Eric Hunt recants, 2017 - Timeline

[EtienneSC]

I would like to discuss here the timeline of Eric Hunt's apparently sudden change of mind on holocaust revisionism. As I have already noted, people are discussing Eric Hunt's wide ranging article (of January 2017) on a single thread. Hence it might help to look at specific aspect of the 14,000 word essay separately. It seems to me to be a valuable essay, as it is rare to have the virtually unanimous academic view defended against revisionist criticisms.

The Essay
Eric Hunt's original article ("The End of the Line") is here:
http://questioningtheholocaust.com/index.php/2017/01/27/the-end-of-the-line/
There is an archived copy here:
http://archive.is/DoGTn
The essay covers both points of fact and more general evaluative issues, including principally:
- Auschwitz (various points)
- Treblinka (ground surveys, photographs, early Polish investigations, the absence of positive evidence for the "transit camp" hypothesis)
- The Babi Yar massacre
- The character of several revisionists
- Revisionist methods
- The Persuasiveness of Revisionism to the general public and its practical relation to nascent nationalist Movements

People may wish to open separate threads on some of the above. Here I discuss the timeline of events.

Timeline

One thing I find puzzling is the speed of events. I have followed Eric Hunt's work for some years and the following is a rough timeline:

2008 - Eric Hunt (EH) is put on trial in San Fransisco for accosting holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel in uncertain circumstances in February 2007. Hunt was 24 at the time. In mitigation, his lawyer says that his client is not a holocaust denier and suffers from "bipolar disorder":
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Jury-convicts-man-in-attack-on-Elie-Wiesel-3276032.php
2011 - EH creates the internet video Last Days of the Big Lie, criticizing Steven Spielberg's film The Last Days on the deportation of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz in the Summer of 1944. The film shows a high level of critical intelligence, with radical right wing sympathies manifested by the approving quote from Hitler at the end. It emerges that he has studied film to degree level. He is denied access to a holocaust film archive in the USA.
2012-15 - Several other internet videos followed with revisionist content, including The Jewish Gas Chamber Hoax (2014) The Treblinka Archaeology Hoax (2014) and The Maijdanek Gas Chamber Myth (2014). These include original footage filmed on site in Eastern Europe. It appears that he began to work more closely with Germar Rudolf and CODOH around this time.
2016 - Early in the year, several CODOH videos appear based on recent Holocaust Handbook publications. Some of this material is narrated by EH.
June 2016 - Eric Hunt contributes an essay on the history of Krema I at Auschwitz to Rudolf & Mattogno's book Curated Lies (2016).
September 2016 - To coincide with the mainstream film Denial on the Lipstadt/Irving trial in London in 2000, EH releases the video Why We Believed Part 1. This features criticisms of historian of World War 2 Steven Ambrose, Auschwitz eye-witness Gina Turgel and a critique of the use of film of the aftermath of the allied bombing raid of Nordhausen as imagery of the holocaust. The related website http://www.questioningtheholocaust.com promises a Part 2 when funding is available.
December 2016 - January 2017 - The website states that Part 2 will not be issued until funding is received and has a page on how to donate. I checked this around this time when I became aware of the impending release of Denial in the UK on 27 January 2017 (Holocaust Remembrance Day).
27 January 2017 - Eric publishes his essay to coincide with Holocaust Remembrance Day. In this, he renounces his videos, though adding that they contain material with which he still agrees, and endorses much of the non-revisionist account of homicidal gassing at Auschwitz (Kremas II-V), Treblinka and mass shooting at Babi Yar ravine near Kiev. It seems mot to be noticed until mid-February.

