Revisionist arguments about the shootings are "essentially numerical"?

[bombsaway]

Archie, I promise to answer to every point in your post, but first can you answer the one question I'm asking you, which is specifically what do you think "the general resettlement of the Jews" in Generalbezirk Wolhynien was. Your lack of a response on this question is a blocker in terms of our conversation because I don't know what you actually believe.

These conversations are two way streets right? If I get asked questions I'll try to answer, and I should expect the same courtesy from you? (in general, assuming the questions are reasonable)

Callafangers states: it was an actual resettlement operation - they planned to take the Jews out of ghettos all across the region and put them in some other undefined locations

[Archie]

Archie, I promise to answer to every point in your post, but first can you answer the one question I'm asking you, which is specifically what do you think "the general resettlement of the Jews" in Generalbezirk Wolhynien was. Your lack of a response on this question is a blocker in terms of our conversation because I don't know what you actually believe.

These conversations are two way streets right? If I get asked questions I'll try to answer, and I should expect the same courtesy from you? (in general, assuming the questions are reasonable)

Callafangers definitely states - it was an actual resettlement operation - they planned to take the Jews out of ghettos all across the region and put them in some other undefined locations

For purposes of this thread,
-I believe the Einsatzgruppen numbers are wildly inflated
-I do not believe the 363,211 figure
-The details of Wolhynien and other regions are an open research question viewtopic.php?t=149
-At a glance, the documents referenced by Hans are not enough to overturn my general Einsatzgruppen view that there was no extermination policy and that the numbers are unreliable. I have already quoted similar OSR documents referencing shootings.

I find it odd that you have now started two fairly general threads and have in both instances attempted to forbid discussion of topics other than this Wolhynien thing.

If I have something to say on it I will post it to the Meldung 51 thread and will do so at my leisure and it will be for general benefit and not a reply to you. I was going to engage with you in more detail on it once I had a chance to look into it but you blew it by being too demanding and presumptuous.

[bombsaway]

there were 326k Jews in Wolhynien right before the general resettlement took place. if the general resettlement was in fact a killing operation then that would mean a huge portion of them died which gives credence to the Meldung 51 figure.

It seems like you think the figure was way off, so we are left with 2 possibilities

a) the general resettlement was an actual resettlement

b) the initial census was wrong

which do you think is true? I think it is kind of a binary, but maybe you're thinking of something else

I'm using the example of Wolhynien because it makes very concrete what I believe about the genocidal nature of NSDAP policy. the goal was to drastically reduce the Jewish population through killing in this case.

so I want to bring all conversation down from vagueposting to the concrete. I'm prepared to answer all of your questions, and will do so through the lens of Wolhynien. It will take me a while though because you make about 10 different points, all of which are tangential to the main question I'm posing in the thread - which is about an event where the documentary evidence points I am saying points unmistakably to a mass killing campaign, and which you are pretty much punting on.

But you can see it all in this single document, it's not that hard, if you actually engage with the text

On 9 November 1942, the leader of 10th company of SS-Polizeiregiment 15, Helmut Saur, reported that the men were employed for "guarding at the assembly point, securing the individual transports to the execution site, which was about 4 km outside Pinsk". He goes on that "10,000 people were executed. On 30 October, the ghetto was searched through for second time, on 31 October for the third time and on 1 November for the fourth time. A total of about 15,000 Jews were brought to the assembly point. Sick Jews and some children left in the houses were immediately executed in the ghetto in the courtyard. In the ghetto, about 1,200 Jews were executed." (VEJ 8, document 219).

it was not a reprisal because they took the Jews to a remote location to do it.

it was not anti-partisan in nature because these were interned Jews, not partisans living out in the wilderness, and if they were really being resettled they would pose no further threat, so no reason to kill them

[bombsaway]

As I noted, some mainstream historians have argued that there was no general extermination order for the Einsatzgruppen (at least at the beginning). And many don't believe there was a general extermination order until the end of 1941. Martin Broszat for example has said that the killing in summer and fall of 1941,

...was obviously based on the fanatical determination of the National Socialist leadership to eradicate 'Jewish Bolshevism' root and stem. This does not yet necessarily signify that physical liquidation, including the Jews of Germany, was the overall aim of NS Jewish policy, and had already been adopted at that time, nor that Göring's order to Heydrich for the preparation of a comprehensive programme for the deportation of Jews dated 31 July 1941, should be interpreted in this sense. Uwe Dietrich Adam in his study of the National Socialist Jewish policy had rejected this theory some years before, and with good cause.

viewtopic.php?t=38

Christopher Browning has argued for a complicated, compromise position, distinguishing the policies for Jews in different regions. He assumes there was some sort of plan but readily concedes that it was not rolled out in an instantaneous or uniform manner.

first here we have the argument that not being rolled out instantaneously or uniform means there was no overarching plan

The point I'm trying to make here is that even mainstream scholars (the more functionalist ones) don't necessarily interpret the Einsatzgruppen actions to reflect a general extermination policy.

then there's the point that historians don't think it reflects a genocidal policy. i think that's wrong but I guess I have to go through Browning to refute this?

