Talk:Holocaust denial

Cover story (sticky)
What does this need to be a cover story? I've pasted the editorial comments:
 * Documentary and physical evidence for gas chambers
 * Seems done; we have 4 sections and 6 references on it.
 * Denier arguments concerning gas chambers - Prussian blue, ash disposal etc, and response
 * Prussian blue is mentioned; ash disposal is mentioned
 * Deniers' disapproval of some survivor testimonies, and response
 * We have 5 sections and 10 references on it.
 * Deniers' illicit comparisons of Nazi Germany and Israel, and response Strom 02:41, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
 * We have this on Red herrings in Holocaust denial
 * Remove, redirect or "fill-in" redlinks
 * Don't see (m)any.
 * Copy-edit  π   03:06, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Seems mostly grammatical.
 * Article needs minor cleanup, e.g. removing all of the red links, perhaps a couple more images(?), and a review of major supporting articles to reach gold. A few more external links wouldn't hurt, either. The Heidelberg Kid (talk) 18:53, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
 * This we need. Maybe other articles could do some SBS of denier articles?

But overall it seems read for the limelight. Herr FüzzyCätPötätö (talk/stalk) 15:11, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
 * See here for why it was removed from cover status in 2010. This hasn't been fixed - check how many times this article & the 'red herrings' appendix say "Holocaust deniers might _____".  The article should be about Holocaust denial as observed, not as hypothesised in the abstract.  17:48, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm the one who triggered the discussion that got it removed from cover status in 2010. Since then it doesn't seem to have improved much, just got longer and more convoluted. It's still a collection of strawmen, false dichotomies, poisoning the well: think of a logical fallacy and it's there, supported by sarcasm more than any attempt at rational discussion. Anyone interested in the debate back then can start here: Talk:Holocaust_denial/Archive1. Feel free to skip my own overlong contributions if you wish to and don't raise them for discussion here now as that would be both OT and too far back, and I won't reply. Qwertyuiop (talk) 13:31, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
 * If it took you this long to get back to the discussion you walked away from after your assertions got debunked repeatedly, which is on the archives and your talk page, it doesn't seem like it was that important or had the weight of the evidence on your side.  It's easy to start things or throw around unfounded assertions, which is still all you still seem to be doing, but it's harder to prove yourself right.  I thought this was pretty obvious but even after this long it seems like it is not.  -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 13:58, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
 * No interest in personal attacks,sorry. