I really don’t understand the concept of holocaust denial.
From what I’ve seen of Stormfront and many other racist sites, as well as read in the news from countries like Iran, the people who deny the holocaust always seem to be the same people who support the holocaust. I mean, what is the point of being a neo-Nazi and denying the holocaust? If I was a neo-Nazi I would be PROUD of the holocaust. I would say, you know, “it’s too bad it was only six million,” or whatever. I thought Hitler is the hero of these guys? Why would they want to discredit his “legacy” by claiming that he didn’t kill as many Jews as people think he did?
It’s just such a weird, perverse, obtuse tactic for these hate groups to use. And, I mean, if six million Jews weren’t actually killed, then, like, what happened to them? Where did they go? It’s such an illogical position to take.
Are they trying to say, “look, Hitler wasn’t such a bad guy, he didn’t really kill all those Jews!” What are they hoping to accomplish with this? I really don’t get it at all. Could someone please try to explain why anti-Semites, and people who clearly WISH that all Jews would be exterminated, try to claim that the holocaust never happened?
It seems to be how people are wired. First genocide, then denial, then cultural amnesia - future generations don’t believe in it because they were never told of it. Except possibly as a lie spread by their enemies. One of the unusual things about the Holocaust is that it hasn’t been allowed to be conveniently forgotten.
Yeah but it seems like the racist hate groups view the idea of a holocaust as a GOOD thing so why is it that they act like it didn’t happen? Why can’t they just be honest and say, “the holocaust happened, it was awesome, Hitler was a hero, and we want to do it again.” I mean, they’re not denying that the Nazis existed or that Hitler wanted to purge Europe of the Jews. They totally embrace Nazi ideology and symbolism, so why would they deny one of the “greatest” accomplishments of their idols?
The point is, it seems to me, not to actually prove something for the sake of it, but to have the holocaust questioned, to make the general public doubt the history as it was written by the allied, and ultimately prove that there is a jewish conspiracy which more or less invented the holocaust.
When the general public accepts that, then the door is open to re-evaluate the democracies on the one hand, and the Third Reich on the other – that is, democracy vs. nazism; and perhaps Hitler was a good guy, who with great sacrifices tried to protect us from commuism, the “Asian hords”, and the jewish world order.
The nazists see us as brain washed, and they try to make us question what we have learned from the establishment (conspiracy). That need to be the first step in the great fascist revolution. If we accept the history as written, they will never win us over, and never meet their goals.
This is more of an IMHO than GQ answer, but I think they want to take credit for their “racial” superiority without accepting blame for the real actions of people who had the same beliefs. Or don’t want to admit that that kind of mass murder is the inevitable consequence of their ideology because it completely discredits them.
This is GQ but I hardly think there can be a factual answer to the OP, just theories and suppositions.
So, here goes my theory:
Neo-Nazis are well aware that in a mainstream context Holocaust approval is so much beyond the pale that they won’t have a chance to get heard.
So, they use Holocaust denial as a proxy or code - they know that like-minded people will appreciate what is meant (wink wink nudge nudge), but it cannot be proven against them.
I think they want people to admire Hitler but most sane rational people know that killing 6 million people is wrong. If they can get people to think THAT didn’t happen then Hitler just becomes another leader of a country that went just a wee bit too far…that WW2 was just a little mistake and after all he did get the people working again and pulled the country out of a depression.
Or rather, 11 or 12 million - six million Jews and five or six million others including gays and Roma and so on.
We’ve had a few Holocaust deniers/questioners on the board. They’re never totally clear on why the Jews are making up the Holocaust and can’t come up with an excuse for putting them in camps in the first place, so there are hints of antisemitism even from the mild ones.
I think it may be more of a tactic to discredit modern jews than to make us re-evaluate history. The deniers want us to think that the holocaust is a huge lie probably meant to garner sympathy for the jews. It’s common to hear the words “Jew-Run Media” in discussions about the big denial. So I think that the holocaust “myth” is being used by the anti-semites as the prime example of how the JRM is controling us.
I don’t think rationality is a strong force for any conspiracy theorists or history revisionists. Anything they may claim to be attempting to accomplish doesn’t hold up to reason.
Hypno-Toad’s on the right track: I think that the main issue is that it is very hard to reconcile the fact that you can apparently just go and round up and eventually kill 6 million Jews with the notion of the all-powerful Jew.
Also, I think I’m going to disagree with the suggestion that neo-nazis in all instances approve of genocide; I think many will argue that mass-killing of an entire race, including women and children, as it happened during the Second World War, is too much.
In the most recent thread on this subject, we had a long-time poster arguing that not all Holocaust deniers are anti-Semitic. But of course they are and have shown it repeatedly.
It’s really pretty simple - the Holocaust is an enormous stumbling block in the way of a widespread revival of anti-Semitism. The thinking goes that if you can cast doubt on it or at least soften its memory, hate will be easier to propagate.
My WAG: Although political Zionism existed long before WW2, many feel that the world’s sympathy for Holocaust survivors (and/or guilt/shame over the Holocaust itself) was a decisive factor in establishing the State of Israel in 1948. But if the Holocaust didn’t happen, then Israel no longer has a right to exist.
It seems to me that this sort of logic would appeal to Ahmadinejad et al, much more strongly than any “pride in the Nazis” suggested by the OP.
in my very brief stint on Stormfront (trying to figure out that mindset. Didn’t work. Still don’t get it.) it seems that many of them try to claim the title of “White Nationalist”, rather than Nazi, so as to distance themselves from Nazism.
They speak of rounding them up (Jews, blacks, etc.) and moving them to their “proper homeland”, leaving the US as a pure white nation.
They deny the Holocaust, as others here have said, as being part of the overall ZOG (Zionist Occupied Government) agenda, which only they are smart and special enough to see and fight against.
Idiots, for the most part, but at least the folks that run the site understand that their “pure white nation” would dissolve into civil war almost instantly. That’s the big reason religious discussion is so sharply curtailed there.
I think everyone here is giving them too much credit. It’s not that they’re crafting a nefarious secret plan, and the holocaust denial is part of that goal.
No, these people started with the premise that jews are trying to take over, and their hatred colors everything they accept after that. They’re true believers, therefore logic, reason, and evidence simply don’t come into the picture.
You can’t explain true believers with logic and reason. They didn’t use those tools to get where they are. Their basic problem is a lack of critical thinking skills.
Do they explain why ‘non-whites’ need to go back to some ancestral homeland, while ‘whites’ are allowed to stay in the Americas? Shouldn’t they be shipped off to Europe, leaving the New World to its native peoples? Is this giving hateful scumbags too much credit for thinking things through?