Upcoming Written Holocaust Debate [Dalton vs. HistorySpeaks]

[fireofice]

HistorySpeaks and Thomas Dalton will apparently be having a written debate on the holocaust on Substack.

https://twitter.com/History__Speaks/sta ... 1109832709

Thomas Dalton is smart and pretty knowledgeable on this subject, so I expect a pretty good showing from him. And since this is a written debate, he will no doubt have time craft his responses instead of having to come up with a retort on the fly as in a live debate, which can put you at a disadvantage if you are not quick on your feet. Here is a book where he has taken on other defenders of the holocaust narrative:

Debating the Holocaust—A New Look at Both Sides by Thomas Dalton
https://holocausthandbooks.com/index.php?page_id=32

[Update to add links]
Round 1: https://historyspeaks.substack.com/p/history-speaks-debates-thomas-dalton
Round 2: https://historyspeaks.substack.com/p/history-speaks-debates-thomas-dalton-dfd

[Hektor]

Sounds more like Historiography Speaks.

I hope Dalton nails them on coming up with concrete evidence and not the usual just-so stories and innuendo.

Here is an example on how he tries to spin it:
https://twitter.com/History__Speaks/sta ... TW-NgtAAAA

A 'Holocaust Witness' is just a little misunderstood, but a Revisionist misrepresents it. How somebody (confined to Dachau) could possibly know what happened at a totally different location is not considered.

[Archie]

Does Substack allow this sort of thing? That surprises me. I guess it's kosher because it will be hosted entirely on HS's page. I'm sure if Dalton started one he would get banned immediately.

I imagine they are doing a written debate because Dalton doesn't want too much exposure.

Some of HS's threads
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=14564

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=14560

[curioussoul]

I highly recommend that Dalton skims through the old Mattogno/Graf/Kues response to the Holocaust Controversies PDF. It's 1,400 pages of rebuttals to badly formulated Holocaust arguments. Kues' chapter 7 is particularly valuable since, inevitably, claims about the whereabouts of the Reinhardt Jews will come up.

Dalton is obviously extremely well-versed in revisionism so I don't doubt that he can come up with proper rebuttals himself. But it's important to score points where he can - it's easy to get into convoluted discussions about minutiae, when in reality he should be bringing up the most outrageous holes in the Holocaust narrative, such as the fact that we KNOW the morgues where in full use as morgues throughout the claimed extermination period of 1943 and 1944.

Avoid going on the defensive - don't let them pin you down, rather go on the attack and show them documents that outright refute their claims about extermination/gassings. Exterminationists are not used to being on the defense and having to explain their untenable positions. Forcing them to respond to blatant contradictions and outright impossibilities will immediately give Dalton the advantage and severely undermine the future arguments of his opponent.

[Hektor]

....

Dalton is obviously extremely well-versed in revisionism so I don't doubt that he can come up with proper rebuttals himself. But it's important to score points where he can - it's easy to get into convoluted discussions about minutiae, when in reality he should be bringing up the most outrageous holes in the Holocaust narrative, such as the fact that we KNOW the morgues where in full use as morgues throughout the claimed extermination period of 1943 and 1944.
.....

I noted that this has become a tactic. Simply get a debate about little controversial details going. Lots of debating about minor issues then all to avoid a closure, which will come to the conclusion that the Holocaustians don't have the evidence that would be required to seriously insist that their narrative is true..
So nailing them on empirical evidence for their claims is key to it. Do they have anything required in a normal murder trial to show that a person was brought to Auschwitz and then gassed there. They don't, they simply don't have that kind of evidence. What they do is put up a picture of a crematoria, some cans of Zyklon B plus some tear-jerking stories from people that insist Jews were gassed there. That's their substitute for evidence. One needs them to admit that they don't have the evidence required, but even that they will avoid to do. They always will revert back to the narrative and hide all the big name historians that essentially assume the Holocaust to be true.

[curioussoul]

What they do is put up a picture of a crematoria, some cans of Zyklon B plus some tear-jerking stories from people that insist Jews were gassed there. That's their substitute for evidence. One needs them to admit that they don't have the evidence required, but even that they will avoid to do. They always will revert back to the narrative and hide all the big name historians that essentially assume the Holocaust to be true.

That's why they invented the pseudoscientific framework of "convergence of evidence", in order to conjure up a believable empirical basis for their unbelievable claims. It's a well-known fact that Holocaust believers will often appeal to the purported enormity of evidence without specifying what pieces of evidence they actually rely on, because most people will not be convinced by looking at the individual testimonies or documents - especially if the testimonies can be shown to be unreliable or if the documents require a "code word interpretation" to become relevant. But if someone refers to a huge list of 100 documents, or a list of 50 enormous books about the Holocaust, they will probably believe that there is some truth to the story - without ever actually investigating the individual pieces of evidence underlying claims.

