Mattogno's Deceptions on Nazi Policy: An Updated Analysis

We are currently preparing the 2nd edition of our White Paper, which will update our analysis of the lies, distortions, evasions and pro-Nazi rhetoric in the work of MGK on the policy and camps of Aktion Reinhard. This current blog series previews some of the arguments in my contribution, which will primarily be my response to the ludicrous claims by Mattogno in Chapter 5 of MGK's 'riposte', published in September 2013, which can be read here.

Lying about the dating of Orders: the Wisliceny Testimonies

Mattogno began writing about Nazi policy in the 1980s. A recurrent theme in that writing has been his attempts to demonstrate that Hitler could not have given an order to exterminate Europe's Jews by the dates claimed by what he calls the "orthodox historiography." Two of the sources he has repeatedly used to make this case are the testimonies provided by Wisliceny at Nuremberg and from prison in Bratislava. Mattogno's devious sleight of hand with these sources shows a long-term technique being perfected of "bait and switch", whereby a testimony is quoted by Mattogno but then an entirely different précis of its contents is given afterwards.

Mattogno's Failure to Evolve, 2000-2010

Mattogno was hyperactive in the first decade of the new century, producing a body of work that included his 'trilogy' on the Aktion Reinhard camps. On the subject of policy, I would identify four developments, which are really indicative of Mattogno's failure to adapt in an evolutionary way to how historians were discussing the Final Solution. Firstly, Mattogno began to tackle shootings in the East, but these were framed against a straw man which assumed that the "orthodox historiography" regards the Einsatzgruppen as forces that only shot Jews because they were Jews, and for no other reason. Secondly, Mattogno elaborated a theme, which he had introduced back in the 1980s, that there was continuity between the emigration policies of 1939-1941 and the Final Solution, and the only change was the destinations of the 'emigrants' and the manner of their emigration. Thirdly, Mattogno set out to neutralize the statements of leading Nazis such as Hitler, Himmler and Goebbels, prompted seemingly by the use of those statements in Shermer and Grobman's Denying History and perhaps by Irving's defeat in the Lipstadt court case. Finally, Mattogno in Sobibor reignited his discussion of the Hitler Order by confronting historians whom he had largely ignored to that point, such as Gerlach, Browning and Kershaw. This attack would continue in his riposte to our White Paper in 2013.

Mattogno's 'Riposte', 2013

In December 2011, we published the first edition our White Paper, exposing MGK's dishonesty, antisemitism and fallacious reasoning concerning the Aktion Reinhard camps. One of our motives was to compel Mattogno to discuss documents that he had previously ignored or minimized. His contributions to MGK's 'riposte' of 2013 did discuss these documents at inordinate length, but primarily in a mode of obfuscation interspersed with blatant lying. I now turn to a detailed discussion of his Chapter 5 of that riposte.

Mattogno: Conclusion

Our White Paper obliged Mattogno to discuss sources that he usually prefers to ignore. When confronted with chains of documents that refer to extermination we can see him resort repeatedly to a set of tricks. Those identified above include:

1) Stating that the use of an exterminatory term was rhetorical or hyperbolic

2) Stating that a proposal was only hypothetical, or the opinion of one person

3) False emphasis on a non-operative part of a phrase

The Ustasha and Vatican's Silence - Part 3

Read the Part 1 and Part 2. This text was originally translated into Portuguese here. The book was originally written in Spanish.

The Ustasha and Vatican's Silence - Part 3
The crimes of the Croatian Ustashis (NDH)

HASTILY ESCAPE. THE VATICAN IN THE END OF WORLD WAR II

Far from being a historical mystery, the escape of thousands outlaw Nazis to South America and other parts of the world is a fact broadly documented in what the Holy See took part actively. Sinister Characters such as Pavelic, Klaus Barbie or Joseph Mengele went into exile making a prior scale in Vatican. Meanwhile, in Croatia, the last Ustasha men hoped that a timely intervention of Vatican diplomacy propitiated the creation of an independent Croatian state off of Yugoslavia.

