BA's case for orthodoxy

[Vandegraf]

Hey bombsaway.

Can you find a single instance of a German using this word as something that happens to people (as opposed to entities that are not formally alive) where through action is obviously not killing.

From the Rosenberg's diary:

Yesterday I caught up with Rust at Führer's and he again introduced the talk about the Reich Institute of Prehistory. Now that Rust had accepted my suggestions, all that was left to do was liquidate the visiting privy council Wiegand.[Theodore Wiegand, archaeologist and member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences] When the Leader heard that we agreed, he laughed happily.

[Alfred Rosenberg's diary, 1st May 1936]

I hope it helps in your unbiased search for truth!

[Hektor]

Hey bombsaway.

Can you find a single instance of a German using this word as something that happens to people (as opposed to entities that are not formally alive) where through action is obviously not killing.

From the Rosenberg's diary:

Yesterday I caught up with Rust at Führer's and he again introduced the talk about the Reich Institute of Prehistory. Now that Rust had accepted my suggestions, all that was left to do was liquidate the visiting privy council Wiegand.[Theodore Wiegand, archaeologist and member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences] When the Leader heard that we agreed, he laughed happily.

[Alfred Rosenberg's diary, 1st May 1936]

I hope it helps in your unbiased search for truth!

Companies, Parties, Suburbs, Ghettoes, Armies, etc. are entities, but they consist of people that are 'formally' and naturally alive. To liquidate those, doesn't mean to kill them. Although it's of course always imaginable to use physical violence in the process. And when a government does do that (or an institution using the gov. e.g. courts in the process) there is always a realistic threat of violence, if one doesn't comply. Now usually this goes off without *physically* violence, but a person that would resist gov., resist arrest and any gov. measure would ultimately be killed by gov. agents. Most people blind that out. They think only dictatorships or authoritarian governments are using violence, especially the National Socialist or Fascist ones. But that is far from the truth. The stone throwing towards the National Socialists is also an act of distraction, from the fact that any form of government, including democracies, is ultimately violent. It is of course more a question of what kind of violence, for what reasons and for what purpose would be 'legitimate use of violence'. The Nuremberg trials and their follow-up charades served ultimately the purpose that only 'right-wing', National Socialist government's use of violence would be illegitimate and dangerous. When democracies and communists do it, it's of course for the best of mankind.

[Vandegraf]

It was clearly meant as "overcoming" or "dealing with" the visit of that Wiegand, since after Rust had accepted Rosenberg's proposals, there was nothing to discuss with Wiegand anymore.

[hermod]

Indeed. The language is hyperbole, but it turns out that this isn't about 'physical extermination'. That Vernichtung doesn't have that meaning there. In fact Hilter says that Jews are even reformable. They can find a place somewhere in the world, settle there and then live from their own work...

The citing of the speech to prove the Holocaust turns out to do the opposite, if one has thoroughly analyzed the text. But only few people can do that, while even less people will actually do that. And when they realize how they are being played, they won't like the feeling of that neither.

I wouldn't call it an hyperbole. The neutralization, ostracization and expulsion of the Jews from Europe was indeed what the Nazi final solution of the Jewish problem was all about (in accordance with what the original devisers of that program --- that is, the first Zionists --- had planned decades before WWII) and what would have been completely achieved (thus actually reducing Jewry to nothing* in Europe) after the war if Nazi Germany had won WWII.
....

Got to agree. The NS solution to he Jewish problem was from neutralising Jews in public German life up to removing them from Germany on from anywhere where they could become a problem in the future. This didn't include killing more of them, than was necessary. The Revisionist POV is 100% in line with this. So is the evidence. Although Revisionists of course admit that there was also a psychological warfare campaign as well as a international propanda campaign against Germany... Which was even prepared prior to Hitler become chancellor. There were conferences held by Jews in 1932 that dealt with the question of what to do about Hitler taking over (This was half a year before the NSDAP became strongest party).
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/arti ... Conference
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/arti ... Conference
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/arti ... Conference

The first Zionists had also coined the term "final solution of the Jewish problem/question" itself and their final solution of the Jewish problem/question was about the mass resettlement of Europe's Jews as a tool supposed to put an end to the old cycle of Jewish expulsions and resettlements plaguing Europe. When the Nazis decided to go for a final solution of the Jewish problem, they merely picked up the Zionist term and program but with a different destination (not Palestine). It can be said that they were anti-Semitic Territorialists because they wanted the same thing as the Jews of the ITO*, but for different reasons. The final solution of the Jewish problem/question was not "the euphemism of German bureaucracy for killing off Europe's Jews" as Zionist propagandists claim. It was a mass resettlement of Europe's Jews.

