on its way out, that it had no appeal to anyone, and basically wouldn't exist but in the smallest, most isolated pockets of society within just a few years.

Never underestimate the power of memes. And I'm serious.

Yeah, what's covered in a debate like this will usually be pretty elementary. But it is interesting to see these familiar issues being discussed beyond the usual revisionist circles and to see how others react to it.

The last debate like this that I remember getting some buzz was the Matt Cockerill vs Mike Peinovich one. Cockerill was a regular on here around that time and had been hyping it regularly.
https://archive.codohforum.com/20230609 ... =2&t=14982

I've seen Germar on tons of podcasts but I don't recall seeing him do an actual debate. So I would like to see how he approaches it.

[fireofice]

Here is the debate:

[Archie]

Not quite through. Vann is surprisingly chill. It's clear he's not a holocaust specialist and is way outgunned here. That's why it's so friendly. I hope he doesn't get in trouble for this.

[joshk246]

So… apparently Germar has been listed as an “out of state fugitive” by the (Jew) York City Police.

[SanityCheck]

More like in a rural Trump-loving county of NY state bordering Pennsylvania, which makes me wonder if this is unfinished business from Germar Rudolf's former home town of Red Lion, PA. If he was facing NY state charges he wouldn't be an 'out of state fugitive'.

I presume law enforcement is more and more networked in the US, so presumably Rudolf was driving through or visiting someone in Cattaraugus County, NY, and car registration was involved somehow, triggering an alert for an outstanding warrant, for what remains to be seen. I don't know how networked systems are but can imagine NY and PA cooperating more as they're neighbouring states.

Given Rudolf's previous dubious charge of indecent exposure, the classic contrast between cock-up theory and conspiracy theory seems a little too.. I was going to say close to the bone but the double entendres need to stop.

[Archie]

The arrest is most likely related to the public nudity charges in PA. He may have missed some court appearance or something. If Germar's green card is active, he should be okay. Usually with a green card you can't get deported unless you're convicted of some quite serious crime. If they wanted to screw him, it would probably be done at the federal level and they would just cancel his green card on some technicality.

I hope Germar has made arrangements for CODOH to run if he's unable to handle things for a while. Needless to say, last time that happened, it was a fiasco.

[SanityCheck]

The arrest is most likely related to the public nudity charges in PA. He may have missed some court appearance or something. If Germar's green card is active, he should be okay. Usually with a green card you can't get deported unless you're convicted of some quite serious crime. If they wanted to screw him, it would probably be done at the federal level and they would just cancel his green card on some technicality.

The PA charge led to two years' probation after conviction and immediate sentencing in July 2020, a search for Germar Rudolf York County points to a restricted appeal filing in August 2021.
https://eu.ydr.com/story/news/crime/202 ... 386652002/

On the other hand, I also recall Rudolf saying something about his green card being taken away at some point, or not renewed. There were positive noises when he announced he had quit in May 2023 as if everything was fine, the confrontation with the 'authorities' being solved, etc. But the divorce was kept quiet until his interview with Jim Rizoli, He gave a Texas post box in May 2023, which is well after probation from 2020 should have expired.
https://germarrudolf.com/2023/05/talking-turkey/

I hope Germar has made arrangements for CODOH to run if he's unable to handle things for a while. Needless to say, last time that happened, it was a fiasco.

For you guys' sake, I hope so as well.

But this is what I have meant when talking of the shrinking of organised revisionism. People keep misunderstanding that as 'denial is dead'. It's not about whether the idea has a bigger or smaller audience, or more or fewer social media influencers who embrace the idea. It's about how many Germar Rudolfs there are. I might not think much of Rudolf as a researcher or history writer but I respect his efforts as a publisher, organiser and promoter. He shouldn't however be the only one to go on podcasts or one of a handful of people capable of writing longer form pieces.

