Prison Sentence in Germany for Holocaust Denial?

Great Debates
21

For the moment, imagine I’m some dotty professor just trying to alert people to an obvious and dangerous hoax.

Again, my writing isn’t clear. You are correct that in recent years, there has been a very active investigation of the holocaust by German scholars.

The laws were generally passed some years ago, as puppygod said, to prevent the resurgence of a dangerous ideology, nazism. Depending on the country, they made it illegal to do a host of things. These included starting or restarting certain political parties, use of nazi insignia, and denying that the oppressors had done what they had done.

Of course, when you do that, when you make public discussion of an issue illegal, there is less public discussion of the issue. D’oh.

I am pointing out that for some of those nations and groups who were complicit in the nazi actions, less public discussion was not necessarily seen as a bad side-effect of the law.

I would think that if you can show he is inciting to riot or telling people to break the law, you can legally get him off the street in almost any country. Am I wrong? And if he’s not … why are you messing with him?

Below, I’ve listed some statements for you. I’d like you to tell me which ones I should be put in jail for. Because make no mistake, some of them are punishable by jail time under the laws of many EU countries. Not all countries, I’m glad to say.

As for guidelines, here’s the law code of one country. It provides penalties for


Anyone who has contested, minimised, justified or denied the existence of war crimes or crimes against humanity as defined in the statutes of the International Military Tribunal of 8 August 1945 ...

Next, here’s a variety of different statements about the Holocaust. Consider them in the light of contesting, minimizing, or justifying the Holocaust.

*I think ten million Jewish people were exterminated by the Nazis.

I think millions were exterminated, but the records are too fragmentary to say exactly how many. Somewhere between one and four million would be my best guess.

I think the real records were captured by the Russians during the war and hidden away, just like captured and took away the records, photos, and bones of He Who Must Not Be Godwinized (HWMNBG), and didn’t release them for a half century. I think we’ll never know how many were killed, but I figure it’s more than we actually know about from actual records. Say three million.

I think Jews did die, perhaps millions, but I think it’s been blown out of proportion. Millions die in any war.

I think the numbers of victims given are close, but they’re probably inflated somewhat. It’s human nature.

I think no more than three million people were exterminated by the nazis, maybe four million tops. Of those, maybe half were Jews.

I think Genghis Khan killed so many people he made HWMNBG look like a pansy. Nothing HWMNBG did was important on that scale. Genghis raped and pillaged around the planet. He was way cool.

I think we don’t know, might be as low as hundreds of thousands, might be millions. I think the records were mostly destroyed.

I think it happened, but HWMNBG didn’t know about it because he had Alzheimers. Much like Reagan in his latter years of Presidency. Alzheimers plus all the drugs that Dr. Feelgood kept giving him. That’s why he lost the war. I think other people did the Holocaust without him ever knowing. How many millions I don’t know.

I think the war was an insane and tragic occurrence, in which the killing of Jews must take its place as one small part of all the horrors and barbarity and killings that have occurred during every war in history. WWII was no different.

I think no less than fifteen million people were executed by the Nazis. I think after the war none of the authorities wanted people to know how many French and British and Americans had been executed, so they gave out low numbers and destroyed some records.

I think no more than a million, maybe two at the most, because I think the people keeping the records have added in every unsolved disappearance during the war onto the lists.

I think only half a million Jews died in death camps. Another five and a half million were simply worked to death. Of course they had no food, no one had food then.

I don’t think that there were many Gypsies killed in the Holocaust. Of course the Gypsies disappeared. They disappear whenever there’s trouble … wouldn’t you? Shows they’re smart. Sure, some died in death camps, but most resurfaced in another country with another name. How would you ever know? So they put hundreds of thousands in the lists as “lost in the Holocaust”.

I think that twenty million patriotic and heroic Russian men and women died fighting with all their strength to stop HWMNBG, some in German concentration camps, along with millions of French and Americans and British and all the allies, and millions of Jews. I think we need to look at all those who lost lives, and at who lost the most lives. We should not just focus on one group who lost lives.