Questions arising

The combination of the wide-ranging nature of the recantation and its speed seems remarkable. Hunt has indicated on questioningtheholocaust.com that he will write more on this. According to opinions expressed publicly by two people who claim to know him, the change is genuine with any pressure being merely personal or emotional. I find myself thinking:

1. It is not credible that someone could rethink so many subjects in a period of weeks or days to any effect. He must therefore have been living a double life for some time. Is this then simply a kind of gestalt shift in his thinking that he has dressed up with plausible evidence at short notice?
2. His essay also reads as though someone behind the scenes has re-expressed what remains of the official political-academic-museum narrative in a more persuasive way than usual to him and Eric Hunt has then embellished it with his own thoughts. Is there some behind the scenes influence from some authority figure at work?
3. He concludes the essay with a series of reflections about the future of nationalist politics and school education in the USA. This reduces the significance of revisionism to a matter of political tactics and popular culture. Whilst it is a politicized area of study, I think this is a mistake. There is an overriding obligation on investigators to pass on accurate ideas of human nature to future generations. This passing on involves evaluation of testimony as part of the study of history. I wonder if the political turn is not some kind of result of euphoria over the election of Trump in the USA?
4. There are some hints that some in the American administration and elsewhere are influenced by revisionism. For example, there was the refusal to mention the Jews in the Trump administration statement on Holocaust Memorial Day on 27 January 2017 and the absence of a public statement by Pope Francis on his visit to Auschwitz this year. Eric Hunt has become a public face of revisionism thanks to the video format he adopts. Has he been the target of some attempt to influence his thinking following his public dismissal of official historian Steven Ambrose last year?

Obviously I cannot answer these questions, but hopefully some version of them can be put to Eric Hunt in any debate that emerges.

[katana]

Good useful summary there EitienneSC.

I've kind of answered the gist of your questions in the main thread, here:

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=10950&start=105#p82242

[hermod]

3. He concludes the essay with a series of reflections about the future of nationalist politics and school education in the USA. This reduces the significance of revisionism to a matter of political tactics and popular culture. Whilst it is a politicized area of study, I think this is a mistake. There is an overriding obligation on investigators to pass on accurate ideas of human nature to future generations. This passing on involves evaluation of testimony as part of the study of history. I wonder if the political turn is not some kind of result of euphoria over the election of Trump in the USA?

Sounds like Mark Weber's recantation because Holocaust revisionism is useless to fight against Zionism and its matrix of power and influence in the Western world, Weber explained. Prior to that statement, I didn't even know that the IHR was supposed to fight against Zionism.

[EtienneSC]

This note on Eric's blog is relevant to his situation:
http://questioningtheholocaust.com/inde ... erson-now/
It's hard to know what to make of it all, frankly.

[borjastick]

This note on Eric's blog is relevant to his situation:
http://questioningtheholocaust.com/inde ... erson-now/
It's hard to know what to make of it all, frankly.

It is sad and a shame for him especially if he is suffering from any form of illness at the moment. It proves once more that holding any kind of debate on the holocaust between the two sides is a hopeless and wasted effort, because neither side will yield, their views are too far entrenched. To put it in a more contemporary vein can you imagine someone like Bernie Sanders debating with Steve Bannon about the suitability of Donald Trump to hold the office of POTUS?

It is a common riposte by those who come here as a believer that this place is an echo chamber of rabid neo nazi jew haters and is totally controlled by Hannover. Complete tosh.

[EtienneSC]

I hear that Eric Hunt is a new father. If so, this would make sense of his sudden 180 degree turn. He must have been having doubts, but his new responsibilities and need to fit in to society better would give him the needed push.

Some of the points he raises, such as the relation to conspiracy theory activists and the lack of research on the fate of AR camp deportees, are valid. Other than that, the content of the essay is basically nothing new. As he lacks the linguistic skills to do relevant archival research, he relies for the most part on photographic evidence in it.

That said - Congratulations!

[k0nsl]

Well, unfortunately my information on that was wrong, as I had not kept good contact with Eric the last few weeks. He just contacted me about trivial stuff -- concerning hosting, etc,.
However, I learned from somebody — who would be in a position to know for sure — that his girlfriend had a miscarriage.

