Revisionist History

Factual Questions
41

Here’s some inflammatory, revisionist tripe for you:

World War II was a classic example of history being tidied up to suit the objectives of the winners. Some of the nastier atrocities of the war were perpetrated by the Allies, and although many of these facts are now known in wide circles, they are still not taught in American schools. They include:

Bombing civilians: German civilian casualties exceeded British civilian casualties by approximately ten to one. Japanese civilian bombing casualties exceeded American bombing casualties by about a million to one.

Unrestricted submarine warfare: Karl Doenitz narrowly escaped the noose at Nuremburg by showing that not only did Americans practice it as well, they did it better, and unlike German commerce raiders, Americans never offloaded civilians from ships about to be sunk.

Biological warfare: there is convincing evidence that SS leader Reinhard Heydrich died from exposure to anthrax shortly after a failed assasination attempt by British and Czechoslovakian operatives. Vials of the disease culture were supposedly attached to a bomb which was rolled under Heydrich’s limo.

Chemical weapons stockpiling: American authorities were embarassed when a merchant ship that had been bombed in an Italian port released a cloud of mustard gas, which the Americans were storing up in Italy, “just in case.” Maybe not a war crime, but not exactly noble, either.

Mistreatment of prisoners: while thousands of Americans died in the Bataan Death March, few Japanese ever had the chance to return the favor. Some revisionists now contend that the Japanese propensity to fight to the death was helped along not a little bit by orders from unit commanders to not take prisoners, as well as a carefully constructed propaganda campaign to de-humanize the Japanese enemy. Anyone remember Manzanar?
And let’s not forget that the Allies overthrew governments, planned invasions of neutral territory, agreed to the division and occupation of foreign soil with the Soviets, and fought the French, just like our German adversaries. Then there’s those only two uses of atomic weapons against civilians.

Ain’t it great to be the winners?

42

I think revision is ubiquitous - The whole PC movement, for example, is just painting a pretty face on some less pretty subjects… Or the image of the “Ideal” family being lost in the 1950’s. In other words, don’t call it what it is (or was)- call it what sounds better.

A case in point are two books that I read about recently (no, I haven’t read them). They both explore the image of native americans (or indigenous peoples) as somehow more “connected” to the environment than other inhabitants of North America. They are intended to “debunk” this supposed stereotype by delving into the history of Cheif Seattle’s famous “we are all connected” speech as well as other aspects of “native environmentalism” (whale hunting in washington state, for example). The books take the viewpoint that somewhere along the line it sounded better to paint natives as earthy and “connected” than in some other vein.

Revision is all around. Just like in 1984 everybody knows it, but often nobody really cares enough or thinks enough of it to stop it.

43

I apologize to anyone who thought my “who cares?” comment was flippant. It was, and I should have been more careful when dealing with a subject that is so sensitive to so many people. The point of my comment was that revisionist historians have said that fewer Jews than previously thought were killed in the death camps. It doesn’t matter, morally, whether the Nazis killed 4, 5, 6, or 7 million Jews. Whatever the final total was, it was a horrendous crime. From the point of view of history, of course it is important to determine exactly what happened as accurately as possible. John Keegan in his book The Second World War estimates the toll of the Jewish dead as 6 million, 40% of the pre-war Jewish population. I think Keegan is an honest and principled historian and that number is what I’ll believe until Keegan is proved wrong.

Konrad, I very much doubt that the figure of six million dead Jews was inflated by Stalin. It is undeniable that hundreds of thousands of non-Jewish Poles were murdered both by the Soviets and by the Nazis, but the idea that Stalin somehow counted murdered Gentiles as Jews seems very off-the-wall. What did he do, sneak the bodies of assassinated Polish resistance fighters into Auschwitz? Didn’t most of the Stalinist terror in Poland happen after the end of the war and the discovery of the death camps? And weren’t some two million of those dead Jews Poles too? Or not?

You have a very good point when you say that the tragedy of the Central European peoples, not only the Gentiles in Poland but also in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, etc., under both the Nazis and the Communists, is largely forgotten in the West. But resenting the Jews, Polish and otherwise, because more attention is paid to their tragedy is counterproductive.