https://postimg.cc/4mzPQrSy

The founder of political Zionism in November 1899 :

https://postimg.cc/622GtCsZ

https://postimg.cc/RJKJ1xGT

https://postimg.cc/WtzxSbG3

https://postimg.cc/XpddstC1

(*) Jewish Territorialists of the ITO :

The Jewish Territorial Organisation, known as the ITO, was a Jewish political movement which first arose in 1903 in response to the British Uganda Offer, but which was institutionalized in 1905.[1] Its main goal was to find an alternative territory to that of Palestine, which was preferred by the Zionist movement, for the creation of a Jewish homeland. The organization embraced what became known as Jewish Territorialism also known as Jewish Statism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Te ... ganization

[bombsaway]

Butterfangers was correct. The transcripts were not released in an edited book on the topic, and it's not for lack of funding. The complete transcripts are still unavailable to the general public, and they're edits anyway. The issue is not moot at all. You chose to cut the next paragraph of my post which already answered this, and there is a reason for that too - probably to be a time-waster.

Sorry your posts are a little unclear to me. You said here viewtopic.php?f=2&t=14859&start=345#p109672

"In any case, a couple of months ago Yad Vashem uploaded a more legible variant, they're under O.65 in four parts:
https://documents.yadvashem.org/ I also have another different legible copy around somewhere, but I'm too lazy to search for it."

So there's multiple legible variants and the one I posted is at least half legible (according to Butterfangers), but are you saying they're still incomplete? If some are illegible is that by design? (as I think Butterfangers was alluding to).

I asked you how he "prompted" (your word) Eichmann and you respond

How? In particular, see the course and evolution of the conversations in the Sassen transcripts - the confrontations Sassen creates are out of place given apparent previous statements. In the background, he proposed and agreed to a moneymaking plan, plied the subject with drinks and encouraged him to speculate and wild out a little to make for good content.

It seems the only evidence based example you provided was Sassen telling Dr. Langer ("Keep drilling!"). I'd say this is an odd form of "encouragement". Stangneth contextualizes like so:

Hardly any of the stories about Langer’s own involvement in the Holocaust
were reproduced in the transcript, suggesting that Sassen had guaranteed him
a level of discretion. Sassen certainly doesn’t seem to have brought him into
the circle because he was interested in hearing specifics from him. Langer
had something very different to offer. Unlike Sassen and Fritsch, he was in a
position to be able to evaluate at least some of what Eichmann said. It is
inconceivable that Langer and Eichmann didn’t have at least a fleeting
acquaintance from their time in power. If nothing else, then in the final
months of 1944, Eichmann’s appalling death marches would surely have
brought his name to the attention of an SD man of Langer’s rank. Langer was
able to judge and to ask questions where Sassen foundered. He was there to
run Eichmann through the mill on Sassen’s behalf. A former employee of Der
Weg stressed that Eichmann was literally interrogated in the Sassen circle.96
During a concentrated discussion between Eichmann and Langer, Sassen can
be heard on the recording whispering “keep drilling!” But Eichmann quickly
discovered how to handle Langer—by turning his own weapons against him:
laws and regulations. He liked to cite one of the books that the Sassen circle
discussed page by page and put his superior knowledge to good use, backing
up his partly dishonest theories by saying: “Lange[r] also saw it for the first
time when he saw Dr. Blau’s collection of statutes.”97

So it seems there was again this antagonistic relationship by Langer and Sassen towards Eichmann, as they thought he was lying about the full extent of the genocidal program.

The source here is given as BA tape 09D, 29:08

So this part of the interviews is both on the tape and in the transcripts (29:08). Assuming it is legible, revisionists should be able to verify Stangneth's interpretation. And yes, they have to be the ones doing the verification, as any orthodox historian automatically comes under heavy scrutiny. It seems you are arguing that because this hasn't happened yet, the transcripts at least are questionable, but this is silly. Using this logic, any evidence that hasn't been scrutinized yet by revisionists has no probative value. Therefore if revisionists scrutinized zero documents the entirety of documentary evidence for the Holocaust should be inadmissible.

I offered my assessment based on what I think is the best available evidence, including for example what Eichmann said in a serious setting believing to have the benefit of secure communications. When you say in relation to Sassen "there are some aspects of his character that say otherwise," yes, it's a cute speculative chain the author has going. Reveal Ludolf-Hermann von Alvensleben to whom and why?

The intimate conversations of high ranking Nazis like Alvensleben and presumably Langer (identity unknown) should make for saleable literature, yes.