Faithfully,
-k0nsl

I hear that Eric Hunt is a new father. If so, this would make sense of his sudden 180 degree turn. He must have been having doubts, but his new responsibilities and need to fit in to society better would give him the needed push.

Some of the points he raises, such as the relation to conspiracy theory activists and the lack of research on the fate of AR camp deportees, are valid. Other than that, the content of the essay is basically nothing new. As he lacks the linguistic skills to do relevant archival research, he relies for the most part on photographic evidence in it.

That said - Congratulations!

[EtienneSC]

Sorry to hear it, if it's true.

[Sannhet]

I learned from somebody — who would be in a position to know for sure — that his girlfriend had a miscarriage.

Faithfully,
-k0nsl

I hear that Eric Hunt is a new father. If so, this would make sense of his sudden 180 degree turn. He must have been having doubts, but his new responsibilities and need to fit in to society better would give him the needed push.

Eric Hunt says this at this new ex-Revisionist, now-Exterminationist blog, QuestioningTheHolocaust.com

For over a decade I have devoted a great deal of my life to investigating what is known as “The Holocaust.” I’ve endured 18 months imprisonment, overwhelming hardships, and live life as an outcast due to my activism as a Holocaust skeptic.

I have heard he was born in 1984, and apparently by the mid 2000s (early 20s) was involved in revisionism, under his real name. He is now in his early 30s. There are relatively few who can continue along the path he has without disappearing, breaking, or turning-coat. He wants a respectable life (who can blame him?), and identifies his association with revisionism as a major limiting factor in his life, and so he is lashing out.

The list of publicly-known persons associated with revisionism who became recanters and partial-recanters is long. They were sure the revisionist thesis is right, but underestimated the social power of Holocaustism, and lost their good fight. People deal with it in different ways. David Cole originally dealt with it by disappearing and living under an assumed name for years. For those of us with reading-between-the-lines skills, most of these recanters all but admit that their 'turn' was tactical, not suddenly being convinced by anything in the Exterminationist corpus.

[Tommo]

The "smashed revisionist" simply joins the layers of human propaganda in this order...

1. Lie-Witnesses
2. Forced Confessors
3. Smashed Deniers

The smashed denier is the worst kind because the deception to the public is massive, they are always the ones in the public light, the "media/propagation" types because this is what the public associates with revisionism and this is what the enforcers consider the danger, or can/will promote as such because their viewpoint is public belief, they don't care if the researchers are steadfast and resolved in nobody can hear them broadly.

None of Hunt's "claims" make any sense. Where is the evidence these people were sent to Treblinka? Where is the evidence they were terminated at all? Where are the bodies? What was the killing mechanism?

There cannot be gas chambers in any serious narrative. The moment gas chambers are mentioned, the theory is debunked. Physcially, technically impossible killing method in any way remotely alleged.

On Hunt...

I had correspondance with him Dec 21st through email of his QuestioningThe Holocaust site...

He was "revisionist" still then, 5 weeks prior to his disengagement.

He stated ALL of the following:

- He was living in exile (from United States?)
- He was in Eastern Europe (Russia/Poland?) searching through archives trying to "place the missing Jew's", citing the Korrher report.
- He DID say there were several possibilities, one of which he did say, was that they may have been all killed. But gave the other options as well.

I guess there was a bit of doubt there it seemed, but mostly he was resolute other than that.

He certainly sounded in trouble though.

It's a bit strange, certainly. Considering what he had typed up, it'd seem to have taken a fair bit of time to do that, indicating his recant came not long after I spoke to him, and suddenly at that.

There was zero mention of absolute garbage like the "Auschwitz Albums" or any tripe like that.

As soon as they recant, there dialog contains obvious blow, look at Cole for example.

Hunt has seen OneThird, he appreciated that work, he would be trying to be like the "German's" and not be used as a patsy, he'll be trying to "work within the lie"..