I think the Russians took the documents, then inflated the numbers to make their arch-enemy Germany look bad. I don’t think we can trust the numbers. I think it happened, but why should we believe the numbers the Russians give us? I say divide all their numbers by ten.*

So I ask you, constanze … which of those statements “contested, minimised, justified or denied” the Holocaust? Which ones do you think i should be imprisoned for if I stood in the street and shouted them out at the top of my lungs? How much prison time should I do for each one? Some of these statements are worth between a month and five years in prison in some EU countries. Can’t be disseminated in print or electronic media in some EU countries. See the Laws. Lots of direct quotes from the lawbooks.

I just don’t get it. How can “minimizing” something even be a crime? What does that mean? How does it apply to the statements above, some of which sure seem like they “minimize” the Holocaust?

22

Maybe I missed where someone addressed this, but the OP asked about voicing opinions.

2+2=4. That is a fact. If you disagree with this fact in the face of evidence, it does not mean you hold an opinion, but rather a denial of the fact. Saying 2+2=5 is not an opinion, but ignorance.

23

Thanks again to everyone who has posted - this is a learning experience for me. I think intention has presented some very valid points, as have others. SO I’ve learned that the Holocaust is a very sensitive subject, especially in Germany, Romania, Poland and other EU countries. I’ve also learned that so far, no one has presented any facts that would justify jailing someone for denying the holocaust. Sure, the citizens and government of certain countries are very afraid of a resurgence of Naziism. I would think that education, rather than censorship, would go a lot farther toward that end. Parental Advisory, your statement makes no sense. So all lies should be outlawed? Or only those lies that might offend someone? And from reading the writings and watching the interview of Bishop Williamson, perhaps he is misinformed, perhaps he has an agenda, I don’t know. Shouldn’t matter. We allow all kind of nut jobs to spew their opinions all over the place.

24

I wasn’t passing judgment on the law in what I said. Once you see pass that, it may make more sense. I was simply pointing out that your assertion that a denial of the Holocaust is an opinion, is wrong. It’s not an opinion when facts exist. To deny that the Holocaust happened is ignorance or arrogance, but not an opinion. Now the details of the holocaust, certain aspects of that can be opinions because nobody knows exactly, and its merely up in the air for debate, and of course opinion. :slight_smile:

Now as to my opinion of the law? I think its absurd, and people should be able to say what they want without fear of prosecution. If anything, carrying a law like that on the books tells me Germany never fully moved on from oppressing citizens rights, even though the intentions are good.

25

It’s an interesting idea, but the other actions of Germany’s government completely contradict it. German governments - federal, state and local - since 1952 has invested untold millions and manhours in keeping the memory of the Nazi crimes, including the Holocaust, very much alive and relevant in- and outside Germany.
*
There is absolutely no lack of discussion of the Holocaust in Germany*, quite the opposite. I don’t think you can name one nation that spends as much time on looking at past crimes as does Germany. From what I experienced while living there, it is the national trauma - how the heck their nation, one of artists and philosophers, could lose its head so completely.

The idea of Germany practicing mental judo to keep the lid on discussion of the Holocaust is clever, but if that was the motive, how do you explain that every other official German action as regards Nazi crimes undermines that purpose?

Frankly, I think this is why I have so much respect for Germany. They do not sweep their past crimes under the rug, they look them in the eye, and they keep asking themselves how not to fall into that trap again. Good on Germany.

If their methods seem a little heavy-handed to an outsider, well, we weren’t there and didn’t learn as harsh a lesson.

26

I think that last statement is unduly harsh, if you keep the timeframe in mind. 1952, with cities still in ruins and an unsure future for Germany? The Allies were still blowing up industrial facilities to prevent Germany re-emerging as an industrial power as late as 1949. The Saarland had been handed to France, to keep the coal reserves away from Germany. The country badly needed to tell the world that German Nazism was dead and buried, forever and ever.

These days, the laws do look kind of silly to an outsider. In 1952, they were part of a national katharsis. Bad laws are sometiems impossible to roll back, we know that full well. I find it hard to blame modern German politicians for not taking a principled stance when their actions will benefit only Holocaust deniers.

27

Excommunication does not equal suspension. Lifting the excommunication does not equal reinstatement.