Thanks for reiterating the Irreducible Complexity stuff. I understand; you just get "genocide" vibes from Eichmann and so those vibes are probative. I see a future Mossad worker arranging some exiled Germans to banter with designated bad boy Eichmann, so designated by the very darlings of the regime that exiled them, on the very subject of those darlings - to enhance the content creation process.

I don't understand your "irreducible complexity" argument. Is this in reference to the evidentiary case for the Holocaust?

first definition provided on Wikipedia is this: " a single system composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning."

To be clear if the Sassen interviews had never come to light I don't think the case for orthodoxy would be meaningfully hurt, because the volume of evidence is so large, and virtually nothing exists for any alternative hypothesis. Even if there was half as much evidence as there is right now, it wouldn't become questionable, though certain aspects of it would probably be more mysterious.

My point with the evidence is simple. If you more evidence, the case becomes stronger. If there were a thousand diary entries like Herman Kruk's one where he reports on a rumor of Dutch Jews making it to Lithuania, this would become much more likely in the eyes of historians, or at least an explanation should be provided about why so many rumors were flying about this.

Really sounds like you haven't read Kruk and are relying on blogger gibberish. It's even been translated to English. You wouldn't do that to us would you?

Yes I've read it. He reports on a rumor (this is basically the weakest possible evidence, imagine if the best evidence for the Holocaust was rumors) and there is nothing more. The only thing he ends up learning is that their furniture made it.

Well, this goes back to the last point, which you mysteriously called speculative... I asked you a question and you avoid it. Eichmann is an expert on Jews and Jewish leaders, interacted with them, studied them, wrote white papers on them - and also admired them for some reason. Based on your avowed methodology, why should a man listen to the Sassen tapes and not accept Eichmann's "Jewish perfidy" vibes as factual too? Even if you couldn't pinpoint an individual specific claim you'd vouch for, then surely he was still on to something? Something plausibly general?

[/quote][/quote]

Eichmann says things that are clearly speculative, but also reports on seeing gassings and having conversations, (eg with Heydrich: "The Führer has ordered the physical extermination of the Jews.")

If Eichmann reported on being present in a meeting with top level Jews who said something like "Yeah we admit it, we're manufacturing a genocide in order to make us more sympathetic in the eyes of the world" this would be evidence, rather than speculation. Such a comment would have be interrogated further, but yes it would have at least some probative value.

Hey bombsaway.

Can you find a single instance of a German using this word as something that happens to people (as opposed to entities that are not formally alive) where through action is obviously not killing.

From the Rosenberg's diary:

Yesterday I caught up with Rust at Führer's and he again introduced the talk about the Reich Institute of Prehistory. Now that Rust had accepted my suggestions, all that was left to do was liquidate the visiting privy council Wiegand.[Theodore Wiegand, archaeologist and member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences] When the Leader heard that we agreed, he laughed happily.

[Alfred Rosenberg's diary, 1st May 1936]

I hope it helps in your unbiased search for truth!

I think you're confused because the council is named after Wiegand. But a council is formally a non-living entity, like a ghetto or a political organization, though comprised of people. E.g could the Supreme Court be killed? Well maybe but this is problematic language-wise in my view.

If Rosenberg had said ' the members of the privy council ' had been liquidated, this would be a strong counterexample.

[Vandegraf]

I think you're confused because the council is named after Wiegand. But a council is formally a non-living entity, like a ghetto or a political organization, though comprised of people. E.g could the Supreme Court be killed? Well maybe but this is problematic language-wise in my view.

If Rosenberg had said ' the members of the privy council ' had been liquidated, this would be a strong counterexample.

Well, I must apologize for the misunderstanding due to my poor translation. I had to translate it from my native language (czech) which might be sometimes confusing. The original term was something the Germans called "Geheimrat" which can be translated as "Privy Councillor"
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geheimrat]

So, it is not "council" as some "body of advisors" but really just one individual person with the title Geheimrat aka "Privy Councillor".

[Wilbur]

LOL! "Dr. Langer" was already identified by Eichmann as Dr. Ernst Chlan (despite that the philosopher saying only real names were used in the Sassen household or that Eichmann always threw out red herrings afterwards and other nonsense) and "Dr. Langer's" glory stories are fake. Quelle surprise.

The source here is given as BA tape 09D, 29:08

So this part of the interviews is both on the tape and in the transcripts (29:08). Assuming it is legible, revisionists should be able to verify Stangneth's interpretation.

That's a tape timestamp. You'd think that the phliosopher would regularly cite the transcripts she otherwise vouches for, yeah.

[Hektor]

I ....
....