[PrudentRegret]

But this is what I have meant when talking of the shrinking of organised revisionism. People keep misunderstanding that as 'denial is dead'. It's not about whether the idea has a bigger or smaller audience, or more or fewer social media influencers who embrace the idea. It's about how many Germar Rudolfs there are. I might not think much of Rudolf as a researcher or history writer but I respect his efforts as a publisher, organiser and promoter. He shouldn't however be the only one to go on podcasts or one of a handful of people capable of writing longer form pieces.

I know I compare Holocaust Revisionism to "Human BioDiversity" a lot because there are a lot of parallels. Another one of those parallels is that the "HBD sphere" as such is totally un-organized. There are no institutions conducting and publishing research within an organized HBD community like there has been within Revisionism. And yet that school of thought continues to penetrate and disrupt longly-held scientific and social beliefs, and it's bigger than ever. It literally is just people Noticing and talking about it on Twitter, debating it on podcasts, some people write longer blogs about it.

Holocaust Revisionism is going to survive without the same pace of organized long-form research. That research is going to continue to pay dividends for sure, and more is always better than less, but cats are out of bags and Holocuast Revisionism is going to continue to be getting bigger than ever even if the Holocaust Handbooks series slows down publishing.

The amount of engagement I see for Holocaust Revisionism on X is staggering and it's clearly growing. Sure none of those many thousands of people boosting Revisionism know anything about the Holocaust, but that is also the case for the millions of people who believe it, too. Taboos and societal consensus aren't determined by organized research but by the transmission of memes. That's how Holocaust belief gained such prominence and that's how Holocaust Revisionism is going to continue to grow, too.

[Hektor]

The arrest is most likely related to the public nudity charges in PA. He may have missed some court appearance or something. If Germar's green card is active, he should be okay. Usually with a green card you can't get deported unless you're convicted of some quite serious crime. If they wanted to screw him, it would probably be done at the federal level and they would just cancel his green card on some technicality.

I hope Germar has made arrangements for CODOH to run if he's unable to handle things for a while. Needless to say, last time that happened, it was a fiasco.

The whole affair sounded like some harassment.
I do believe that Germar was probably under permanent surveillance already.

[Archie]

But this is what I have meant when talking of the shrinking of organised revisionism. People keep misunderstanding that as 'denial is dead'. It's not about whether the idea has a bigger or smaller audience, or more or fewer social media influencers who embrace the idea. It's about how many Germar Rudolfs there are. I might not think much of Rudolf as a researcher or history writer but I respect his efforts as a publisher, organiser and promoter. He shouldn't however be the only one to go on podcasts or one of a handful of people capable of writing longer form pieces.

Where I have disagreed with you on this is that you often suggest or imply that this reflects an inherent weakness in the revisionist position when it is primarily due to external pressures.

It is true that things were probably more organized in some ways in 1980s. The IHR had decent funding and had an office building and staff, none of which CODOH has right now. But let's think about what happened.

1984: IHR building firebombed and destroyed
1990s: anti-denials laws in Europe

And more recently we have seen the phenomenon where people with controversial views are often doxxed and shut out from most jobs. In the 80s, most revisionists were open under their own names. More recently, very few have operated in the open by choice. Having a bunch of anons will obviously hinder organization. Not a lot of people are going to be lining up to be the public face of CODOH.

Point being, none of this has much of anything to do with the merits or demerits of the revisionist position. Rather it's entirely a function of personal incentives and group dynamics.

[Archie]

A couple of clips from the show.

[Hektor]

Yeah, people make the mistake to measure a position's veracity or goodness from it's reputation, popularity, projection of power. It doesn't really say too much. Those are irrelevant criteria, even if the bulk of dimwits looks for it.

