Pressac was a closet revisionist

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jemand
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Pressac was a closet revisionist

Postby jemand » 1 decade 8 years ago (Tue May 10, 2005 2:37 pm)

Quote from Germar Rudolf: Auschwitz-Lügen:
Eines Morgens klingelte das Telefon erneut. Der Herr am anderen Ende meinte, er sei Jean-Claude Pressac. Er wollte von mir meine private Telefonnummer wissen, die ich ihm aber verweigerte. Ich forderte ihn auf, wenn er mir etwas mitteilen wolle, so möge er dies doch schriftlich tun. Er erwiderte daraufhin, aus Sicherheitsgründen wolle er das, was er mir sagen wolle, nicht schriftlich festhalten, weil das für ihn gefährlich sein könnte. Er führte weiter aus, daß auch ich auf der Hut sein solle. Insbesondere sollte ich bezüglich des Holocaust nicht gleich alles auf einmal in Frage stellen. Man könne in dieser Sache nur dann erfolgreich und ohne Selbstgefährdung arbeiten, wenn man ein Stück nach dem anderen angehe.
Seit dem oben erwähnte Telefongespräch war ich mir sicher, daß Jean-Claude Pressac immer der Ansicht war, daß wir Revisionisten im Prinzip recht haben. Angesichts der überwältigenden Macht der Exterminationisten hatte er jedoch früh beschlossen, das "System" von innen zu bekämpfen. Sein Überlaufen zum "Feind", d.h. sein sich Andienen gegenüber den Exterminationisten, war seine Art der Salamitaktik. Er wollte das "System" mit Mitteln des Systems selbst bekämpfen, ihm Schritt für Schritt ein Zugeständnis nach dem anderen abringen. Wenn man seine Publikationen chronologisch betrachtet, so fällt auf, daß sich Pressac mit jeder weiteren Veröffentlichung in dem einen oder anderen Aspekt den Revisionisten annäherte: Als erstes machte er die Diskussion revisionistischer Thesen hoffähig; anschließend brachte er das "System" dazu, die Priorität der Technik vor Zeugenaussagen anzuerkennen; sodann gelang es ihm, daß das "System" die inhaltlichen Probleme der Zeugenaussagen anerkannte; mit jeder neuen Veröffentlichung senkte er die Opferzahlen weiter herab; seine Bewertung von Zeugenaussagen wurde mit der Zeit immer kritischer; und schließlich, nach fundamentalen Angriffen auf den "Auschwitz-Mythos", wandte er sich letztlich gar gegen die anderen sogenannten Vernichtungslager. Ab 1993, mit der Vorlage seines zweiten Buches, muß ihn aber langsam die Angst gepackt haben, denn die noch weitergehenden Revisionen dieses Buches machten ihm Feinde. Diese Angst offenbarte er nicht nur während des Telefongespräches mit mir. Wie Carlo Mattogno berichtet, hat er seither auch die Verbindungen zu ihm abgebrochen, und wie Prof. Faurisson zu berichten weiß, erlitt er bei seinem Zeugenverhör anläßlich eines Strafverfahrens gegen Prof. Faurisson 1995 fast einen Zusammenbruch. Er flehte den Richter an, Faurissons Fragen nicht beantworten zu müssen: "Sie müssen verstehen, daß ich nur ein Leben habe. Sie müssen verstehen, daß ich in meinem Kampf alleine dastehe." Er verweigerte die Aussage, weil er sich damals ganz offenbar völlig isoliert und an Leib und Leben bedroht sah. Dies ist nur damit erklärbar, daß er annahm, eine ehrliche Aussage vor Gericht müsse für ihn fatal sein ­ weil sie revisionistisch hätte sein müssen. Am 23. Juli 2003 verstarb Jean-Claude Pressac im Alter von nur 59 Jahren. Mit seinen Veröffentlichungen hat er uns unabhängigen HolocaustForschern ein reiches Dokumentenmaterial zugänglich gemacht, das die Museen vor uns verbergen wollten, und er hat uns den Zugang zu noch größeren Dokumentenschätzen gewiesen. Zudem hat er die revisionistische Methode der technisch-naturwissenschaftlichen und forensischen Quellenkritik hoffähig gemacht und als einzig richtige Methode auch bei den Exterminationisten durchzusetzen vermocht. Dadurch hat er den Fortschritt der revisionistischen Forschung katalysiert wie vor ihm nur Fred Leuchter. So sehr seine Schriften auch wissenschaftlich angreifbar sind, Pressac war ohne Zweifel der bisher erfolgreichste Revisionist ­ im politischen Sinne. Er war unser Agent. Dafür sollten wir ihm dankbar sein.