Got to agree. The NS solution to he Jewish problem was from neutralising Jews in public German life up to removing them from Germany on from anywhere where they could become a problem in the future. This didn't include killing more of them, than was necessary. The Revisionist POV is 100% in line with this. So is the evidence. Although Revisionists of course admit that there was also a psychological warfare campaign as well as a international propanda campaign against Germany... Which was even prepared prior to Hitler become chancellor. There were conferences held by Jews in 1932 that dealt with the question of what to do about Hitler taking over (This was half a year before the NSDAP became strongest party).
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/arti ... Conference
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/arti ... Conference
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/arti ... Conference

The first Zionists had also coined the term "final solution of the Jewish problem/question" itself and their final solution of the Jewish problem/question was about the mass resettlement of Europe's Jews as a tool supposed to put an end to the old cycle of Jewish expulsions and resettlements plaguing Europe. When the Nazis decided to go for a final solution of the Jewish problem, they merely picked up the Zionist term and program but with a different destination (not Palestine). It can be said that they were anti-Semitic Territorialists because they wanted the same thing as the Jews of the ITO*, but for different reasons. The final solution of the Jewish problem/question was not "the euphemism of German bureaucracy for killing off Europe's Jews" as Zionist propagandists claim. It was a mass resettlement of Europe's Jews.
...
[/size]

That's exactly the thing. Jews want their own institutions and organizations, exclusively under their control and also limiting membership of outsiders. Some orgs are more "inclusive", but Jews have managed to deal with this as well. But when non-Jews decide that their own institutions are exclusively for them, then they are up in arms about it.

At the stage the articles were written the NSDAP had virtually no say in politics. They had a program and a lot to say in speeches of course. But the Jews didn't figure that prominently in this, far less than the impression that was created afterwards (or by some at the time) suggests. They were pretty clear that Jews would get their citizenship revoked, since they couldn't be lawfully citizens anyway (Germans being a ius sanguinis) nation (Based on both Germanic and Christian traditions). After what Jews did pull of in the Weimar Republic, it was actually to be expected that there would be a response at the time.

[bombsaway]

I think you're confused because the council is named after Wiegand. But a council is formally a non-living entity, like a ghetto or a political organization, though comprised of people. E.g could the Supreme Court be killed? Well maybe but this is problematic language-wise in my view.

If Rosenberg had said ' the members of the privy council ' had been liquidated, this would be a strong counterexample.

Well, I must apologize for the misunderstanding due to my poor translation. I had to translate it from my native language (czech) which might be sometimes confusing. The original term was something the Germans called "Geheimrat" which can be translated as "Privy Councillor"
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geheimrat]

So, it is not "council" as some "body of advisors" but really just one individual person with the title Geheimrat aka "Privy Councillor".

Here's the English translation

May 1 [1936]
Yesterday I encountered Rust in the Führer’s offi ce and brought the discussion
back to the Reich Institute for Prehistory. Because Rust had now accepted my
suggestions, all that remained was to take care of the visit of Geheimrat Wiegand.261

When the Führer heard that we agreed, he laughed merrily:
he was in agreement, he did not want to hear anything more! So Rust will now
write me a letter and confi rm everything, which is all the more necessary and
must occur quickly because a few days ago the old archeologists in Bonn were
trying, so to speak, to extort a diff erent solution by means of contracts.

Can you post the original German? It also just occurred to me that Rosenberg might have been speaking figuratively (making a joke - the Fuhrer "laughed merrily"). Like the word kill, liquidate could be used without meaning that literally.

That's a tape timestamp. You'd think that the phliosopher would regularly cite the transcripts she otherwise vouches for, yeah.

You're right. In her notes she never cites the transcript when referencing the tape. Since the transcripts apparently cover virtually the entire discussion whereas the tapes are partial, I'd imagine this section of the discussion was transcribed, but if not revisionists analyzing the materials should be able to verify this and all sorts of other 'questionable' omissions. Once a revisionist critique of the Sassen interviews comes out, I will be eager to look at it. In the meantime there's nothing textually that supports your case, the phrase "Keep drilling!" alone does nothing to suggest Eichmann was being encouraged, quite the opposite.

One more thing I forgot to add about the 'incomplete' tapes. Within the orthodox framework where we're taking Sassen at his word more or less the physical tapes were not that important because he was trying to write a book, he wasn't looking to prove a case about Eichmann specifically or make an expose. So after a tape was fully transcribed, it held no great value to him.

[Wilbur]

That's a tape timestamp. You'd think that the phliosopher would regularly cite the transcripts she otherwise vouches for, yeah.