[Hektor]

What they do is put up a picture of a crematoria, some cans of Zyklon B plus some tear-jerking stories from people that insist Jews were gassed there. That's their substitute for evidence. One needs them to admit that they don't have the evidence required, but even that they will avoid to do. They always will revert back to the narrative and hide all the big name historians that essentially assume the Holocaust to be true.

That's why they invented the pseudoscientific framework of "convergence of evidence", in order to conjure up a believable empirical basis for their unbelievable claims. It's a well-known fact that Holocaust believers will often appeal to the purported enormity of evidence without specifying what pieces of evidence they actually rely on, because most people will not be convinced by looking at the individual testimonies or documents - especially if the testimonies can be shown to be unreliable or if the documents require a "code word interpretation" to become relevant. But if someone refers to a huge list of 100 documents, or a list of 50 enormous books about the Holocaust, they will probably believe that there is some truth to the story - without ever actually investigating the individual pieces of evidence underlying claims.

It's not even 'pseudo-scientific'. In fact it is another cop-out by saying something that sounds smart. 'Convergence of evidence' would be something that can lead you to something like a 'best explanation' for something. But even if done, for something empirical that would still be underwhelming. And best of all. They don't have 'convergence of evidence'. What they have is a fixed idea in their mind. and then opportunistically grasp anything to puzzle this into their narrative. For convergence of evidence to fly there would have to be:
a) plausible gassing procedure.
b) feasible body disposal.
c) numbers adding up.
d) feasible building plans/buildings.
e) No good alternative explanation for usage of Zyklon B.
f) No other explanation for need of crematoria.
g) No ulterior motives to 'frame the Nazis' with atrocities.
h) No massive "I did not know about this, until the end of the war".
i) No consensus from witnesses about things that are impossible or impractical.

And well, to comply with scientific standards you can't have threatening and discouraging of contrary opinions neither.

Their whole story stinks like war time atrocity propaganda. The pushiness indicates a political agenda. Their puzzling together of a narrative from snippets looks desperate. What they do should actually raise all the alarm bells for a person that is sober, rational and aware that people will lie and get others to talk nonsense to get their way.

[Archie]

I highly recommend that Dalton skims through the old Mattogno/Graf/Kues response to the Holocaust Controversies PDF. It's 1,400 pages of rebuttals to badly formulated Holocaust arguments. Kues' chapter 7 is particularly valuable since, inevitably, claims about the whereabouts of the Reinhardt Jews will come up.

Dalton is obviously extremely well-versed in revisionism so I don't doubt that he can come up with proper rebuttals himself. But it's important to score points where he can - it's easy to get into convoluted discussions about minutiae, when in reality he should be bringing up the most outrageous holes in the Holocaust narrative, such as the fact that we KNOW the morgues where in full use as morgues throughout the claimed extermination period of 1943 and 1944.

Avoid going on the defensive - don't let them pin you down, rather go on the attack and show them documents that outright refute their claims about extermination/gassings. Exterminationists are not used to being on the defense and having to explain their untenable positions. Forcing them to respond to blatant contradictions and outright impossibilities will immediately give Dalton the advantage and severely undermine the future arguments of his opponent.

I agree about not going on the defensive. "Framing" is key to any debate. Priority number one is staking out a strong initial position by getting across all of your strongest points as clearly and vividly as possible. Rebuttal is secondary and makes no difference without first establishing a strong position.

Some key points (especially for a general audience)

-The main source of reluctance regular people will have to accepting revisionism is simply that it's considered a "fringe" position that is rejected by "the experts." This objection will need to be addressed in some way, for example, by pointing out that revisionism and skepticism over these claims have existed from day one, that revisionists have come from many countries and backgrounds and have amassed a large and serious literature, that revisionists are excluded from the mainstream for ideological reasons (cite specific examples like Henri Roques), that the mainstream generally refuses to respond intellectually, that the narrative is enforced via censorship and social and professional threats, etc. It's also important to attack the Holocaust establishment which is easy since they say such ridiculous things. Quote them saying there can be no debate, etc., and critique their historical methods, the leaps they make, and their questionable sources.

