There are two main discussions going on right now, in this thread as well as the following:
Challenge to Believer NFrNJ: When did "Final Solution" become extermination?viewtopic.php?t=13087Since a lot of what is being discussed here is actually more appropriate for the other thread, I will respond over there. Also, as I was writing my reply here, NFrNJ's post was removed. I only quoted certain parts of the post, but I wasn't planning on responding to the remaining [off-topic/troll] parts anyway. I am just making it clear that that what I have quoted below was not his entire post.
NFrNJ:
Firstly, I was not aware that I had offered up a holocaust story - kindly refresh my memory by quoting me.
Check it out:
viewtopic.php?t=13087The allegation is that at some period (you claim: by mid 1942) the "Final Solution" became extermination of Jews. That will be discussed more in the thread, I will be making a post over there tonight.
and sorrier that you failed entirely to answer my question about the German authorities reaction to the deaths of thousands on one of their trains
I'd rather not encourage you to derail the thread, you can go make a thread specifically devoted to that subject if you want. You even suggested "perhaps you would like to discuss that in a new thread" - well, why not make one? Maybe others would like to join in as well.
Secondly at no time did I ever claim that any diary entry "actually proves the Holocaust". That would be a very odd thing to claim. The Holocaust is a name for a series of events spanning years, spanning a continent, committed by thousands of people in thousands of locations. I think it very unlikely that one diary entry, one paragraph, on book even would prove it all (or prove anything - without additional evidence to corroborate it the diary could simply be fiction). Perhaps you might like to ask a more reasonable question, one that was more specific? or rephrase it as "Which diary entries do you think are evidence for the Holocaust?"
So here we have it, the semantic game. "Holocaust" in general usage by exterminationists is essentially synonymous with "Any suffering or grievance felt by European Jews during WWII". In this way, Jews who die of disease in a labor camp or on a train are "Holocaust victims" and such misfortunes are cited as "evidence for a Holocaust" although they were not deliberately killed in some systematic extermination policy.
Individuals who accept these so-called "Holocaust" deaths in the camps can still be charged with "Holocaust denial" which makes the term a misnomer. This semantic trick was most likely created in order to deliberately deceive people, although most who use the term probably don't realize this.
There is little reason to discuss whether some generalized "series of events" occurred when much if not most isn't under dispute, especially in this thread. But the claim NFrNJ has made is that "by mid 1942" the "Final Solution" became a policy of extermination. That is being discussed in the other thread.
But then NFrNJ conveniently states "others outside the secret operation would not have known that"
The "secret operation" in question is, without a doubt, a conspiracy theory.
Those who insist on this conspiracy theory use this strategy to excuse any person's war-time statements (including private diary entries) that define "Final Solution" in the correct way, as "They didn't know!" Or they can just say that they lied, but they do not back this up with physical evidence.
I wonder, does NFrNJ even believe that Goebbels considered "Final Solution" to mean physically exterminating Jews? Reading a large number of diary entries would likely not give someone that impression, but knowing about just a few cherry-picked excerpts might.
NFrNJ most likely prefers to rely on post-war "confessions" in show trials claiming that Jews were exterminated in the "Final Solution" rather than documents that describe its real purpose. Unfortunately for him, these so-called "Holocaust confessions" are not backed up, but instead completely refuted by, the physical evidence that has actually been shown to exist at the alleged "extermination camps." I would be amused if he made a thread focused on showing physical evidence at "Extermination camps" that proves "Holocaust deniers" wrong, but he certainly will do no such thing because he can't. If he could, he would have already done so.
That is why those pushing the "Holocaust" conspiracy theory constantly invoke the "they destroyed the evidence" trick
there are two claims being made here. 1) that Goebbels diaries do not prove the holocaust happened.
Fair enough. How could they?
They obviously could not prove the "Holocaust" happened because there was no "Holocaust" - at least in the sense I am using the term. If Jews dying in World War II is a "Holocaust" then so be it, but then it would make sense to say there were numerous "Holocausts" during World War II.
They are of course evidence that very senior members of the Nazi party knew that (and approved of) jews being badly treated, and that Goebbels at least believed that many were being killed. But that alone is not proof.
Well of course that is not proof that the "Holocaust" occurred. But that doesn't stop people from constantly referencing such events as though it does show that the "Holocaust" happened. A common example of this is the photos of piles of bodies or mass graves taken from certain camps, which are included in books and articles with the implication that they prove the "Holocaust" happened. Yet these mass graves do no such thing; but it would certainly be possible to prove the "Holocaust" by showing certain mass graves that are claimed to exist, today, in specific locations.
Again, NFrNJ would have shown them if he could, but he can not as they do not exist no matter how much he wants them to
2) that the diaries show that quite obviously the holocaust didn't happen.
Really? I am not an expert on the diaries, have not read all of them, have about enough German to order two beers and say "thank you", and so do not, and never have represented myself as an expert on them. I would be interested to see your evidence for claiming that the show, prove or merely provide evidence that the Holocaust, either in some specific aspect or as a whole, didn't happen.
Well, depending on what you mean by "Holocaust" it either did or did not happen.
A definition of "The Holocaust" has been codified into "Holocaust denial" laws.