You're right. In her notes she never cites the transcript when referencing the tape. Since the transcripts apparently cover virtually the entire discussion whereas the tapes are partial, I'd imagine this section of the discussion was transcribed, but if not revisionists analyzing the materials should be able to verify this and all sorts of other 'questionable' omissions. Once a revisionist critique of the Sassen interviews comes out, I will be eager to look at it.

The woman's tortured argument that the transcripts are accurate exists only because admitting otherwise means it's over: her book is transparently unreliable speculation, she can't even touch Hannah Arendt's argument that Eichmann was just a bureaucrat with a fusion role.

Her cope is actually inverse - that the transcripts are partial in relation to the (original) tapes, and the parts that are transcribed are accurate, but then she provides counterexamples where they're not - and she is always forced to quote the tapes for accuracy. That the earlier material is accurate becomes an untenable position. But what is she gonna do, wrap it up, cop to unreliable sourcing and quit her book project? Nah.

Your request is vexatious. One, the material from so-called "Argentina Papers" (itself a misnomer) actually appears more prominently in revisionist literature than standard literature (practically absent). Two, they're not even credited with being accurate - or more accurate than his trial testimony - by the more serious historians. So I don't personally see it as a worthy direction of the revisionist research agenda. If lead Holocausters deem it important enough to publish the so-called Sassen material chronologically in the critical volume that Gerlach asked for, it may be looked at. But it's a lot of effort for no gain.

For me, it's just another instance - since time immemorial - of veterans/officials bragging about exaggerated wartime exploits. A military historian dealing with the 2003 Iraq War is not going to extensively comment on a YouTube video of bar talk of military personnel saying this and that - even if one of the people was made the target of a campaign of press harassment and talked smack back. It's tabloid level stuff.

So there's multiple legible variants and the one I posted is at least half legible (according to Butterfangers), but are you saying they're still incomplete? If some are illegible is that by design? (as I think Butterfangers was alluding to).

Just because I have another copy doesn't mean it's online, if that's what you mean. Legible nowadays means you can substantially OCR it, so you should have no problem handling the text on your own with an online translator.

Professional photography would, by design, not produce illegible images. By design, I wouldn't rely on a journo who doesn't know how to operate a camera (as I think Butterfangers was alluding to).

Sure, I'll say it. It is by specific German Government connivance that you can't go and get high quality digital scanned copies of relevant archival holdings - such as already-digitized ZStL material at this link:
https://invenio.bundesarchiv.de/invenio/direktlink/c6dafcae-3294-46ab-b2a6-e79485700211/

It is also by specific German Government connivance that other documents related to concentration camps are digitized yet inaccessible except on Bundesarchiv premises. Why? What's the matter with them? I don't know, do a Informationsfreiheitsgesetz (IFG) request and find out what drove the elective choice not to publish them. You said you were getting on top of it with BA.

In the bibliography your philosopher lists five sources of the Sassen transcript of various completeness, of which one is lost and another inaccessible to her. You should already understand this by reading the main text. Yes, the Israeli version is incomplete. It would be useful at a minimum to get an edited, electronic text of a composite of the three big versions plus any handwriting accurately transcribed before bothering to comment, especially after fuss has been made about Ich, Adolf Eichmann. Besides the material itself, there are around 10,000 more relevant pages of documents, some in handwriting that has been described as "hard to decipher."

In the meantime there's nothing textually that supports your case, the phrase "Keep drilling!" alone does nothing to suggest Eichmann was being encouraged, quite the opposite.

He's described as Sassen's assistant, injected as Eichmann's "rival." The rivalry was in part a pissing contest on which of the two was more of a man of action. "He was there to run Eichmann through the mill on Sassen’s behalf" and "was able to judge and to ask questions where Sassen foundered." And he did so by presenting phony Mauthausen atrocity stories, a prompting that went unquoted in the transcript. "Keep drilling" was followed by "Dr. Langer" shifting the topic to seriousness of command, soon moving on to concentration camps and Auschwitz. Twenty minutes after "keep drilling" has us with "Dr. Langer" "enjoy[ing] giving detailed accounts of the torture methods used in Mauthausen." So that sort of drilling. The man of action has seen torture methods in Mauthausen and enjoys talking about them, what has pussy Eichmann seen?

One more thing I forgot to add about the 'incomplete' tapes. Within the orthodox framework where we're taking Sassen at his word more or less the physical tapes were not that important because he was trying to write a book, he wasn't looking to prove a case about Eichmann specifically or make an expose. So after a tape was fully transcribed, it held no great value to him.