-Testimonies. They are very vulnerable here. Introducing the concept of atrocity propaganda is good. I would focus on important testimonies, not just random silly ones. Quote from them, explain the problems, and show how these often laughable stories are relied upon. I would address both Jewish "survivor testimony" as well as Nazi "confessions." This will reinforce the previous point because it destroys the credibility of the establishment historiography. (Their main counter here is to mutter something unconvincing about "hearsay.")

-Physical evidence. Point out that the mainstream has traditionally ignored physical evidence and scientific considerations. The gas chambers the Allies claim they found look an awful lot like shower rooms and morgues that they intentionally misrepresented for propaganda purposes (also reinforces the first point). Majdanek, Dachau, Mauthausen, Krema I at Auschwitz are all easy pickings. The "extermination camps" all being in Soviet territory is another decent point. Another classic point is that they say the Germans burned the six million bodies, and many of these cremations were supposedly done without ovens. This will strike most people as preposterous the first time they hear it.

---

Now, as far as what HS will probably concentrate on, he will probably do some sort of gish gallop with cherrypicked "gotcha" documents, plus the usual argument about no proof of resettlement. Maybe euthanasia and Einsatzgruppen. If he is brazen he might make various empty assertions about how the physical evidence is very strong. On the document stuff, given that there are millions of potential documents, it is a trap to get drawn into an extended discussions over the interpretation of isolated documents that they have chosen. Make the point about cherrypicking, offer a general rebuttal (why you can't always take sinister sounding language completely literally), and cite documents on our side that contradict their narrative (showing both sides can play that game). That's an example where counterattacking (citing your own gotcha documents) is often better than playing defense (trying to explain difficult documents for our side). On the whole the documentation for their side is actually incredibly lacking. Probably good to point out all the documents that aren't there that we would expect if the holocaust were true. On demographic issues, the easy point to make is that the six million figure is mythical and was being used before the end of the war, and after the war the Jewish population increased a lot outside of Europe, especially in Israel and in the US. Then something about how they are trying to reverse the burden of proof.

[hermod]

Some key points (especially for a general audience)

-The main source of reluctance regular people will have to accepting revisionism is simply that it's considered a "fringe" position that is rejected by "the experts."

As fringe as the crazy ideas that the earth moves (despite what our eyes tell us every day) and that diseases are caused by very small things invisible to the naked. And yet it (the earth) moves and tiny pathogens hurt and kill...

[Hektor]

I highly recommend that Dalton skims through the old Mattogno/Graf/Kues response to the Holocaust Controversies PDF. It's 1,400 pages......opponent.

I agree about not going on the defensive. "Framing" is key to any debate. Priority number one is staking out a strong initial position by getting across all of your strongest points as clearly and vividly as possible. Rebuttal is secondary and makes no difference without first establishing a strong position.

Some key points (especially for a general audience)

-The main source of reluctance regular people will have to accepting revisionism is simply that it's considered a "fringe" position that is rejected by "the experts." This objection will need to be addressed in some way, for example, by pointing out that revisionism and skepticism over these claims have existed from day one, that revisionists have come from many countries and backgrounds and have amassed a large and serious literature, that revisionists are excluded from the mainstream for ideological reasons (cite specific examples like Henri Roques), that the mainstream generally refuses to respond intellectually, that the narrative is enforced via censorship and social and professional threats, etc. It's also important to attack the Holocaust establishment which is easy since they say such ridiculous things. Quote them saying there can be no debate, etc., and critique their historical methods, the leaps they make, and their questionable sources.

What is published by 'experts' with academic credentials and longer careers is usually either affirming or at least not rejecting the Holocaust narrative. Well. e.g. deportations aren't in dispute there, anyway. I say published, what expert tell you in private is another matter. Also what is discussed at historian's meetings, when they look at the body of evidence for example. I recall historians telling me exactly that, that lots of the 'evidence' isn't seriously. And that the better historians are very well aware that there is good reason to suspect the Allies and pressure groups from blowing the issue out of proportion and accusing their enemies of all kinds of atrocious behavior. This is more than clear from the IMT proceedings and what the Allies published on the matter. Most historians do however have other areas of interest and don't want to mess up their careers by being branded as 'Deniers' and 'Anti-Semites'. So they prefer saying nothing. And loaded subjects get avoided anyway, which is why the industry tried to keep it loaded.

The reactions to challenges by the Holocaust pushers is indeed telling. One would expect that more people called them out on this. But they didn't. But that shouldn't surprise. Most 'intellectuals' nowadays have a vested interest in the Holocaust, since their ideology and its dominants often rests on that very narrative. The priests of a public religion virtually never questioned the underlying Myths neither. If the Myths lost their power, so would the priesthood. And they don't want that of course.