And imo the Einsatzgruppen reports themselves strongly imply this.

now there is the suggestion that the eg reports indicate there was an exclusive security impetus for the killings, which i take it would be immediate concern, rather than something like - we have to kill the children because they'll grow up as avengers. The existence of these reports exclude other motivations for EG actions

You seem to read these and say, "Omg they're shooting Jews. Holocaust proved." But the fact that they so frequently invoke security reasons suggests to me that there was no extermination policy.

now there is the notion that they so frequently invoke, which I think I'll be able to rebutt with AI analysis of the OSRs. I would say only a handful which you have cherry picked invoke but we'll see

Rather we have them dealing very harshly with a group they considered to be hostile.

now there is some justification that they thought killing improved their immediate security, which had military ramifications, I'll also rebut this

For purposes of the Holocaust debate imo the key thing would be the numbers killed. If it's really true that basically all of the Jews in these territories were killed, then I would be inclined to say the official policy is not so important since the effect would be the same. But if the numbers are not correct and there's good reason to see the executions as part of something other than an extermination program, that takes us into revisionist territory (without the need to argue that ALL killings were justified which seems to be the debate you want to have).

with this we have some kind of suggestion that is provable that the numbers are inflated. I think this is purely speculative, so it helps you only if your argument is, the documents could be real and there WAS no genocide . it's an argument about COULD rather than what actually happened.

We can debate the ethics of guerrilla warfare all day, but I don't see the German policies as a unique evil in human history. The Vietnam war had elements of this, and some of the US policies seem very harsh. For example, they had "free-fire zones" where they would declare an area had to be cleared and then anyone later found in that area was assumed to be an enemy combatant. All of the 4th generation warfare with guerrilla warfare, insurgency, terrorism, etc is nasty.

finally we have the notion that this kind of behavior was typical, which I strongly disagree with and believe I can substantiate.

am I am understanding your arguments here correctly, would you have anything to add to them before I rebut? I think it's pretty obvious these are pretty tangential to the thread and more just your personal anti eg arguments than something actually responsive to me. I'll answer them though, but would appreciate it if you answered to my points in an equally serious way

otherwise what is going on here is revisionists holding themselves to a different standard, a weaker standard, where certain subjects and lines of inquiry are avoided.

[Archie]

first here we have the argument that not being rolled out instantaneously or uniform means there was no overarching plan

...
then there's the point that historians don't think it reflects a genocidal policy. i think that's wrong but I guess I have to go through Browning to refute this?

I was giving Broszat and Browning as examples. If you've read other historians, feel free to discuss those instead. The key point was that functionalist theories generally would imply an evolving policy in 1941 and that would seem to contradict your extremely black and white thinking.

now there is the suggestion that the eg reports indicate there was an exclusive security impetus for the killings, which i take it would be immediate concern, rather than something like - we have to kill the children because they'll grow up as avengers. The existence of these reports exclude other motivations for EG actions

I didn't say exclusive. The point is that the fact that they felt the need to give any justification at all (in internal reports) implies there was not a default policy to kill all Jews.

now there is the notion that they so frequently invoke, which I think I'll be able to rebutt with AI analysis of the OSRs. I would say only a handful which you have cherry picked invoke but we'll see

Or you could just read them yourself and form an opinion. As far as cherry-picking, I would say if anything it's the opposite. I quoted a generous selection of the early OSRs for you in that other thread and those selections were focused on mentions of shooting of Jews. If read in full context, what you would find is that the Einsatzgruppen had a considerably broader mission of rearguard security and civil affairs and lots of concerns having nothing to do with Jews.

now there is some justification that they thought killing improved their immediate security, which had military ramifications, I'll also rebut this

I explicitly said I was not offering it as a justification.

with this we have some kind of suggestion that is provable that the numbers are inflated. I think this is purely speculative, so it helps you only if your argument is, the documents could be real and there WAS no genocide . it's an argument about COULD rather than what actually happened.