Translation:
One morning, the phone rang again. The gentleman on the other end told me he was Jean-Claude Pressac. He asked for my private phone number, which I declined. I said that if he wanted to tell me something, he should write to me. He replied that he did not want to write down what he had to tell me because it could be dangerous for him. He then told me to be cautious and not to question the entire Holocaust at once. One could only work in this field successfully and without endangering oneself by tackling one small piece after another.
Since that telephone conversation I was certain that Jean-Claude Pressac had always believed us revisionists were right. The power of the exterminationists being so overwhelming, he had decided early on to fight the "system" from within. His defection to the "enemy", e.g. his working in favor of the revisionists, was his kind of a "salami tactic". By looking at Pressac's works in a chronological one notices that with each publication, Pressac moved closer to one of the aspects of revisionism: First he established debate on revisionist theses, then he made the "system" accept the higher priority of technical arguments to withess testimonies, after that he got the "system" to accept the factual problems with the witness testimonies. With each publication, he lowered the victim count; his assessment of testimonies became increasingly critical, and finally, after fundamental attacks on the "Auschwitz myth", he even went against the other supposed extermination camps.

I'm skipping the next few sentences. The last part translates as follows:
With his publications he made accessible a wealth of documents to us independent Holocaust researchers which the museums were trying to hide from us [...]. On top of that, he established the revisionist method of critically examining sources (as is standard in scientific research) as the only acceptable way of doing research. Pressac catalyzed revisionist research like nobody before him except for Fred Leuchter. While from a scientific point of view, his works are debatable, Pressac was without a doubt the most successful revisionist - politically speaking. He was our agent. For that we should be grateful to him.

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Postby Bergmann » 1 decade 8 years ago (Tue May 10, 2005 4:21 pm)

This may be relevant here:

In his interview with Igounet, Pressac said things, which must have made the blood run cold in the veins of the exterminationists:[27]

"Concerning the massacres of Jews, several basic conceptions must be thoroughly revised. The expression 'genocide' is no longer appropriate. Every epochal change leads to a new evaluation of rigid canons of memory which we have heretofore been taught to regard as eternal. However, new documents inevitably surface which increasingly upset official certainties. Thus, today's depiction of the system of concentration camps, while still triumphant, is doomed to collapse. What can be salvaged from it? Very little. The truth is that exaggeration of the extent of the concentration camp system is like squaring the circle - it means declaring that black is white. The truth is that national conscience does not care for sad stories. The life of a zombie is not inspiring, since pain suffered is exploited and converted into jingling coins: Medals, pensions, public office, political influence. Thus it becomes possible to be simultaneously victim and privileged individual, even executioner."

[27] Entretien avec Jean-Claude Pressac réalisé par Valérie Igounet" (Interview with Jean-Claude Pressac, Conducted by Valerie Igounet), in: Valérie Igounet, Histoire du négationnisme en France, Editions du Seuil, Paris 2000. pp. 641, 652

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Postby Richard Perle » 1 decade 8 years ago (Tue May 10, 2005 4:34 pm)

Very interesting. Is there a date for that exchange with Rudolf? Wasn't Pressac portrayed as a former revisionist when he first hit the scene?

I'm not sure that Rudolf revealing that was a good thing or not. I hope this book Auschwitz-Lügen is translated soon.

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Postby Iggy » 1 decade 8 years ago (Tue May 10, 2005 5:50 pm)

This quote from Pressac's interview with Igounet has omitted several pages without any indication.

Revisionists have a duty to be honest when presenting evidence.

Here's what Pressac said in full:

Concerning the massacres of Jews, several basic conceptions must be thoroughly revised. The expression "genocide" is no longer appropriate. The advanced figures must be re-examined from the start. In 1961, Hilberg employed the term "destruction" in the title of his book. It is necessary to give up the concept of a systematic extermination planned right from the start. Rather, there was a progressive toughening, imposed by the war itself, which exacerbated the violent antisemitism of Hitler and his direct entourage. Increasingly coercive measures, increasingly drastic, were worked out and applied, leading in 1942 to the "mass murders."


The rest of this "quote" comes TEN PAGES LATER in the interview. In fact, it ends the interview -- with the exception of this final paragraph:

Of all these facts, terrible because they caused the deaths of women, children, and the elderly, only those that have been established will survive. The others are intended for the dustbin of history.


Clearly Pressac with still an exterminationist.

See:

http://www.vho.org/aaargh/fran/tiroirs/ ... 003xx.html

Any person deleting text from this interview without indicating it -- here, apparently the culprit is Jurgen Graf -- is being disingenuous.

Even more maddening is that both the full interview and Graf's "excerpt" are ON THE SAME WEB SITE!!!