I'm sure we'll be able to find it.

[hermod]

The "smashed revisionist" simply joins the layers of human propaganda in this order...

1. Lie-Witnesses
2. Forced Confessors
3. Smashed Deniers

The smashed denier is the worst kind because the deception to the public is massive, they are always the ones in the public light, the "media/propagation" types because this is what the public associates with revisionism

On the other hand, the public doesn't seem to be disturbed by the fact that EVERY 'denier' is a former believer who recanted, i.e. a smashed believer who could no longer stick to his untenable exterminationist views.

[Tommo]

The "smashed revisionist" simply joins the layers of human propaganda in this order...

1. Lie-Witnesses
2. Forced Confessors
3. Smashed Deniers

The smashed denier is the worst kind because the deception to the public is massive, they are always the ones in the public light, the "media/propagation" types because this is what the public associates with revisionism

On the other hand, the public doesn't seem to be disturbed by the fact that EVERY 'denier' is a former believer who recanted, i.e. a smashed believer who could no longer stick to his untenable exterminationist views.

That's a great point.

But no Hermod, they don't.. Because the public is propagandised to believe obviously, that the Revisionist/Denier is motivated purely by "racial hatred" etc etc, you know that rhetoric, and mentally ill etc.

The smashed denier is not only the hardest thing for anybody to swallow for open minded people of the public (some guy even presented Eric Hunt's End of the Line speech asking me to explain, which required some detailed fast talking),

But they are the most dangerous to us because the ones smashed are not the researchers but the "propagators" with the most public attention, AND being Revisionists they are armed with the most detailed knowledge of both the holocaust exterminationist position and "evidence" as well as the Revisionist real situation and evidence and are thus in a position to prosecute against us better than any religious professor ever could.

The threat/torture method applied to Forced Confessors works well,
As does the opportunity for freedom and incentive with money for the Lie-Witness
Or a combination of both.

It's definitely a big problem.

It's like, holocaust revisionism can be a "kickstart" for you once you become so prominent in the field with exposure to become a danger to the enforcers. Then your in a position to cut a deal, and BOOM, your "rehabilitated", rich and on easy street.

[Sannhet]

Then your in a position to cut a deal, and BOOM, your "rehabilitated", rich and on easy street.

Well, wherever Eric Hunt is now, I doubt he is on easy street; whatever he does in the next years, I doubt he will be on easy street. I'm sure we all wish him the best in a personal sense.

As for his payoff from being an 'ex Holocaust Denier.' Maybe he'll be invited on some talk show -- Can't you just see it now: "ex-Neonazi Holocaust-Denier Tells All". But there is no money on that talk show circuit, presumably. Just pity.

The power of Holocaust Revisionism, what keeps it relatively active, is not any reward or payout (be it to active revisionists or 'ex'-revisionists), but two simple facts, neither of which seems to be going away: (1) Holocaust Propaganda pervades our society and animates who we are (i.e., its supreme relevance) and (2) the Revisionists are right! The central defining myth of our time is based on, in a word, lies.

[Lamprecht]

There are already a few threads on Hunt's recantation but I guess I'll just post this here. Just put "Eric Hunt" in the search bar to find other threads.

In this video, Rizoli interviewed Leuchter about Eric Hunt's recantation, mostly referencing his debate with Fritz Berg:

Jim Rizoli and Fred Leuchter discuss how this could happen
https://ww2truth.com/2018/11/09/the-str ... eric-hunt/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmS3N-g55ZQ

I am not certain if Leuchter saw the video or links that Rizoli was trying to discuss. He said he was going to post them in the description (quoted part above) so maybe Leuchter will review it and they will discuss the topic again. Really there isn't much to be said about it though. Leuchter also claimed that Hunt accused him of refusing to debate, but Leuchter said that Hunt never asked him to.

[Moderator]

Suggested, with tons of links.
Thanks, M1

Eric Hunt rolls over?
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=10950