Within the orthodox framework, if you can call the woman's book that, Sassen, who still allegedly possessed some loyalty to his expat community, would have immediately destroyed the tapes if they held no great value to him superseding the transcript. This is especially the case after the transcript made an appearance in the trial and Sassen's reputational trouble and allegedly receiving threats from Eichmann's clan and friends to discard things of "no great value" of him.

No monetary offer would have allegedly been made to the Israeli prosecutor trying the case against Eichmann to listen to the tapes during the pendency of the trial. Instead, they would simply go "poof," never to be heard again. There would not be multiple generation copies of the tapes. And yet tapes were kept. Gee, sounds like we have some plot holes.

[bombsaway]

The woman's tortured argument that the transcripts are accurate exists only because admitting otherwise means it's over: her book is transparently unreliable speculation, she can't even touch Hannah Arendt's argument that Eichmann was just a bureaucrat with a fusion role.

Wilbur,

I think questions have been about the interviews based on the lousy photos and difficulty accessing digitized materials (though the entire Eichmann dossier - including court Judgement - is off limits, not just Sassen interviews). But how do we get from here to the transcripts are inaccurate? What does that even mean exactly? Sassen was making things up?

Regarding Arendt's argument re Eichmann, I don't need Stangneth to interpret for me.

Everything is evident in this passage alone (my emphasis in bold, I provided earlier). Eichmann was a bureaucrat, he says it himself. But he was also deeply ideologically committed.

EICHMANN : ... and please don't lead me on the slippery slope after 12 years, whether the name of the merchant[1] was Eichmann or Sassen , or Morgenthau, it doesn't matter, there was something where I said to myself: good, then I have to drop all doubts, because before my people bite the dust, the whole world should bite the dust before my people. But only then!

That was me. I, and I'll tell you now at the end of our affairs, I "the careful bureaucrat"[2], that's what I was, yes. But I would like to take the "cautious bureaucrat" thing a little to my detriment. Joining that cautious bureaucrat was a... a fanatical fighter for the freedom of my blood, to which I descend and I say here, just as I told you before, your louse[3] pinching you, comrade Sassen, does not interest me . I'm interested in my louse under my collar. I'll crush them. That goes for my people. Then I was led by the cautious bureaucrat, of course I was, that's what I was, but I was guided in an inspiring way: What benefits my people is for me sacred command and sacred law. Yes indeed.

And now I want to say to you, at the end of all these records, we'll soon be over, I have to say to you first of all: I don't regret anything! I'm not creeping in any way! The four months in which we have now recorded the matter here, in the four months in which you tried to refresh my memory, very much of it was refreshed, it would be too easy, and I could do it cheaply today In my opinion...that I deeply regret that I'm kind of playing something that would turn a Saul into a Paul.

I'm telling you, comrade Sassen, I can not do that. I can't do that because I'm not ready, because inside I'm reluctant to say, for example, that we did something wrong. No. I have to tell you quite honestly, if we had killed 10.3 million Jews out of the 10.3 million Jews whom Korherr expelled,[4] as we now know, I would be satisfied and would say, well, we have destroyed an enemy. Now, through the treachery of fate, the majority of these 10.3 million Jews have survived, I say to myself: fate wanted it that way. I have to submit to fate and providence. I'm just a small person and I don't have anything to stink about, I can't do it either, and I don't want to either. We would have fulfilled our task for our blood and our people and for the freedom of the peoples, we would have destroyed the smartest mind of human minds alive today. Because that's what I said to Streicher[5], what I've always preached: We're fighting an opponent who, thanks to many thousands of years of training, is spiritually superior to us. Was it yesterday or the day before yesterday or a year ago, I don't know, I heard or read: Even before the Romans established their state, before Rome was even founded, the Jews could write here. That's modest in expression. They should have said before eons before the founding of Rome, still eons before the founding of Rome they could write. See the Tablets of the Law. You see, a people who today can look back on a written history, I would like to say six thousand years old, a people that let's say five thousand years or six thousand years ago - I'm not wrong if I think I'm even saying the seventh millennium, was active in legislation. That today's Christian churches are using this legislation[6] is very depressing for me. But it tells me that it must be a people of first magnitude, for legislators have always been great. And based on this knowledge, I fought against this opponent.

And from those motivations, you have to understand when I say that if 10.3 million of those opponents had been killed, then we would have accomplished our task. (Intermission.) Now that it is not so, I will tell you that the suffering and hardship of our unborn must endure. Maybe they will curse us.(Intermission.) Alone, as a small number of people, we couldn't stink against the zeitgeist. We did what we could.