This is just plain irresponsible.

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Postby Nick Danger » 1 decade 8 years ago (Tue May 10, 2005 7:05 pm)

This is my favorite Pressac quote:


Pressac says - that his book:
"... demonstrates the complete bankruptacy of traditional history, a history based for the most part on testimonies, assembled according to the mood of the moment, truncated to fit an arbitrary truth and sprinkled with a few German documents of uneven value and without any connection with one and another." J.C. Pressac


And this was mentioned in above post:

"Can we alter the course? It is too late.
A general correction is factually and humanely impossible ...
New documents will unavoidably turn up and will overthrow
the official certainties more and more. The current view of
the world of the [National Socialist] camps,though triumphant, is doomed.
What of it can be salvaged? Only little."

J.C. Pressac
[Valérie Igounet, Histoire du négationnisme en France, Editions du Seuil, Paris 2000, p. 652.]


IMHO, Pressac was like Hoess in leaving little nuggets for the future.
I think these guys walked a tightrope with vicegrips on their testes but knew the truth would filter through.

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Postby Iggy » 1 decade 8 years ago (Tue May 10, 2005 7:58 pm)

I don't think so.

The text you quote is from Technique and all he's saying is that, unlike his book, which (he says) is filled with documentary evidence, which is more valuable than eyewitness testimony, traditional history is unreliable.

Here's the entire paragraph, thanks to our friends over at HHP:

The fact that the history of the extermination rested essentially on eyewitness accounts gave rise in the West to a debate cased on comparison and confrontation of these testimonies, a critical attitude which led in the end towards some people purely and simply denying the existence of homicidal gas chambers. Testimony history and its revisionist offspring being very closely linked, the one having generated the other, it became absolutely essential to find a new historical approach in order to escape from the closed circle of futile debate and go further in search of the truth. A precise study based on material evidence, such as the study of Krematorien II and III, meets this requirement of getting out of the circle, but can by no means be considered definitive, because like any human endeavor it contains imperfections. It is intended above all to be the beginning, open to criticism and improvement, of a detailed, in-depth study of all the gas chambers, for homicidal or disinfestation purposes, still existing in the Nazi concentration camps. This study also demonstrates the complete bankruptcy of the traditional history (and hence also of the methods and criticisms of the revisionists), a history based for the most part on testimonies, assembled according to the mood of the moment, truncated to fit an arbitrary truth and sprinkled with a few German documents of uneven value and without any connection with one another. This new methodology is also a form of protection against the temptation to seek media success, as in films or television programs which, despite their success, disdain even the most elementary historical approach and cut themselves off from basic realities. Finding a hitherto unknown document that makes it possible to fill a gap between two known facts and this improving our overall knowledge is a thousand times more necessary and important than constantly wasting kilometers of film on the same places, the same ruins and the same monuments without ever bringing anything new. The money invested in these films or television broadcasts would have been better spent on genuine historical research in order to establish a less fragile truth than that based on human memory, which is fallible and changes over time.


Notably, that part about trashing revisionists is left out of the "quote," this time selectively edited by David Cole.

This is more editorial dishonesty and gets Revisionism nowhere.

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Postby Bergmann » 1 decade 8 years ago (Tue May 10, 2005 10:46 pm)

Iggy wrote: Clearly Pressac with still an exterminationist.
See:
http://www.vho.org/aaargh/fran/tiroirs/ ... 003xx.html

Any person deleting text from this interview without indicating it -- here, apparently the culprit is Jurgen Graf -- is being disingenuous.

I lifted the quote off: http://vho.org/tr/2003/4/Graf426-432.html#ftnref27
Apparently it is a translation from French.
I don’t speak that language, and Rudolf probably neither. So I cannot comment on who is right and wrong here.

Iggy wrote: Notably, that part about trashing revisionists is left out of the "quote," this time selectively edited by David Cole.
This is more editorial dishonesty and gets Revisionism nowhere.

Sorry. I don’t understand. Who said anything about trashing revisionists? What am I missing?

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Postby Iggy » 1 decade 8 years ago (Tue May 10, 2005 10:51 pm)

Trashing revisionists in parenthesis:

This study also demonstrates the complete bankruptcy of the traditional history (and hence also of the methods and criticisms of the revisionists), a history based for the most part on testimonies, assembled according to the mood of the moment, truncated to fit an arbitrary truth and sprinkled with a few German documents of uneven value and without any connection with one another.

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Postby Hannover » 1 decade 8 years ago (Tue May 10, 2005 11:53 pm)

Dishonesty? I don't think so.
I read:
This study also demonstrates the complete bankruptcy of the traditional history (and hence also of the methods and criticisms of the revisionists), a history based for the most part on testimonies, assembled according to the mood of the moment, truncated to fit an arbitrary truth and sprinkled with a few German documents of uneven value and without any connection with one another.

as saying that those who criticize Revisionists are bankrupt.