Meanwhile it was OK for 200 years to critique and attack Christianity and question its sources and teachings. Why not the Holocaust, then? Well the reason given is that this is 'history' and 'well proven', etc. But that isn't the actual reason, of course. The actual reason is that it is the Myth on which present religion/ideologies are resting, from where they get their power, etc. And the social standing of people depends on their piety in this regard.

-Testimonies. They are very vulnerable here. Introducing the concept of atrocity propaganda is good. I would focus on important testimonies, not just random silly ones. Quote from them, explain the problems, and show how these often laughable stories are relied upon. I would address both Jewish "survivor testimony" as well as Nazi "confessions." This will reinforce the previous point because it destroys the credibility of the establishment historiography. (Their main counter here is to mutter something unconvincing about "hearsay.")

Not sure of what you mean with the hearsay. But there is MS-misconceptions about the testimony. They think that virtually any witnessed affirmed the Holocaust. That everybody knew about it. That nobody disputed it, etc. That is of course not the case. Direct testimony is rare, but gets most of the publicity. But even most witnesses presented don't say they 'witnessed homicidal gassings or killing operations'. It's merely a subtext in the testimonies.

It's not wrong to confront people with the more ridiculous testimony, which has gone into the memory hole as well.

-Physical evidence. Point out that the mainstream has traditionally ignored physical evidence and scientific considerations. The gas chambers the Allies claim they found look an awful lot like shower rooms and morgues that they intentionally misrepresented for propaganda purposes (also reinforces the first point). Majdanek, Dachau, Mauthausen, Krema I at Auschwitz are all easy pickings. The "extermination camps" all being in Soviet territory is another decent point. Another classic point is that they say the Germans burned the six million bodies, and many of these cremations were supposedly done without ovens. This will strike most people as preposterous the first time they hear it.
....

Ignored is perhaps the wrong wording. They prefer not to deal with it. But they would of course show you alleged gas chambers, crematoria and Zyklon B cans. It's communist countries not directly on soviet territory. But the USSR was were 2 million Jews are said to be killed in mass shootings. Yet, there was no presentation of evidence for this after WW2. There was of course an excuse for this: Paul Blobel made all the evidence vanish, apparently to help Holocaust Deniers and trick future 'serious historians'.

The trump card is emaciated corpses from the Western Camps. Just that this is also very vulnerable to critique. But people that are shocked, are unlikely to be rational in their approach. That's why the trick worked so well.

The big issue is the complexity of the matter I think. One needs to be careful to drown people in an ocean of information at once. One needs to strike at the key issue. The best evidence should be physical evidence for homicidal gassings, but it simply isn't there. And that has been admitted during court cases like the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial. The verdict says unequivocally that they had no physical evidence and that this was a weakness for the trial.

Also nail them on specifics that should be their best evidence.

The reply is going to be that "Holocaust Denial" is a 'Conspiracy Theory' that need to have millions of people cooperating to lie about it. That's of course a straw man. If you deduct testimony for deportations, detentions, etc. Not very much will be left.
But the conspiracy tag is useful as sweeping statement or 'Todschlageargument'. That's why it is used so frequently.

[curioussoul]

-Testimonies. They are very vulnerable here. Introducing the concept of atrocity propaganda is good. I would focus on important testimonies, not just random silly ones.

In regards to testimonies, I would challenge the opponent to bring up his most valuable eyewitnesses, rather than volunteer names. Since every single eyewitness is extremely unreliable, it is very easy to quote the absurdities of literally any eyewitness that gets brought up. If Dalton decides to bring up eyewitnesses himself, I would focus on such eyewitnesses that categorically refute extermination claims (there are many to choose from, and exterminiationists rarely know how to respond - again, putting them on the defense).

-Physical evidence.

Sadly it's easy to get bogged down in a convoluted discussion about cremation capacity once "physical evidence" gets brought up. Most likely, his opponent will bring up the 28th June transfer letter for Crematorium III mentioning the 4700/day cremation capacity. In this regard I think Dalton can safely counter with the judge's opinion during the Lipstadt trial (who considered the document unreliable), or just bring up the fact that it's unsigned and was never sent (Bischoff most likely had it retyped).

Physical evidence in general can get tricky, because it quickly gets complicated and requires expert knowledge to properly untangle.

But if Dalton wants to score easy points I think bringing up the Treblinka burial/cremation capacity can be useful. The idea of almost 1 million bodies being buried before the Germans absurdly decided to dig them all up and cremate them under the open sky, is hard to stomach for most people, especially given the aerial photographs showing the forest surrounding Treblinka being almost untouched during the war.