44

Lawrence, the point Konrad made is not that Stalin inflated the number of Jews who died. The issue is: under which regime did they die?

The 6 million number is generally based on subtracting 1945 survivor figures from 1939 (estimated) census figures. So far, so good. When you subtract the estimated Jewish population of 1945 from that of 1939, you get around 6 million. From there, the general conclusion is that they were all killed by the Nazis during the war.

However, suppose that before Hitler was ever able to set up Auschwitz, the Soviets had already murdered 1.5 million Poles (regardless whether they were Christian or Jewish). If, for example, 1/2 million Jewish Poles were already dead at the hand of Stalin before Hitler even invaded Russia, then adding that 1/2 million to the Holocaust reduces by 1/3 the number of Poles said to have been murdered by Stalin. The number of Jews murdered does not change and their tragedy is not lessened, but the perception of the tragedy of the Polish people is lessened because it appears that a far larger percentage of the intended victims fell to Hitler, not Stalin.

I would like to have seen evidence one way or another before I drew any conclusions, but I can see where people can be very sensitive to the issues here.

Tom~

45

Marxxx:

In Tulsa in the teens there was a race riot that led to over 300 black Tulsans dead and around 100 White Tulsans dead. I just read about it in the NYT magazine in December, but I don’t have it in front of me. There was a massive effort to cover it up by both black and white Tulsans until just recently. IIRC, the next generation of Tulsans literally did not know about it.

46

I’ll keep this sort of short, in case nobody else cares.

One of the biggest examples of revisionism I can think of is the whole notion of “The West.” Prior to WWII/rise of Iron Curtain, America was very ahppy to proclaim itself as essentially new, free of foreign influences. If Europe (Western Europe, not that icky Eastern brand) was mentioned, it was in the form of Greek Democracy and British Literature, with a smattering of German music tossed in. “The West” as a monolithic concept is a piece of Cold War propaganda and was largely constructed out of whole cloth.

Now tell that to Pat Buchanan.

Bucky

47

So your point is that “the West” in the Cold War is not the same as “the West” in terms of, say, philosophical thought?

Uhhh… yes? I, for one, have never heard anyone argue that “The Republic” argued for a trans-Atlantic military alliance. Could it be it is the same term used in different contexts?

48

Why? It is pretty much an accepted fact that he tried to cover up his crimes by doing that.

Millions, not thousands.

Auschwitz’s death toll was not counted by bodies. The bodies were burnt. Stalin simply answered the question of “What happened to all those millions of people?” by saying “They were Jews and the Nazis killed them at Auschwitz”. The early estimates (which were made by the Soviets) of the numbers of deaths at Auschwitz are about double of accepted estimates today.

Don’t know where you’d get that idea from.

Of course, but it’s hard to say how many. Something like 15% of Jews-by-birth in Poland considered themselves Polish. Many spoke only Polish and not Hebrew or Yiddish and weren’t religious. Because of the lack of knowledge of how many Jews were in Poland, Stalin was able to cover up the large number of missing Polish families by claiming they were killed by the Nazis.

49

Konrad, with all due respect (and I am by no means an apologist for Stalin–absolutely the opposite is true. I am also well aware that areas of what used to be Eastern Poland that are now part of Belarus and Ukraine were under Stalinist rule between Sept. 1939 and June 1941, and I also know that Russian troops reached the Vistula by August 1944 and did not renew their offensive until January 1945), I do not think that the figure of 6 million Jewish dead is inflated. And if it comes down to believing you or John Keegan, I have to go with Keegan.

50

As I recall, last year marked the 10th anniversary of Tiannamen Square. The Chinese government went through careful steps to ensure that no posters were hung, no crowds gathered and everyone would go about their day pretending that nothing ever happened. It seems to me that the Chinese government would be quite happy if in five more years they don’t have to take the steps because no one there will remember what happened.

“I guess one person can make a difference, although most of the time they probably shouldn’t.”