28

That is an excellent perspective, Spiny Norman.

To translate to an American experience, imagine a Senator standing up on the floor of Congress today asking that we pass a law to fly the Confederate battle flag. He’s also trying to pass a law making it legal to burn the U.S. flag.

The Senator says that it’s all about free speech. He says we should all have the right to say what we wish short of libel and obscenity.

In principle, he’s absolutely correct. But what Senator today would stand up in flavor of the Stars & Bars and flag-burning? Not many.

29

That makes sense in America, where the democratic process works fine and the few fanatics cause no damage. But it does not apply to a country where the vast majority of the population willingly and actively assisted in fanaticism that caused unspeakable damage.

If a neo-nazi skinhead wants to run for Congress, Americans have nothing to fear, because it is obvious that most of the population will not support him. In Germany or Poland of 1952, it was obvious that most of the population had supported the cruelty*, and might support such a candidate again.

Today, it is not such an imminent danger, but the fact is that millions of elderly people have blood on their hands, and German society still needs to cleanse itself.
(*either supporting the holocaust, or, even if they didnt know of the actual camps, they still supported the deportation of Jews to an unknown fate.)

30

My two cents (and apologies if someone already posted this information above). One guy who I worked w/ fifteen years ago from Germany noted was the prevalence of the American flag. In Germany, the display of the flag is far more subdued; more or less found around government facilities (Post Office, Airports, etc.). He also noted that the patriotism was something of enigma–you were proud to be German, but afraid to display it lest you repeat the same mistakes of your elders from the past. The Holocaust is drilled into their education system.

He did issue a word of warning to me. He made it clear that Germans considered themselves very cultured and sophisticated. And if happen to them, it could happen to us. And given our slew of Holocaust denier’s in this country…:frowning:

The law in Deutschland IMHO is just as relevant today as then. One only need to look to some of the Japanese nationalist record of trying to re-rationalize the “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” and explain away that the Rape of Nanking was not as bad as those in China and the West portray it to be.

31

Spiny Norman, I understand the genesis of the laws.

But the repeal of the laws would benefit all Germans, not just the deniers. Otherwise, the Germans are left in the position of saying, as you said above, “There is absolutely no lack of discussion of the Holocaust in Germany, quite the opposite.”

Except that a host of my statements above are still illegal, so Germans can’t yet discuss all aspects of the Holocaust … “no lack of discussion”?. You can’t say “I think Jews did die, perhaps millions, but I think it’s been blown out of proportion. Millions die in any war.” because it minimizes the war crimes of the Germans … makes no sense to me.

The crazy part to me is that the Germans and Poles and Europeans in general seem to think these laws work. Yeah, that’s right, your laws are why you have so few Neo-nazis and skinheads, good job there, guys … :rolleyes:

32

In many ways, you’re describing “issuing fighting words”.
There have been “issuing fighting words” laws in many American states over the years.
The silliest precedent ever set for this was a conviction being upheld for this crime, against a man who said, “Meow” to a police dog.
Here’s a decent, but dated, historical discussion:
http://www.stephenbrundagelaw.com/CM/Articles/FightingWords1992September.pdf

I ask the Germans in the room, is your law against Holocaust denial essentially the equivalent of a US “issuing fighting words” law?

33

That may be the case, but I still stand by my statement. I understand the time back then was very different from today. But my position is still the same. You should hear what I say about my own country, I’ve said worse. That’s whats great about talking shit about my own country, I don’t get killed or jailed by my government because of it. I can give the president the finger, and it will be news and blog fodder at best. I couldn’t imagine having a law on the books that forbids denying slavery happened in this country, even if those denying it are truly idiots. Laws for feel good measures do not set good precidents, even though the intentions are good. I say let public scrutiny defeat disbelievers, not laws. For example, I don’t think a law should be made against what Fred Phelps does at funerals. He’s better off being shamed by the public at every chance. It makes him look like more of an asshole, then if he were fined or jailed by the guvmit.

34

Good. Then I take it the hypothesis about the laws being passed to somehow absolve German of responsibility for the Holocaust is now dropped?

This seems to be a good position to be in. Holocaust scholarship is centered in Germany and Israel, rather logically.