Of course, I have to tell you, there is also human emotion. I wasn't free from it either, I too succumbed to the same weakness. I know that! I am also to blame for the fact that the concept of real, comprehensive elimination that was perhaps planned by some body or that I had in mind could not be carried out. I told you this in small examples. I was an inadequate mind and was put in a place where, in truth, I could have done more and should have done more.

"He was there to run Eichmann through the mill on Sassen’s behalf" and "was able to judge and to ask questions where Sassen foundered." And he did so by presenting phony Mauthausen atrocity stories, a prompting that went unquoted in the transcript. "Keep drilling" was followed by "Dr. Langer" shifting the topic to seriousness of command, soon moving on to concentration camps and Auschwitz. Twenty minutes after "keep drilling" has us with "Dr. Langer" "enjoy[ing] giving detailed accounts of the torture methods used in Mauthausen." So that sort of drilling. The man of action has seen torture methods in Mauthausen and enjoys talking about them, what has pussy Eichmann seen?

What definition of "drilling" are you using? For me I would use the definition 'getting to the essential part of something'. So in this case Langer was questioning Eichmann to try to get information. Stangneth is consistent that this was happening in the transcripts and other testimony back this as well: "A former employee of Der Weg stressed that Eichmann was literally interrogated in the Sassen circle."

For me, it's just another instance - since time immemorial - of veterans/officials bragging about exaggerated wartime exploits.

You think it's commonplace for veterans to brag about committing atrocities they didn't commit? This isn't even taking into account that ostensibly the room wasn't on Eichmann's side.

Your request is vexatious. One, the material from so-called "Argentina Papers" (itself a misnomer) actually appears more prominently in revisionist literature than standard literature (practically absent). Two, they're not even credited with being accurate - or more accurate than his trial testimony - by the more serious historians.

The purpose of a revisionist analysis of these materials would be to show some level of "foul play" on the part of the archivists, Sassen, Stangneth, whoever.

[Hektor]

....

For me, it's just another instance - since time immemorial - of veterans/officials bragging about exaggerated wartime exploits.

You think it's commonplace for veterans to brag about committing atrocities they didn't commit? This isn't even taking into account that ostensibly the room wasn't on Eichmann's side.
....

That's more common place than you think. But because they are commonly not believed, you won't hear a lot about this. But sometimes it is in the news:

....More recently, experts have discovered that some Vietnam-era veterans under psychiatric care in Veterans Administration Hospitals are especially suggestible. Recovered memories have made a comeback, and veterans, they say, find themselves "remembering" events that never happened.

Some critics assert that may be the case in a disputed report alleging that American soldiers used nerve gas in the Vietnam War...

https://culteducation.com/group/1255-fa ... ought.html
https://www.nytimes.com/1998/06/28/week ... ought.html


So when dealing with testimonies. It's advisable to have some proper knowledge of psychology. Well, better to have actual physical evidence that is concise. It still needs proper interpretation, though.

[Wilbur]

I think questions have been about the interviews based on the lousy photos and difficulty accessing digitized materials (though the entire Eichmann dossier - including court Judgement - is off limits, not just Sassen interviews). But how do we get from here to the transcripts are inaccurate? What does that even mean exactly? Sassen was making things up?

Regarding Arendt's argument re Eichmann, I don't need Stangneth to interpret for me.

Everything is evident in this passage alone (my emphasis in bold, I provided earlier). Eichmann was a bureaucrat, he says it himself. But he was also deeply ideologically committed.

Yes. Sassen was making things up. I believe I already mentioned the phony "marginal notes" in the first three pages from the Yad Vashem collection. The philosopher wouldn't neglect the problem she can't pass as a "dictation," would she?

I'm sure in your quote that Mr. Eichmann did his best to be an entertaining guest and please the crowd of bitter exiles based on Sassen and crew's many enticements. What the factual content of his speech actually betrays is that he had been sidelined with reduced access by the time Korherr independently reviewed some Jewish demographic data, or else he'd have much better reference points by the end of the war. Korherr is practically only discussed because he appeared in Hololiterature; he wouldn't need to use Korherr as a rhetorical hinge. He's just riffing off Holocaust literature and media portrayals, and the Streicher namedrop is another tell (besides showing what he thought the host wanted). The Jews' principal Holocaust architect doesn't have anything concrete to say to bookend things with.

What definition of "drilling" are you using? For me I would use the definition 'getting to the essential part of something'. So in this case Langer was questioning Eichmann to try to get information. Stangneth is consistent that this was happening in the transcripts and other testimony back this as well: "A former employee of Der Weg stressed that Eichmann was literally interrogated in the Sassen circle."