To re-phrase it:

'This study also demonstrates the complete bankruptcy of criticizing the methods of revisionists'.

- Hannover
If it can't happen as alleged, then it didn't.

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Postby Carto's Cutlass Supreme » 1 decade 8 years ago (Wed May 11, 2005 4:28 am)

Danger wrote,
IMHO, Pressac was like Hoess in leaving little nuggets for the future.

And Kurt Gerstein as well. These people are perhaps heros.

What is the "salami tactic" by the way? Rudolf mentions it.

If Iggy's correct about the misquote, or quote out of context, that's something we need to seriously consider. That's pretty bad. I didn't have time to check into it.
-----

That was fascinating what Hannover said:
To re-phrase it:

'This study also demonstrates the complete bankruptcy of criticizing the methods of revisionists'.


I could see it meaning that.

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Postby Turpitz » 1 decade 8 years ago (Wed May 11, 2005 7:22 am)

is filled with documentary evidence, which is more valuable than eyewitness testimony.


Neither are as good as physical evidence though, are they?

Revisionists have a duty to be honest when presenting evidence.


It is not the revisionist’s job to “present evidence” theirs is to refute your supposed evidence with the laws of science and logic. It is the industries job to “produce evidence” you are the accusers screaming blue murder day and night, yet in regards to evidence you have produced nothing in sixty years. Revisionists cannot produce evidence for something they believe did not happen, if you want them to prove nothing happened let them loose at these sites for a week or two, with some machinery, it would take no time to reveal the nothingness of these sites.
In your deluded hypocrisy you squeal the Germans were very secretive about it and left no paper trail, and then you completely ignore the physical aspects and resort to paper as evidence. If there is no paper trail, why don’t you physically investigate it, is that basic logic too difficult to grasp? This fundamental logic is all the more important considering the accusations are of a completely practical nature, I cannot think of many things that are more physically orientated than murdering “eleven million” people. Why is it, in all other known crimes, the area of the crime is thoroughly investigated first, yet in the industries case it is completely ignored and concrete is smeared everywhere instead, I have never known anything so ludicrous in all my life.


What is the "salami tactic" by the way? Rudolf mentions it.


Taking it apart, a slice at a time.

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Postby Richard Perle » 1 decade 8 years ago (Wed May 11, 2005 8:43 am)

This line:

"his study also demonstrates the complete bankruptcy of the traditional history (and hence also of the methods and criticisms of the revisionists)"

At first I took this as a criticism of the Industry attacks on revisionism, but I think Pressac is actually being critical of revisionist methods, by insinuating that revisionists focus on the unreliable testimony evidence. This is bizarre as revisionists have been the first to address the documentary and physical evidence (or lack of), and hasn't Pressac seen his 'criminal traces' successfully demolished?

Revisionists, in quoting Pressac here, have simply highlighted one half - the quasi-revisionist half - of Pressac's strange split personality. It's not especially fraudulent.

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Postby Iggy » 1 decade 8 years ago (Wed May 11, 2005 9:57 am)

If the line about revisionists in parenthesis is not a condemnation of revisionism, then why drop it from the "quote"?

It's very clearly a condemnation.

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Postby Hannover » 1 decade 8 years ago (Wed May 11, 2005 10:11 am)

Clearly? Not.

Since when do Revisionists rely on 'eyewitnesses', other than to debunk their claims and laugh at them? Iggy seems to be ignoring the text that followed:
a history based for the most part on testimonies, assembled according to the mood of the moment, truncated to fit an arbitrary truth and sprinkled with a few German documents of uneven value and without any connection with one another.

I stand by my assessment, which makes more sense in context to the entire paragraph.
Anyone seen the original French text?

- Hannover
If it can't happen as alleged, then it didn't.

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Postby Richard Perle » 1 decade 8 years ago (Wed May 11, 2005 10:43 am)

I think the key piece of text is this:

bankruptcy of the traditional history (and hence also of the methods and criticisms of the revisionists


If the traditional history was largely all that existed up until Pressac, then Pressac must be dismissing revisionist work which delt with that history. No?

Remember, with his book he is claiming to have assembled evidence that renders the 'traditional history' irrelevant, and hence also revisionist attempts to address this history must be of equally low value. Of course he has been shown to be wrong, but that is surely what he means and must represent his mindset when writing the book. It's the usual misrepresentation of revisionism, but that's what they do.

I see no real value in schizoid remarks from Industry players even when they are clear and unambiguous.


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