Correct. No lack of discussion. There’s a distinct lack of BSing. But if you had some data to back up a specific hypothesis about the Holocaust, including one that somehow put Germns in a better light, you could argue it in academics, no problem. However, Germany does not allow Bart Sibrel types to use the Holocaust as a platform for self-promotion.

Well, it’s a damn stupid thing to say, isn’t it? If you could verbalize it with some sort of concrete numbers and back it up with data, you’d be quite free to publish it as an academic paper. (It’d be torn to shreds, but that’s another story.) And yes, you can say it in a bar with no other consequences than a cold shoulder and the bartender giving you the tab and directions to the door.

Be all that as it may, I do think the law is an anachronism. It’s just that it’s not a big deal. Every country has weird laws and law enforcement practices that other nations would consider unreasonable.

Mmm-hm. Would removing the Holocaust denial laws do anything to discourage Neonazis, in your opinion?

Anyway, let’s try to keep things separate. Skinhead groups originated in the UK (where you can spout Holocaust denial nonsense until you’re blue in the face). Racism is global. I am not aware of any coherent skinhead political ideology.

Neonazis, for all their publicity whoring, are not a political force. They want to get in the papers and sometimes they do. And they’re more prevalent in countries (my own, Denmark, among them) with no anti-nazi laws on the books. They’re basically sad examples of humanity who’d just as soon call themselves neo-Communists if it got them attention.

35

Mr. Slant, thank you for the fascinating reference. I particularly was interested in the quote from the US Supreme Court outlawing “fighting words”:

This ruling was upholding a State Law, so it is not a Federal Law. I have to say, however, that I greatly dislike laws that apply a “reasonable man” standard. I say this because so few men are “reasonable” … including the Supremes. You don’t find terms like “average addressee” or “men of common intelligence” in the Constitution, and I think there’s a reason for that.

Part of the difficulty is that in a multi-racial, multi-cultural society, who is an “average addressee”?

And how are we to determine what “men of common intelligence” understand? Call in the Gallup organization and ask them to poll “men of common intelligence”? Ask them all if “Yer momma wears combat boots” would make the “average addressee” throw a punch? How’s a guy of common intelligence even supposed to know who the freakin’ “average addressee” is? Like there’s an “average American”?

Me, I think this was a poor ruling by the Supreme Court. It’s far too vague to qualify as a law in my books.

The laws in Europe are unlike the ruling of the Supreme Court, in that in Europe the offense is in the words themselves. There is no requirement that they be likely to “cause a fight”.

However, even that’s a bridge too far for me. The US Bill of Rights says:

If they thought the Bill should say “your speech is free, unless an average addressee gets really upset or you’re afraid they’ll fight”, I assume they would have said so … me, I think the Supremes blew it with their ruling.

36

My thinking – and this is not German constitutional scholarship, but rather my personal sense of why they ban Holocaust denial – is that they know WHY someone denies the holocaust. The Holocaust is so well documented and so easily understood (everyone alive has been young once, and seen how easily bullies will pick on the weak if they think no one will stop them). that Holocaust denial makes no sense as an actual position on history. Therefore they conclude, rightly IMHO, that anyone denying it is doing so for some particular reason or objective. Since all of imaginable objectoves for Holocaust denial are either crimes or moral evils, punishing deniers isn’t so much a matter of restricting (patently ridiculous) opinion as it is punishing an attempt to lie to inflict harm.

Of course, my view may be warped by my total contempt for Holocaust deniers.

37

Sailboat, thank you for your thoughts.

Fascism, tyranny, military leadership, communism, totalitarianism, dictatorships, nazism, call it what you will, these are ancient enemies of the social order. They have afflicted humanity for many millennia. They were a danger for millennia before the German version were called Nazis. That’s just one incarnation of a recurring historical sickness. Doesn’t matter what name you call them, it’s a police state run by merciless strongmen.

And given how little progress we seem to be making, the same type of madness may be a danger when Nazism is a historical footnote.

So I agree wholehearted with you. This recurring human tendency is a danger, and always has been.