"Denial" is "the action of declaring something to be untrue"
Meaning: "Holocaust denial" is "the action of declaring the Holocaust to be untrue"
And so we can vaguely define "Holocaust" as "that which is declared untrue by those convicted of [or accused of] 'Holocaust denial'"***
*** obviously, irrelevant things do not apply. If "Holocaust deniers" say "the moon is not made of cheese" that does not make "the moon is made of cheese" part of the "Holocaust" story. And there are disagreements among revisionists, just like among exterminationists.In a vacuum, words typed on a paper prove nothing except that they were printed at some point in time. But we are not living in a vacuum, we are living in reality. If we are talking about a policy known as "Final Solution" supposedly involving the extermination of millions of Jews in concentration camps, the diary shows quite obviously that this "Holocaust" did not happen since it is is coupled with the inescapable reality of a complete and utter lack of physical evidence for such absurd allegations. The lack of physical evidence (huge mass graves in the quantities alleged) is a part of reality, this universe, etc. The Goebbels diaries are the explanation of why this physical evidence does not exist despite the "Holocaust" narrative asserting that it does exist.
The primary dispute however is whether the "Final Solution" was ever a policy of exterminating Jews. I assert that the "genocide" accusation is entirely fraudulent. The undeniable reality of Jews being killed in WWII (along with countless other groups) is not really questioned by revisionists, although specific claimed methods and numbers are.
Unlike Poles, Germans, French, Estonians, etc - European Jews had a unique and special mode of existence at this time as minorities living within a gentile host population. Today this "diaspora" is accompanied by a national existence in the more ordinary sense of the word, with geographical borders: Israel. Israel didn't exist during WWII but the Germans certainly interpreted themselves as at war with the Jews, read their own words.
Goebbels, in the 27 March 1942 entry that is the subject of the thread, called the war:
"a life-and-death struggle between the Aryan race and the Jewish bacillus... Jewry's representatives in England and America are today organizing and sponsoring the war against Germany."The very last thing Hitler ever wrote/said was that the war was:
"wanted and provoked solely by international statesmen either of Jewish origin or working for Jewish interests."Look also at Hitler's Reichstag prophecy on "international Jewish financiers" starting another war, coupled with the subsequent statements by various German officials accusing "international Jewish financiers" of doing exactly that.
As an aside, Dr. Mahbub ul Haq, famous Pakistani economist, predicted that wars between "people" (ethnic, religious, racial & cultural groups) will continue to far outnumber wars between nation-states into this century. And so far his prediction has merit. In the latter half of the past century, the most frequent settings of violent conflict were within states, internal strife based on cultural/tribal/religious/ethnic animosities. Between 1989-2004, of 118 military conflicts only 7 were between nation-states and the remainder were internal conflicts often with an ethnic component. A study of the 1990s found 80% of "major conflicts" had an ethnic element. A 2003 estimate found "nearly two-thirds of all [the world’s] armed conflicts [at that time] included an ethnic component. [In fact], ethnic conflicts [were] four times more likely than interstate wars."
So the distinction between country and nation must also be understood. The USA had concentration camps set up in WWII [and WWI] for civilians with ethnic heritage from certain countries. The British also had camps in WWII. Some of those interned were killed or died of privation, but not at rates anywhere close to Germany's camps. Unlike America, Germany was not an agricultural powerhouse and was also experiencing a blockade initiated in 1939 by the British and French. A major incentive for invading the USSR in 1941 was to get food. Former US president Herbert Hoover on 11 August 1940 complained about the inevitable "wholesale starvation, death and disease" to be inflicted on "27 million innocent civilians" in Europe. Death via starvation by those on the losing side of resource competition is a story older than the human species.
As we all know, this alleged "Holocaust" is said to have occurred during World War II -- a war in which civilians on both sides were "badly treated" -- but when we talk about thousands of German or British civilians killed in a day from a city being bombed it is not referred to as "genocide" by any serious person. But when Jewish civilians die for comparable reasons it is included as part of a supposed genocide. The British declared war, yes, but Jews not having a national existence for an "official war declaration" is a weak argument to make in favor of their civilian deaths being "genocide" but not that of the British or Germans. But that's a subject for another thread.
And in a war you do kill your opponent, but as a strategy of achieving some another aim, such as to stop an aggressor's encroachment, exhort resources (such as territory), gain prestige, etc. In contrast the goal of a genocide is the physical destruction of a group (but one may also profit or otherwise gain from it).
What is clear is that reading many of these passages (and others) we will get the impression that "Final Solution" is not an extermination policy. Instead he said that it was something else, even vaguely hinting that it should have extermination instead. So exterminationists who opt to use the diaries as "evidence of the Holocaust" are left with cherry-picking examples of Jews being "badly treated" during the war (or Goebbels writing his anti-Jewish opinions) as some form of "evidence for the Holocaust" when the diary in its totality flatly contradicts a sacrosanct tenant of the unquestionable "Holocaust" narrative.
So you are going to answer all the questions I have asked? You have still failed to tell us how many of the uses of the term "liquidation" in Goebbels diaries you think cannot be read to mean "killing" (apart from those not referring to animate objects).
You asked more than 20 questions in your first two posts. Then you continued posting more silly questions once you were told to stop dodging individual challenges yourself, most of them appear rhetorical.
The rules do not stipulate that I have to answer personal "What do
you think about ___? What is
your opinion on ___?" questions. I claimed no specific thing about those entries, I merely listed them. And some of your "questions" were nothing more than a demand for me to do a bunch of uninteresting research for you.
I also stated:
I am quite happy to accept that my use of "Most" in that instance was incorrect.You are welcome to go through the German text and see if there are more examples "Liquidierung" used, or if there are other examples of the author adding the term in the English translation when it was not used in the original beyond the one that I noticed.