I've given reasons. Many times.
-lack of mass graves to support the 2,000,000 shooting deaths
-the larger massacres would not have been logistical feasible as alleged (Babi Yar)
viewtopic.php?p=26512#p26512
-The phenomenon of inflated body counts is extremely common and well attested throughout history
-There was an incentive to declare a territory "Jew-free" and/or claim that the JQ had been solved (this also very much applies to the Korherr report, imo)
-Even orthodox scholars seem to acknowledge some inflation in the numbers. For example, I've quoted Reitlinger's comment that the 363,211 is "a quite manifest exaggeration." Or Headland: "There is evidence to suggest that some Einsatzkommando and Einsatzgruppen leaders deliberately exaggerated the numbers of persons shot for their own self-aggrandizement" (see Dalton, 89)

am I am understanding your arguments here correctly, would you have anything to add to them before I rebut?

You don't understand. But whatever. Just make your points.

There's no reason for you to wait around for me or anyone else. If you've got great arguments, just go ahead and make them. You're always whining about how others aren't replying to you in the exact way you demand. It's like you weirdly require our cooperation in order for you to present your case. This is because your style is entirely dialectical and focused on demanding things of others while presenting very little. Your inability to develop arguments on your own is presumably why you have been unable to finish your Best Case essay even after nine months.

[bombsaway]

If you've got great arguments, just go ahead and make them. You're always whining about how others aren't replying to you in the exact way you demand. It's like you weirdly require our cooperation in order for you to present your case. This is because your style is entirely dialectical and focused on demanding things of others while presenting very little. Your inability to develop arguments on your own is presumably why you have been unable to finish your Best Case essay even after nine months.

I'll respond to these in a general EG thread which I'll make, I want to keep things razor focused.

My understanding is that I made some arguments for why the resettlement operation was a planned killing operation to which you didn't respond but only replied it was an "open question"

that doesn't really absolve you here, you know what I'm saying? There is an evidentiary record to be reckoned with here, which you have not done.

[Wahrheitssucher]

If you've got great arguments, just go ahead and make them.
You're always whining about how others aren't replying to you in the exact way you demand.
It's like you weirdly require our cooperation in order for you to present your case.
This is because your style is entirely dialectical and focused on demanding things of others while presenting very little.
Your inability to develop arguments on your own is presumably why you have been unable to finish your ‘Best Case’ essay even after nine months.

I'll respond to these [later], I want to keep things razor focused.

My understanding is… [blah, blah, blah] …to which you didn't respond but only replied it was… [blah, blah, blah] …which you have not done.

Poor BA, Archie didn’t respond the way he should have.
And BA is just trying to keep the conversation focused.

Yeah, yeah, focused on ONLY the very narrow aspects that he thinks will further his irrational but cherished belief-system.

Time waster.

[HansHill]

When Bombsaway starts a new thread, perhaps he can explain this document he (HC) are citing:

"Today, the total population of the General District of Volhynia and Podolia is about 4,630,000, of which approx. 465,000 are Poles and 326,000 are Jews. In the cities, Jews and Poles make up the majority. For example, the cities of Rovno, Dubno, Vladimir-Volhynsk, Lutsk, Kovel, Kostopol, Stolbunov, Brest-Litovsk, Pinsk and Kobrin have a total of 2,438,000 inhabitants, of which 71,300 (around 35%) are Poles and 103,200 are Jews."

[bombsaway]

When Bombsaway starts a new thread, perhaps he can explain this document he (HC) are citing:

"Today, the total population of the General District of Volhynia and Podolia is about 4,630,000, of which approx. 465,000 are Poles and 326,000 are Jews. In the cities, Jews and Poles make up the majority. For example, the cities of Rovno, Dubno, Vladimir-Volhynsk, Lutsk, Kovel, Kostopol, Stolbunov, Brest-Litovsk, Pinsk and Kobrin have a total of 2,438,000 inhabitants, of which 71,300 (around 35%) are Poles and 103,200 are Jews."

What's your confusion?

[HansHill]

I dont want to derail this thread any more than it already has so I'll wait for the dedicated thread. In the meantime I'll try review it again, maybe I'm simply not reading it right.

[bombsaway]

I dont want to derail this thread any more than it already has so I'll wait for the dedicated thread. In the meantime I'll try review it again, maybe I'm simply not reading it right.