I just don’t think it is a good idea to ban discussing any aspect of any of that long history of human lunacy. First because it is ineffective. People still say it and still believe it.

Second, because the forbidden is always the sweetest. Every kid knows that. And that’s your target audience, teenage boys.

Third, because ideas are so slippery, it’s hard to say what’s legal and what’s not. Not one person has come forth to say which statements I made above should be illegal, or even which ones are illegal and why.

Fourth, because regulating speech is totalitarian in itself. That’s Big Brother shit, “No one can deny that Oceania has always been allies with Eurasia”. I thought we were fighting against that, no? …

Fifth, because banning something increases its importance in the marketplace of ideas. It must be an important idea if somebody wants to ban it.

For example, how can a law ban “minimizing” the horrendous war crimes of the Nazis? The idea I wrote above minimizes the war crimes of the Nazis merely by placing them in a three thousand year historical perspective. What, like the Nazis were the first group in history to ruthlessly exterminate some rival group by enslaving and/or killing every one of that group they could lay their hands on? The Nazis were only unique in that they adapted Henry Ford’s principle of the assembly line to the killing of their declared enemies. But how is that worse than being herded into a church and burned alive? It’s just the modern version of an ancient human illness.

And everything I said above minimizes the war crimes of the Germans by putting them in their proper perspective, that of being merely a recent and particularly pernicious recurrence of an ancient human malady. And minimizing German war crimes is a crime in various EU countries.

I understand the fear of the resurgence of totalitarianism. I understand the post-war laws about Nazism and Nazi insignia and Nazi parties.

I just don’t think that the way to fight totalitarianism in the 21st century is to restrict discussion of Nazism. All that does is focus attention on Nazism, that’s so 20th century. I’m not concerned about yesterdays version of this illness. I’m concerned about tomorrow’s version …

38

Oh, come on. This is a strawman argument and you know it.

So, in US I can’t wear “Obama is a nigger” t-shirt in public. Clearly, US is sending the message about some ideas :rolleyes:

It’s all in the context. Trying to dispute that problem without context in a philosophical, “absolute freedom of speech” way is ineffective and leads nowhere.

Sure. And they have all the right to keep any delusions they want. They can even deny any crimes they want - in private. It’s about public statements.

Oh, and we have a lot of discussion - you know, exchanging ideas and citing facts. Nobody is banning discussion.

But nobody is jailing teenage boys. Actually, I have no idea what that argument is supposed to mean? Forbidden is sweetest? As in “let’s legalize stealing, so nobody would want to steal”? That’s ridiculous.

Actually, it’s pretty clear, most of the time. And they are rather firm guidelines. If you want, you can google those law and see for yourself.

If law against spreading LIES is totalitarian, I’m all for totalitarian system.

Well, not really. I’m not for totalitarian in any form. But that argument still doesn’t hold water.

Isn’t it reastating your argument No.2? And I really, really doubt that, for example, allowing racial slur will make racism unimportant. Real life doesn’t work like that.

Again - as was said many time in this thread by me and other posters - there is discussion of Nazism in Europe. And it isn’t restricted. That’s strawman argument. What is restricted is public spreading of certain, demonstrably untrue statements.

And it is restricted because in 99% of cases it’s done with particular, hateful agenda.

BTW - why this thread is not in GD yet?

39

I must agree. Moved.

samclem Moderator, General Questions

40

Most Holocaust denial does not dispute that allot of Jews died.

What they dispute is
(1) That Hitler knew about it.

(2) That it was a giant plan, as opposed to just general cruelty. For instance, they point to the gays, disabled, gypseys etc, and say that it wasn’t focused on Jewish people at all (a rather semantic point IMO, but because its illegal every aspect of Holocaust denial is given publicity)

(3) 6,000,000 Jews died. This is the most ‘credible’ area of Holocaust denial, as its likely that the figures are a bit off; so many bodies were burned, and so many people fled that an accurate census is impossible. Given that the Russians admitted to inflating some of the figures of specific camps for propoganda purposes, there is alot of room for doubt, which Holocaust deniers have seized upon.
Some say its merely off by a million (5 million dead), but others claim (with no good grounds AFAIK) that the number is ‘only’ 3 million.