Historians v revisionists, methodology.

[Nessie]

My argument is Hoess's story is "inherently anachronistic," i.e., it's totally impossible.

"What would debating the correct dates achieve?" My argument is that the events he relates are fundamentally contradictory. Not only can you not give dates, there is no set of dates that would even be possible hypothetically.

Historians argue that Hoess is not credible and I have provided reasons as to why that is, using studies of witnesses recalling stressful events, under stress. Historians have then gathered evidence that corroborate His main claims, proving that he told the truth about the mass transports, selections, theft of property, gassings and cremations. Corroboration and credibility are not the same thing. Corroboration determines how truthful a witness is, credibility determines how reliable he is when he describes what he saw.

How does your methodology prove Hoess lied? If a witness describes something in a way that means what he described is impossible, how does that prove he lied? Why could he have not made mistakes instead? Where are the studies that prove when someone is lying, they will get dates and events mixed up, but if they are telling the truth, they will remember everything correctly? Why does contradiction prove lies? Why are you again ruling out errors of memory and recall? Why do you reject corroboration as a means to determine truthfulness?

Since you are being so evasive, I will repeat my challenge that you offer some dates for the events below that are possible.

A - Receives order to implement "Final Solution"
B - Visits Treblinka which was already in operation
C - Sets up extermination facilities at Auschwitz (as an improvement upon the Treblinka procedures)

Since you have asserted that Hoess merely mixed up his dates a little, I would request that you share with us the correct dates for events A, B, and C.

I have already said you that I cannot do that, but going by the date of the docuemntary trail left behind at the camp's construction office;

https://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot ... ce-on.html

A - the order would have been received likely mid to late, 1942
B - it must have been some time 1942-3, when the camp was open.
C - going by Construction Office documents, the autumn of 1942.

As for being evasive, you have ignored all my questions about your methodology.

How does your methodology prove Hoess lied?
If a witness describes something in a way that means what he described is impossible, how does that prove he lied?
Why could he have not made mistakes instead?
Where are the studies that prove when someone is lying, they will get dates and events mixed up, but if they are telling the truth, they will remember everything correctly?
Why does contradiction prove lies?
Why are you again ruling out errors of memory and recall?
Why do you reject corroboration as a means to determine truthfulness?

[Nessie]

I like how Nessie is trying to use the torture in order to excuse all of Hoess's outrageous blunders.

I am not trying to excuse them. Historians accept that he is not credible with the details. What I am doing, is explaining why he said what he said, with reference to scientific studies.

To anyone with a rational mind, the fact that he was tortured AND his story makes no sense reinforces the dubiousness of his testimony. But in Nessieland, the torture means we should grant him MORE latitude for blunders!

His "story" does make sense. Corroborating evidence proves that his claims about Birkenau functioning as a death camp, 1943-4, taking mass arrivals, with selections, gassings, theft of property and mass cremations, is true. Action 14f13 and the euthanasia of prisoners, is also corroborated and makes sense of his descriptions of gassings outwith that period at Auschwitz main camp. His "story" makes sense in the wider context of Nazi policy towards Jews, Action Reinhardt and the Final Solution.

That he was stressed and placed under duress, explains the blunders. You do not want such an explanation, as you want to claim that blunders prove lying, without bothering to evidence that is the case.

These are really two reasons to discount Hoess yet Nessie thinks these things effectively cancel out. Nessie, I don't believe that you really believe what you are saying. You know damn well that a tortured witness who tells a story with fatal blunders is not a valid witness. Yet, Hoess was relied on extensively and in a totally uncritical way by both the courts and by the H historians.

viewtopic.php?t=638

ETA: Nessie's "studies say" nonsense has been debunked here:
viewtopic.php?t=108

Hoess has not been relied upon uncritically. His blunders are widely reported and he is not regarded as a credible witness. In a legal and moral context, a tortured witness is not a valid witness. The problem you cannot cope with, is that he is CORROBORATED. Just as every other SS camp staff is. Most of them were not subjected to torture, when they were put on trial in West Germany, but they corroborated Hoess.

You have not debunked the studies of witnesses that prove how memory fails, recall is often poor, estimations are often wrong and what the common errors made by witnesses are. Those studies help to explain the "blunders" Hoess made and corroboration proves he is telling the truth about Birkenau as a death camp.