Archie wrote: ↑Sun Jan 04, 2026 8:40 pm
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Where are the goalposts?
My position has always been that in terms of the Holocaust debate,
the goalposts are exactly where the Holocaust mainstream has decided to place them.
Then there are multiple goalposts, as there is no universal historical agreement on much of the Holocaust, such as when did it start, death tolls and how much planning was involved. There are also events for which the evidence is unclear, such as exactly how did the gas chambers at the AR camps work and how many were buried, before cremations began?
The goalposts also vary from country to country. The Dutch are prepared to admit to how much cooperation they provided to the Nazis, the Latvians far less so, meaning the goalpost that exists in the Netherlands, is pretty much absent in Latvia.
And the Holocaust mainstream has set a very demanding standard for themselves in suggesting that the Holocaust has been factually proven with 100% confidence.
The standard of evidencing for the Holocaust, is no different to any other historical event. The way evidence is gathered, the type of evidence used and how it is chronologically pieced together, is the same as other major events, such as the Allied invasion in 1944. Historians accept that many parts of the Holocaust narrative are either unproven, or are poorly evidenced. For example, claims about human soap are unproven and how the gas chambers worked is poorly evidenced, due to the destruction of much of the evidence.
They say the proof is so overwhelming that no debate can ever be permitted over the inherent historicity of it. And no one is allowed to question their interpretation of the evidence or present counterevidence.
Historians themselves, have questioned each other and their interpretations of the evidence. New evidence has altered the narrative details. So-called revisionists actually fail to present contemporaneous counter evidence, as in they provide no new eyewitnesses who worked inside the AR camps, or a document recording mass relocation of Hungarian Jews from Birkenau in 1944.
I am holding Holocaust promoters to this 100% certainty standard until Lipstadt and company concede otherwise.
It is a made up standard, that assumes there is one Holocaust narrative with universal agreement, there is one set of goalposts.
Under the 100% certainty standard, if revisionists are able to create even a small chance of doubt, say 1%, this would be of some significance as it would open the door to further debate which they are unwilling to have.
I cannot think of any examples, where so called revisionsts have created a doubt, that is not explainable. For example, the doubt over the use of diesel engines for gassings and that not everyone sent to an AR camp was killed there. Some supposed doubts, such as the use of wooden gas chamber doors, are very easily explained! Other doubts, such as the exact location and dimensions of the mass graves, are harder to resolve, due to it not being known how many graves were actually dug and the postwar grave robbing.
Let's look at the classic revisionists points about Nuremberg in light of the 100% certainty standard.
-It is claimed that the Holocaust is proved with absolute, 100% certainty. This conclusion is said to be inerrant and infallible.
-Suppose we ask WHEN these facts were established with certainty. The traditional answer would have to be that it was at Nuremberg (and similar trials). This is where the precedent was established.
-If Nuremberg was one-sided and propagandistic and its conclusions are highly vulnerable to critique, this calls everything into question.
The IMT were not about the Holocaust, they were about war crimes, which had been well evidenced by 1945.
From the traditional point of view, the Nuremberg critique is a crucial point because it 1) establishes reasonable doubt about the precedent (which opens the door to further debate), 2) it materially erodes the original evidentiary basis for the Holocaust, 3) it even explains to an extent the question of how such a legend could have taken hold. Does it absolutely disprove the Holocaust by itself? No, because you would still need to evaluate the claims, some of which could in theory have some real basis even if the trials were a frame-up.
The Holocaust specific trials, were the trials of those directly involved, such as Topf & Sons engineers, the Einsatzgruppen and AR camp staff. Those accused accepted that mass killings had taken place, but they often denied individual responsibility. For example, Josef Hirtreiter, who admitted to working at TII and was convicted on ten charges of murder, mainly individual people, during the unloading of the transport trains. The court ruled that it could not be proved he was responsible for the mass gassings. There is no evidence the trials, run by any German prosecutor, was a "frame-up".
If revisionists are able to establish any material doubt, even something modest like 5%, this would imo demand a major public and academic controversy. Needless to say, I think revisionists have gone far, far beyond that, and it has only gone unacknowledged for political reasons.
What doubt are you referring to? I suspect any doubt you suggest, will go the way doubts over the use of wooden doors that leaked and opened from the inside, have gone. They just cause those who understand evidencing to roll their eyes.