Ustasha soldier displays proud his macabre trophy, the decapitated head of a Serbian Chetnik. (Photo)

Viewer's Guide to "Auschwitz - The Surprising Hidden Truth" (Minute 38 - end)

Viewer's Guide to "Auschwitz - The Surprising Hidden Truth" 

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Viewer's Guide to "Auschwitz - The Surprising Hidden Truth" (Minutes 22 - 38)

Viewer's Guide to "Auschwitz - The Surprising Hidden Truth" 

Minutes 0 - 10

Minutes 10 - 16

Minutes 16 - 22
Minutes 22 - 38
Minutes 38 - end

Viewer's Guide to "Auschwitz - The Surprising Hidden Truth" (Minutes 16 - 22)

Viewer's Guide to "Auschwitz - The Surprising Hidden Truth" 

Minutes 0 - 10

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Jürgen Graf keeps on giving

Apparently beside himself with rage about our contemptuous reaction to MGK’s monster pamphlet ([large PDF]) in the blogs Jürgen Graf at his best and The Steaming Pile of MGK Manure is Here, Jürgen Graf let fly in some publication of the extreme right with this stuff (not sure how to categorize it, maybe it was meant to be a satire), which will be translated hereafter for what it further reveals about the intellectual level, mindset and character of one of the world’s leading "Revisionists".

Graf isn’t stated to be the author of this pearl, but the rank stupidity of it alone would point to him even if it were not for the puerile bragging about the aforementioned monster pamphlet and for another of Graf’s "Lieber Esel" e-mails, which I received last Friday evening.

Viewer's Guide to "Auschwitz - The Surprising Hidden Truth" (Minutes 10 - 16)

Viewer's Guide to "Auschwitz - The Surprising Hidden Truth" 

Minutes 0 - 10

Minutes 10 - 16
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The Steaming Pile of MGK Manure is Here

Many of our readers will be aware that, nearly two years ago, the members of this blog produced a substantial “white paper” critique of three antisemitic Holocaust deniers named Carlo Mattogno, Jürgen Graf, and Thomas Kues (hereafter MGK) concerning the subject of the Aktion Reinhard camps. Our critique focused on three of their collective books: Mattogno and Graf’s Treblinka (2004), Mattogno’s Belzec (2004), and MGK’s Sobibor (2010). This weekend MGK posted this response consisting of ludicrously bloviated diatribes and arguments based on logical fallacies such as Argumentum Verbosium, which is a common feature of conspiracist cranks like MGK. We are currently reading through the PDF file like men forced to walk through an endless river of manure. It will take us a long time to digest the whole pile of rotting vegetables, but here is a taster of its antisemitic contents. Mattogno writes:

An Italian writer troubled himself to count the number of persons exterminated according to the Bible by virtue of the “cherem”: 2,120,182. The biblical Jehudim were therefore real forerunners of the Einsatzgruppen, actually even worse, because besides men, women and children, they even exterminated the animals! Is pointing this out “anti-Semitic” too?

This is the level and tone to which Mattogno has sunk, abetted by his pet monkeys Graf and Kues. We will reserve our full response to the maniacal work until we have had time to read through the verbiage and recover from both our laughter at its fallacies and our migraines from its tedious length. However, a few preliminary remarks are necessary here in order to forewarn our readers of the crap they will encounter when reading MGK's work.

Jürgen Graf at his best

When I looked into my mailbox yesterday night, I found an e-mail from Jürgen Graf sent last Wednesday, touting the imminent publication of MGK’s repeatedly delayed response ([large PDF]) to our paper Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka. Holocaust Denial and Operation Reinhard. A Critique of the Falsehoods of Mattogno, Graf and Kues.

This e-mail will be transcribed and translated hereinafter, for what I think it reveals about Graf’s mind and character and about the expectable contents of a publication co-authored by this gentleman.