I'm using the definition of getting content gold as part of the Sassen content creation strategy. Even if it means lawyer (and lächerlicher Pimpel) Ernst Chlan opening the door to a world of wonder, igniting the room's imagination and propelling the main guest to a universe of boundless possibilities by spinning yarns about Mauthausen.

You think it's commonplace for veterans to brag about committing atrocities they didn't commit? This isn't even taking into account that ostensibly the room wasn't on Eichmann's side.

Yup, just make having a high bodycount (and not just the sexual kind) a pissing contest and boys will be boys. Sure, a bland bureaucrat has his limits when it comes to being the life of the party - even as the main guest. I'll give him props for trying. He prepared a good rant. Sassen may not have enjoyed it in the moment - his replies suggests he was simply taken aback and wanted to milk Eichmann some more - but multiple mixtapes were created later so someone liked it.

The purpose of a revisionist analysis of these materials would be to show some level of "foul play" on the part of the archivists, Sassen, Stangneth, whoever.

It's rendered immaterial by Eichmann's apparent foul play during the interview. As for the others, Eichmann already addressed problems with the Sassen material during the course of his legal imbroglio in Israel. As to archivists, Stangneth already lays out inconsistencies when it comes to disclosures by Israeli or German officials, and spends pages complaining about access to BND information.

Eichmann would be a 'fun' subject just because the Israeli branch of Holocaust historiography totally tripped on him and fell and bruised its nose and it's worth discrediting them. The Sassen part would be a minor side-project, especially as historians already discredited it amid panic.

The philosopher blatantly 'brings to life' tape transcripts with nonsense commentary. Her exposition of the transcript is purposefully not in tape-chronological order nor in any structured order. The prose is narrowly tailored in a way that drawing inferences is a minefield. I would call it "foul play" but for the fact that it's a typical, identifiable literary genre where the reader is just not supposed to take all details seriously.

[bombsaway]

That's more common place than you think. But because they are commonly not believed, you won't hear a lot about this. But sometimes it is in the news:

....More recently, experts have discovered that some Vietnam-era veterans under psychiatric care in Veterans Administration Hospitals are especially suggestible. Recovered memories have made a comeback, and veterans, they say, find themselves "remembering" events that never happened.

Some critics assert that may be the case in a disputed report alleging that American soldiers used nerve gas in the Vietnam War...

https://culteducation.com/group/1255-fa ... ought.html
https://www.nytimes.com/1998/06/28/week ... ought.html


So when dealing with testimonies. It's advisable to have some proper knowledge of psychology. Well, better to have actual physical evidence that is concise. It still needs proper interpretation, though.

You're making a basic fallacy here. Millions of Americans served in Vietnam. .0000001% falsely reported atrocities? This sort of memory malfunction is rare. It's also much easier for someone to mistake nerve gas for some other agent being used, whereas Eichmann claimed to have visited 3 separate extermination facilities + had conversations with Himmler, Heydrich and others about mass genocide.

[Archie]

That's more common place than you think. But because they are commonly not believed, you won't hear a lot about this. But sometimes it is in the news:

....More recently, experts have discovered that some Vietnam-era veterans under psychiatric care in Veterans Administration Hospitals are especially suggestible. Recovered memories have made a comeback, and veterans, they say, find themselves "remembering" events that never happened.

Some critics assert that may be the case in a disputed report alleging that American soldiers used nerve gas in the Vietnam War...

https://culteducation.com/group/1255-fa ... ought.html
https://www.nytimes.com/1998/06/28/week ... ought.html


So when dealing with testimonies. It's advisable to have some proper knowledge of psychology. Well, better to have actual physical evidence that is concise. It still needs proper interpretation, though.

You're making a basic fallacy here. Millions of Americans served in Vietnam. .0000001% falsely reported atrocities? This sort of memory malfunction is rare. It's also much easier for someone to mistake nerve gas for some other agent being used, whereas Eichmann claimed to have visited 3 separate extermination facilities + had conversations with Himmler, Heydrich and others about mass genocide.

What somebody said years after the fact is not robust evidence for a mass murder program, especially on the scale alleged. People can say anything. Now, if the Allies had taken statements honestly after the war and then corroborated them by finding actual gas chambers, finding blueprints for gas chambers, finding the expected quantity of remains, etc., that would be one thing. But the hard evidence only corroborates the least spectacular aspects of the atrocity stories. The remarkable aspects are “corroborated” by yet other testimonies/stories. Except if you actually read the statements of Hoess, Hoettl, Wisliceny, Eichmann, etc, you will see that they don’t truly corroborate each other except in the vaguest way. They contain major irresolvable contradictions. Conclusion: they are not based in fact.