It's relevant to this thread because it directly concerns whether the "general resettlement" was a killing operation or not, which is the question I'm posing to revisionists

[Callafangers]

bombsaway just sent me here, from this thread: https://www.codohforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=902

On the current thread, OP leads with:

You don't see more Jews being killed than exist in given areas. If a ghetto had a stated max Jewish population of 50,000, and there are documents describing 100k being killed from there, this would be evidence of inflated numbers, but nothing like this exists.

Yes, it does exist. In fact, it exists for this one:

a particularly blatant document reads

"10,000 people were executed. On 30 October, the ghetto was searched through for second time, on 31 October for the third time and on 1 November for the fourth time. A total of about 15,000 Jews were brought to the assembly point. Sick Jews and some children left in the houses were immediately executed in the ghetto in the courtyard. In the ghetto, about 1,200 Jews were executed."

This is a report specifically within the context of extreme partisan activity in that period and at a location (Pinsk), a key logistical hub for the partisan-infested Pripyat marshes region. The context of partisan activity as the foremost motive in relation to Jewish actions is the default assumption here. There is no challenge to the interpretation that Germany conducted harsh anti-partisan actions -- with significant rationale of partisan threat -- which sometimes included entire villages/neighborhoods (or ghettos, which were especially well-known as partisan hotbeds; also disease vectors). Jews (already recognized as chief propagators of partisan organizing) found within an area raging with partisan attacks/chaos were unfortunately within the exact line of fire for these circumstances. This is not a moral justification in most modern warfare, let alone peacetime, but WW2 was something much larger, especially for a nation (Germany) fully-recognizing the terror that Bolshevism had just wrought upon tens of millions of innocent Russian civilians for decades prior, which carried Germany into another world war. Germany had every reason to fear an extermination of German citizens (in some form or another, but stakes certainly at this scale) if the war was lost -- confirmed by the bombing-slaughter of Dresden, starvation-murder of millions of displaced Germans, and Soviet rape of two million German women immediately at war's end, followed by decades of depraved subversion (and more wars) scaled globally. This is all in addition to the immediate, local threat of partisan attacks within these occupied areas, and mostly at these exact "hotspots" you would point out as some indiscriminate "Jewish extermination" policy being carried out while denying any military context. It's absurd.

Back to the point of numbers: the document cited (VEJ 8, Doc 219) tallies some total 26,200 Jews executed. However, as of summer 1942, there were only some ~18,000 Jews in the entire ghetto:

In the summer of 1994, Mashah Uninn and Bella Kirshner of "Yad Vashem" in Jerusalem, working on file of Brest (Brisk), the district town of Polesia in Belarussia (Belarus), discovered a 544 page list of 17,344 names of the Pinsk Ghetto Jews, made by the Germans in the summer of 1942.

Among the pages, 30 are missing. These missing pages would contain about 940 names or about 5% of the 18,287 names.

https://www.jewishgen.org/databases/Bel ... reshet.htm

I thought you said we'd never see examples of exaggeration, bombsaway? The problem is, when this happens, orthodoxy says "some additional Jews were moved there" (funny how this never cuts the other way). And of course, there is plenty of movement/resettlement language to go around (since movement/resettlement was the actual policy).

If what happened in Generalbezierk Wolhynien was a true resettlement we wouldn't see populations like this (the entire ghetto) being summarily executed.

Yes we would. It's unfortunate but it is a reflection of the scale of the war, not of German cruelty.

elsewhere we see records of systematic planning for a cleansing of Wolhynien + reports of that being successful.

This is addressed at-length, here, in addition to other definitive examples of exaggeration/inflation, with further numerical rationale (see section on "SS Evidence Gaps and Hyperbole"):

Wiki: Meldung 51 (NO-1128)
https://wiki.codohforum.com/pages/index ... _(NO-1128)

So a clear question to revisionists would be, if your disagreement is primarily numerical, would you agree with orthodoxy that the brunt of the Jewish population in Wolhynien was killed in a planned, systematic manner?

"The brunt" is too vague -- please clarify. It was not even the majority, especially since it can be assumed that Jews not underneath AR camps (now confirmed) actually moved East into (or through) areas like GB Wolhynien, some ending up as partisans in Pripyat marshes, etc.; thereby AR camp totals actually increasing the denominator for total Jews in the region. This is also discussed in the Wiki article above.

While it's harsh for any civilians to be among those executed at war, proper context shows these were extreme measures to impose control on a region that was rapidly losing control, amid extraordinary dangers with personal and "racial" stakes unfathomably high. Security and survival were the focus, not bloodlust. Ideology played a role but this was the case for all sides of the war.