Viewer's Guide to "Auschwitz - The Surprising Hidden Truth" (Minutes 0 - 10)

Viewer's Guide to "Auschwitz - The Surprising Hidden Truth" 

Minutes 0 - 10

Minutes 10 - 16

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Minutes 38 - end

Introduction

Humor in connection with the Holocaust can work, see Roberto Benigni's tragicomedy "La vita è bella". But it went painfully wrong when sometime in 2011, the twenty minutes video clip "Auschwitz: The Comedy" was released on youtube (now down) produced by the usual suspect for argumentum ad youtubium denierbud aka Mike Smith aka Dean Irebodd (aka Ugly Voice among HC authors). A couple of flat and tasteless jokes on the Holocaust and some misconceptions and distortions mostly copycated from the Revisionists Carlo Mattogno and Germar Rudolf were the main ingredients.

Revisionist Article on Hydrogen Cyanide Chemistry Rejected by Peer Reviewed Journals

Germar Rudolf and Nick Kollerstrom recently released an article Differential Exposure of Brickwork to Hydrogen Cyanide during World War Two in Richard Widmann's non-peer reviewed Revisionist journal "Inconvenient History". The paper was previously rejected by the peer-reviewed journals "Analyst" and  "Chemistry - a European Journal".

Open Letter to Nick Kollerstrom on the Auschwitz Death Books

Dear Nick,

We (that is me) are glad to hear that you have expressed your commitment for free speech and against "arresting people for their beliefs”, and trust that this is not limited to your own beliefs but meant universally, also applying to, say for example, denial of crimes committed against Germans.

We entirely support the concern that spreading historical claims should not be punished in an open society – and would like to add – also when these are utterly absurd, offensive to members of the society and mainly a vehicle of political extremism (such as Holocaust denial).

Homeland Security and the Rosenberg Diaries

Richard Widmann here tries to spin a conspiracy around the involvement of Homeland Security in locating the Rosenberg diaries. He says: 

it is certainly surprising, to me at least, that ICE and Homeland Security spend their time looking for lost documents from the Second World War 

However, as can be seen here, a simple Google search would have told him that Homeland Security investigates stolen cultural artifacts, and the diaries clearly qualified as stolen: 

At the conclusion of the Nuremberg Trials, Kempner returned to the United States and lived in Lansdowne, Pa. Contrary to law and proper procedure, Kempner removed various documents, including the Rosenberg Diary, from U.S. government facilities in Nuremberg and retained them until his death in 1993.

HSI investigation

In November 2012, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Delaware and HSI special agents received information from an art security specialist, who was working with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, regarding the search for Rosenberg Diary. The Rosenberg Diary was subsequently located and seized pursuant to a warrant issued by the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware.

HSI plays a leading role in criminal investigations that involve the illegal importation and distribution of cultural property, including the illicit trafficking of cultural property, especially objects that have been reported lost or stolen. The HSI Office of International Affairs, through its 75 attaché offices in 48 countries, works closely with foreign governments to conduct joint investigations, when possible.

Should we expect deniers to check such facts before jumping to paranoid conclusions?

Shoah By Bullets: Desbois Film

A film of Patrick Desbois' work in Ukraine was released in France in 2008. A preview of the Desbois film, showing the Busk excavation is here. Below is the full transcript, produced for educational purposes only:

Jim Fetzer's Reasons to Believe in Holocaust Denial

Conspiracy theorist Jim Fetzer recently moved from somebody who believes "the Holocaust is a reality" to an outright Holocaust denier who considers the extermination of the Jews "a big lie" with only about "600,000 who died (gypsis and Jews, mentally and physically handicapped people)". 

In his radio interview with Kevin Barret, Fetzer offered three arguments as to why he decided to join Holocaust denial, but none of which is actually justifying reasonable doubts on the systematic extermination of the Jews by National Socialist Germany (each is discussed below).

