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?
"we have maintained that there was a criminal conspiracy for the extermination of Jewry ... We shall argue that it was possible to remain in Berlin and to be responsible for the extermination of the Jews of Lvov if the deed was done by virtue of that conspiracy."
ReplyDelete- Hausner, Eichmann trial, 2 May 1961
"These avowals and incitements were typical of the declarations of the Nazi conspirators throughout the course of their conspiracy."
- IMT Indictment, c.1.
The word conspiracy features 27 times in Count One, conspirators a whopping 60 times. That's probably why it's entitled 'THE COMMON PLAN OR CONSPIRACY.'
Paranoid conspiracy loons.
Wow, you're an idiot. You really can't tell the difference between a Criminal conspiracy as in the legal concept where a bunch of people conspire to commit a crime, and the baseless nonsense utterly bereft of any evidence theory that you're peddling?
ReplyDeleteNo evidence to validate widmann's nonsense. How boring.
My point about the modern use of the word 'conspiracy' was clearly too subtle for sluggish nathan.
ReplyDeleteWitmann predicts that no evidence to support the "conspiracy for the extermination of Jewry" will be found in Rosenberg's diaries. That was actual point of his short article.
You've no evidence to invalidate that prediction
have you
nathan
t 65- My point about the modern use of the word 'conspiracy' was clearly too subtle for sluggish nathan. -
ReplyDeleteSigh.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivocation
- Equivocation ("to call by the same name") is classified as an informal logical fallacy. It is the misleading use of a term with more than one meaning or sense (by glossing over which meaning is intended at a particular time). It generally occurs with polysemic words (words with multiple meanings).-
Jon Harrison is using the word "Conspiracy" in one sense - the colloquial definition being a sinister, evil scheme, by this or that party, more often than not the product of an utterly paranoid mind. The IMT and Eichmann trial prosecutors, on the other hand, are using a totally different sense - the legal definition wherein a bunch of people conspire to commit a crime. Anyone can see that the senses being used are not the same, well, anyone except for you.
Were you listening in logic class? This is one of the first fallacies that usually get discussed. But, since when have idiots ever needed logic?
- Witmann predicts that no evidence to support the "conspiracy for the extermination of Jewry" will be found in Rosenberg's diaries. That was actual point of his short article.-
ReplyDeleteFrom Widmann's silly little screed
- Gilbert recorded the reaction of Rosenberg to “recent revelations” as follows:
“Of course, it’s terrible – incomprehensible, the whole business. – I would never have dreamed it would take such a turn – I don’t know. – Terrible!”
And later during the interview:
“I don’t know. I guess it just ran away with him [Hitler]. – We didn’t contemplate killing anybody in the beginning; I can assure you of that. I always advocated a peaceful solution. I held a speech before 10,000 people which was later printed and distributed widely, advocating a peaceful solution. – Just taking the Jews out of their influential positions, that’s all. Like instead of having 90 per cent of the doctors in Berlin Jewish, reducing them to 30 per cent, or something like that – which would have been a liberal quota even then. – I had no idea that it would lead to such horrible things as mass murder. We only wanted to solve the Jewish problem peacefully. We even let 50,000 Jewish intellectuals get across the border.”
Look at that, Rosenberg didn't deny that the final solution took place. He just tried to minimize his own culpability. Like, I dunno, most people who've ever been charged and tried for murder?
- Rosenberg continued on the idea of Jewish Lebensraum:
“Well, I knew they were being transported to the East, and understood that they were being set up in camps with their own administration, and eventually would settle somewhere in the East. – I don’t know. – I had no idea that it would lead to extermination in any literal sense. We just wanted to take them out of German political life.”-
Same as above. Widmann obviously can't read.
Widmann's vaunted "prediction" sounds more like wishful thinking, if you ask me. The man has the gall to whine about "minor discoveries based on tortured translation", and yet he tries to spin Rosenberg's very obvious minimization of his culpability into an admission that no genocide took place.
Jon Harrison's point stands, BTW. Dumbass is making much ado about nothing WRT Homeland security looking for documents like this. Probably to disguise the fact that he has nothing to show for the rest of his silly fantasies.
The element of paranoia is the key. The Nuremberg judges were not being paranoid about the Nazis: the facts were there in the documents and testimonies. Deniers are being paranoid about the evidence being somehow a hoax and, in this case, about Homeland Security being somehow in on that hoax.
ReplyDeleteHi, Dr. Harrison,
ReplyDeleteI have Mark Mazower's "Hitler's Empire". It mentions that Stahlecker of Einsatzgruppe A was in contact with Rosenberg. "Stahlecker told Rosenberg's men they would 'Cleanse the countryside' and concentrate Jews in a few towns, where they would be 'selected' according to their ability to work. It was a recipe for systematic mass murder that merely nodded to the needs of the local war economy". The book also cites Rosenberg's speech in Nov/ 1941 - "It is necessary to expel them over the urals or to eradicate them in some other way". Of course, Mazower gives the context - he gave this speech in a press meeting after a discussion with Himmler regarding the impact anti Jewish Killing actions had on the local economy in Rosenberg's sphere of influence. Rosenberg lost, in that economic concerns could influence, but would ultimately be secondary to Himmler's goal of total murder.
He knew, but had little ability to influence the outcome. All in all, it doesn't sound too different from what's established by the interviews kindly provided by Dumbass.
He was present at the big meetings from July to December 1941 when the decision was made, in principle, to exterminate the Jews of Europe. This is outlined in detail here:
ReplyDeletehttp://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2011/12/belzec-sobibor-treblinka-holocaust_2083.html
Then he plays little or no role because the timetable and logistics of killing are handled by the SS. Thus as I say above I think it's consistent to say he was part of the conspiracy in 1941 that led to the decision, as described in the critique, but that he would not have needed to know the specifics of Auschwitz, Treblinka and other camps, because his own patch was the USSR.
Rosenberg v Stahlecker was a dispute that dragged on for a very long time well into 1943, when Rosenberg received a complaint from Lohse about killing methods. See here:
http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2011/10/what-is-katyn-against-that.html
Widmann's article is utter bollocks. As someone who is unlikely to have done a lick of archival research in his life, let alone at USHMM, hypothesizing that the diaries will be intentionally mistranslated & published, and then locked away by USHMM to prevent any researcher to contravene their publication is simply nonsense.
ReplyDelete