Prior to 1990 plenty of the people that experienced WW2 even as grown ups were still alive. Naturally the interest in that subject was still higher. Plus, people were more eager to organize in clubs and association, were better organizers and organizable. Someone of military age during WW2 was 70 in 1990. On pension, could not be fired, had grown up kids and had money to spend. Time and resources to support Revisionism / Revisionists at the time. But bear in mind that this was mostly an amateur enterprise. I don't think the resources were spent too well, even if they really scored some good point in the process. Arguments were mostly valid or at least close too having a point. Although they were some errors and bad arguments present, too. The problem was mostly on the communicative side. And lets not forget. The Exterminationist side doesn't have on single strong argument. They have to resort to circumstantial, irrelevant, dubious stuff and fully push the buttons of emotion and projecting power. And at times they do that even blatantly.


Since 1990 there was plenty of cultural change, technological change and those that still experienced WW2 have already died by now. The main arguments against Revisionism were mostly not that it is false or illegitimate (those views exist of course). The main argument was 'don't dwell in the past' (Yes, I know that's cringe in context, but it sounds plausible to dimwits) or that 'there are more important things nowadays that need to be addressed'... Actually they meant more urgent issues and again they ignored the relevance and relationship with the Holocaust Issue.


To do research and publishing effectively, You need a dedicated group of people that engages in this full time. And they need to be secured financially and legally in some way. You'd need to have something like an operational foundation to work there. They need an asset pool as well as passive income from which to carry expenses for facilities, salaries, operations, etc. It also requires some oversight.

This was something that dissident groups almost always were lacking on. There were some idealist of course, people loving voluntary work and in the beginning some goodwill. But while that can yield some short term results, it will fail in the medium term to long run.

[HansHill]

With what is being discussed here as holocaust revisionism becoming more “decentralised” for lack of a better word, its critical that the strongest talking points are known, understood, and used out in the open, by laypeople. For example, on twitter we see a lot of what I call low quality denial, things like the wooden doors, 6 million cookies, or even the “it never happened but it should”, which for legal (and moral) reasons we all denounce.

It feels like a huge missed opportunity that in almost 2 hours, Rudolf was not given the platform to very simply and concisely, within a minute or two for TikTok brains, to say something like “so yeah we tested the walls for poison gas traces and never found anything. See these blue walls? This is what we should expect to find but we didn’t – that means the story is fishy”

Those are the sort of talking points that have viral meme energy potential, which a “decentralised” message requires. The wooden doors and 6 million cookies briefly attained that virality thanks to Nick Fuentes and others, but as I’ve already said those are low quality efforts.

Revisionism / Denial becoming decentralised is not a bad thing, if it's high quality!

[PrudentRegret]

With what is being discussed here as holocaust revisionism becoming more “decentralised” for lack of a better word, its critical that the strongest talking points are known, understood, and used out in the open, by laypeople. For example, on twitter we see a lot of what I call low quality denial, things like the wooden doors, 6 million cookies, or even the “it never happened but it should”, which for legal (and moral) reasons we all denounce.

I understand the frustration with "low-quality denial", but keep in mind that 99.9% of people who believe in the Holocaust do so because of low-quality belief, i.e. they watched Steven Spielberg films and the liberation of Belsen in school.

Part of the problem is that some of the strongest talking points, i.e. related to cremation capacity in the AR camps, require an understanding of what Holocaust Historians claim happened in the AR camps. But we are never taught the details, I learned about what historians claim regarding AR from Denierbud before double-checking Wikipedia because I thought he was misrepresenting the historical position, but he wasn't.

Low-quality Denial is still better than low-quality belief. You might say "but it discredits Revisionism with these low-quality memes going viral", but that's just not how things work. Even the low-quality and somewhat inaccurate memes still influence people and contribute to value drift.

I'm also more sympathetic to the wooden door memes than most people here. Of course I'm aware that this door only leads to the morgue because of the reconstruction, but that is why it is IMO suitable as a symbol for the dubious nature of Holocaust belief. Why is this wooden door here!? It's an entirely valid question that leads to the Revisionist rabbit hole because it leads to topics like post-war "reconstruction", deception, etc.