Dzankoi, Crimea

An order to liquidate the Jewish camp at Dzankoi [Dzankoy] was documented by the rear command of the Eleventh Army on January 1st, 1942. It is preserved as NOKW-1866 and states that due to "hunger and the imminent outbreak of epidemics", the camp "must, therefore, be liquidated." Arad quotes the document in "The Holocaust in the Soviet Union", p.208. It is yet more evidence that the Eleventh Army in Crimea was involved in the liquidation of Jews.

In the months following this liquidation, other Jews were executed in the vicinity of Dzankoy and Simferopol, in addition to other parts of the Crimea, as documented in EM 178 here.

The Kortelisy Massacre

On 23 September 1942, Reserve Police Company Nürnberg destroyed the Ukrainian small town of Kortelisy and killed almost all its inhabitants. The present article about this massacre, where not stated otherwise, is based on the well-sourced brochure »Ihr Gewissen war rein; sie haben es nie benutzt«. Die Verbrechen der Polizeikompanie Nürnberg, by Jim G. Tobias and Nicola Schlichting, 2005 ANTOGO Verlag, Nuremberg. Tobias also made a short documentary that includes interviews with survivors of the massacre ("Der Schwarze Mittwoch" Polizeikompanie Nürnberg vernichtet Kortelisy). Accounts quoted in the following are my translations from German text.
  

The Photograph of the Crematorium Site Undressing Scene in Auschwitz-Birkenau

A snapshot of a wooden area from Auschwitz (ASM neg. 282, close up from Swiebocka, Auschwitz: A history in photographs): Four naked women are walking to the left. Several other, unidentifiable persons and benches with clothes can be seen in the blurry background as well as two dressed male persons. The scene resembles the undressing of women. Without further context, it might show the bathing of people.

To say one thing straight away, the photograph was taken in Auschwitz-Birkenau. More precisely, the scene is taken place at the front yard of crematorium 5. Its eastern chimney is visible in the bottom right corner as observed by Auschwitz researcher Jean-Claude Pressac (Pressac, Technique, p. 424)

"Alvarez" and Marais lie about the judgment LG München I vom 14.07.1972, 114 Ks 4/70

The judgment mentioned in this blog’s title, which I quoted from in the blog Further information about what death in a gas van could be like, is commented on pp. 231-32 of a "Holocaust Handbook" with the title The Gas Vans. A Critical Investigation, which is authored by one "Santiago Alvarez" (presumably a(nother) pseudonym of our old acquaintance Thomas Kues), "with major contributions by Pierre Marais". The authors are hereinafter referred to as "A(lvarez)&M(arais)".
  

Further information about what death in a gas van could be like

In the blog Friedrich Paul Berg yelled for "PHOTOS photos of gassing victims"..., I posted a translation of an excerpt from the Munich Court of Assizes' judgment against members of Einsatzkommando 10a dated 14 July 1972, which describes in harrowing detail the murder in a gas van of handicapped children from an asylum at Jeissk (Eysk), a town by the Sea of Azov 247 km away from Krasnodar, which took place on 9 and 10 October 1942.
  

42,500 Camps and Ghettos

While the huge research effort led by USHMM researchers Geoffrey Megargee and Martin Dean deserves much respect, the same does not apply to the way their finds are being announced, especially in some of the English language press.
  

Charles Krafft

Now that his denier status is common knowledge, we can talk about Krafft without being accused of trying to 'out' the deluded Seattle artist. Today I will limit myself to the observations that Krafft has been a CODOH member since 2003, has a joke entity called The Society for a Five Minute Moratorium on Holocaust Hubub (see his post on this page), and has recently been collaborating with some despicable Nazi creatures, most notably here with Carolyn Yeager, whose most recent efforts include eulogies to Streicher and shows advocating Sandy Hook denial. His Youtube account, under the old RODOH pseudonym whodareswings, also has some dubious antisemitic ravings. I wouldn't want to ban Charles or his art but I would hope now that no sane person will wish to buy it, knowing that the man's Nazi fetish is genuine and steeped in hostility towards Jews.

Audrini Massacre

In early January 1942, a town containing orthodox Christians was burned to the ground in Audrini, Latvia, and its occupants were shot, including women and children. The responsible Nazi collaborator, Boleslavs Maikovskis, lost an appeal against denaturalisation in the US in 1985, in a case recorded here. He eventually fled to Germany and died in 1996 without serving time for his crimes. However, as the NYT summarizes, Maikovskis acknowledged that the killings took place:

Kalymon Case

The deportation proceedings against John Kalymon, a Ukrainian police guard in L'viv, which have been in progress for several years, produced a legal judgement that can be read here. The crucial finding is that there are documents in which Kalymon accounted for his use of ammunition by stating that he shot Jews. I quote these below to indicate the brutality of the police's regular activities, from which readers can deduce their own conclusions:

 A report dated August 14, 1942, indicated that “Iv Kalymun recorded that he fired four shots while on duty,” wounding one Jew and killing another. Further, the chief of the commissariat filed a summary report on the same date indicating that policemen “delivered 2,128 Jews to a central assembly point.” The report stated that twelve Jews were “killed while escaping,” seven Jews were wounded, and that “Ivan Kalymun” expended four rounds of ammunition. Additionally, on August 20, 1942, “Kalymun” fired two rounds of ammunition used during operations where 525 Jews were delivered to an assembly point; fourteen Jews were shot and killed and six were wounded. The following day, “Ivan Kalymun” shot two rounds of ammunition in an operation where policemen rounded up and delivered an additional 805 Jews. In June 1943, Kalymon’s commissariat participated “in the liquidation of the Jewish ghetto” where Jews were shot or sent to forced labor camps. From November 19 through 23, 1943, all UAP members in L’viv, including those in Kalymon’s commissariat, participated in massive search operations to locate and to turn over any remaining Jews in the ghetto to German authorities.

Radio debate "re-match"

Not that I think it’s very important, but last Friday there was a "re-match", requested by Friedrich Paul Berg, of the debate on Deanna Spingola’s radio show on 22 June 2012 (mentioned in the blogs The usual "Revisionist" victory dancing ... and Friedrich Berg's follow-up questions).

The record of the "re-match" is available here. Not being inclined – unlike Mr. Berg is – to tell our readers what the outcome of the debate was and who presented the better arguments and evidence, I just encourage our readers to listen to the record and draw their own conclusions.

Meanwhile, I’m enjoying Friedrich Paul Berg’s frantic post hoc attempts to score points on several threads of the RODOH forum (The LiIES of Rudolf Hoess--Commandant of Auschwitz, D-E-B-A-T-E, Walter LaGrand--Gassed to Death in 1999 in 18 minutes!).

The Kamenets-Podolsky Massacre

Photographs of mass executions by Nazi mobile killing squads, shown by the poster "Northman" on the RODOH thread The einsatzgruppen reports, real or propaganda? (specifically here and here), led to an intense discussion with apostles of the "Revisionist" faith. One of the "Revisionist" participants, noted for both his verbosity and the repetitiveness of his feeble arguments, was my old acquaintance "k0nsl", who on another RODOH thread vehemently denied being the person he had been identified as by EXPO.

[Caution: links lead to graphic images.]
The (main) bones of "k0nsl"’s contention were a photo of a mass grave in the Bikernieki forest near Riga, shown in the blog Photos from the German East, and one of the three photos in the Yad Vashem photo archive linked to below, which are also linked to in the blog June 22, 1941:

Kamenets Podolskiy, Ukraine, Bodies, August 1941.
Kamenets Podolsk, Ukraine, Bodies, August 1941
Kamenets Podolski, Ukraine, A pile of corpses