Matt Cockerill (HistorySpeaks): Is his career in Holocaust apologetics over?

[Archie]

Cockerill was a quite active anti-revisionist through around mid-2023. He was posting on CODOH forum, on YouTube, Substack, Twitter. He seemed especially hyped up to do the debate with the podcaster Mike Enoch (he talked about it all the time and posted frequently to complain about how Mike was ducking him). My impression is that after that debate he took a step back from the revisionist/anti-revisionist scene.

He posted briefly at "Skeptic" forum. In one post he claimed he was thinking about writing a book proving the Holocaust.
https://skepticforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=925396#p925396

He published an article at Unz in September 2023.
https://www.unz.com/article/the-evidenc ... holocaust/

After October 7th, his attention shifted strongly toward the war in Gaza and related issues. Curiously enough he seems to be quite critical of Israel.
https://substack.com/@historyspeaks

Over at https://www.holocaust.claims/ the most recent post (Oct 4) had an interesting screenshot from Cockerill's Twitter. from August He claims he has had backlash and threats from the Holocaust establishment. They apparently didn't like what he had been doing (trying to debate the Holocaust publicly). I think he also had trouble with YouTube deleting his videos.



I'm betting this guy is likely done with the H. He seems to have come into it with naive notions that he could start up a social media brand dedicated to defending the Holocaust intellectually but that sort of thing just isn't welcome.

[SanityCheck]

Matt Cockerill is also a PhD student with a historical topic on the Holocaust, albeit focused globally, and has published an article in this vein. The History Speaks channel was initially broader, and he has done reviews on other topics for his Substack.

Doing a PhD is intensive - Cockerill has done multiple research trips over this entire period for his main project, and has been teaching as a PTA/GTA as well, as he also recently noted on Twitter - so there is only so much time for other interests, even if adjacent or related. So it's no surprise he has withdrawn to Twitter to focus on Gaza. From conversations with him, Gaza has indeed become his priority for 'extracurricular' activities.

Having observed both 'sides' for well over 18 years, both 'revisionists' and 'anti-deniers' find it hard to sustain commitment and interest and may well move on for personal reasons (eg Thomas Kues) or age/health reasons (many others including Juergen Graf). Some 'revisionists' have abandoned the belief overtly (the usual tiny handful of names) whereas the majority silently stop fussing over it. The old CODOH forum had over 2000 members, of whom some are still active elsewhere, most have dropped out. I presume some realised there was no point expending effort either because they ran into brick walls or because they were personally satisfied, so my presumption is the overwhelming majority of now silent old CODOH forum members remain 'revisionists' but they are lost as activists (researchers and writers) to 'revisionism'. A certain proportion have passed away but how many is entirely unclear. Younger enthusiasts are found elsewhere.

The same with 'anti-deniers': most encounter 'revisionism' and are momentarily fascinated, then become satisfied with their reasons to reject 'revisionism', and move on to something else.