Now, as far as what HS will probably concentrate on, he will probably do some sort of gish gallop with cherrypicked "gotcha" documents

Very likely. And the Posen speeches.

[Hektor]

-Testimonies. They are very vulnerable here. Introducing the concept of atrocity propaganda is good. I would focus on important testimonies, not just random silly ones.

In regards to testimonies, I would challenge the opponent to bring up his most valuable eyewitnesses, rather than volunteer names. Since every single eyewitness is extremely unreliable, it is very easy to quote the absurdities of literally any eyewitness that gets brought up. If Dalton decides to bring up eyewitnesses himself, I would focus on such eyewitnesses that categorically refute extermination claims (there are many to choose from, and exterminiationists rarely know how to respond - again, putting them on the defense).....

Yes, let them come up with the best evidence for a given location. That should be Auschwitz-Birkenau Krema2/3. Since those weren't the main killing facilities according to the narrative. They can pick their best witness for this. And then we can look. The testimony for homicidal gassings in Auschwitz is rather embarrassing though. They can't pin point an event. They can't come up with names of those supposedly gassed. The procedures described don't hold up to scrutiny. And well, they can't show you conclusive physical evidence for this neither.

....
Physical evidence in general can get tricky, because it quickly gets complicated and requires expert knowledge to properly untangle.
....

... on occasion it does. But for what they claim they'd need to show some tremendous amount of evidence. Which they don't have. And here I mean not at all. All the physical evidence they've ever shown is perfectly in line with the standard Revisionist Hypothesis.

And well, we allow for thousands of people having died, being cremated. We don't exclude possibility of legal or extrajudicial killings, neither. But all this would have to be proven, beyond reasonable doubt, ever. Now they will come up with court verdicts insinuating, of course, that judges found the evidence conclusive. But that assumes that judges will only make decisions based on this. That's not a given, though. Judges often do simply what they think is expected from them. So those court verdicts are ultimately political. There is judges that will resist political pressures, but I'd guess there is a way around this, picking one that with high probability won't. Nominally the judicial branch of government is independent in Germany for example. As it's nominally the case with other countries. Doesn't mean that's not manageable unofficially. Take the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial Judge. Might be useful to look into his biography. He btw. stated in the verdict that he did do his court decision WITHOUT physical evidence? But excuse me the charges were murder in 100.000s of cases, but you are not bothered with having no physical evidence for what happened. Sorry, this reminds me of a witch trial... Where the witch made all the evidence vanish. But let someone raise this issue in Germany, then it's to the dungeons. Then anything they condemn previous regimes of wholeheartedly gets understanding or allowed. Hypocrisy? That's exactly what it is.

[curioussoul]

Another aspect worthy of note is the fact that History Speaks doesn't actually know that much about the Holocaust, whereas Dalton has written a quite substantial book on the subject. History Speaks is just another narcissist addicted to "debunking" positions he believes can be easily refuted, such as religion/atheism, flat-earthers, etc. He made a big mistake engaging in Holocaust revisionism, as is quickly becoming apparent.

Most of his arguments and sources are going to be copied from the HC blog. Dalton can probably score points here by bringing up subjects that aren't dealt with on the blog. This would put HS on a time constraint as he attempts to find his own sources and make his own arguments (which obviously he is incapable of doing).

[Michael_Snowy]

History Speaks.

I'm getting a few messages recently asking what my motives are for producing so much Holocaust-denial debunking content.

The truth is I have both petty and altruistic motives.

Petty motive: People who pretend to possess knowledge they don't actually have (charlatans, a term which describes basically all of the leading deniers) irritate me, particularly when it comes to my field (history). So I enjoy discrediting and embarrassing them.

Altruistic motive: I have seen vulnerable and marginalized white people fall into neo-Nazism and race hatred, which leads them to harm themselves and those around them. I want to prevent this from happening. Discrediting Holocaust denial (the foundational myth of neo-Nazism) is an effective way to deprogram these people.

From twitter

He seems rather cocky. This should be very interesting.

Edit. Watching Matt (History Speaks) debate Jim Rizoli https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRpWoY8IRdw
He seems to have a High School level understanding of the facts. In a written debate he will simply be demolished.

[Michael_Snowy]

I couldn't watch any more. They were discussing how much energy it takes to cremate a body. Matt rambles on for a bit then Jim chirps in with 65lbs of coke. Matt then argues that you might need that at the start of the day but the heat builds up.
"Heat is a source of energy" around 1:30. Painful to watch the stupidity.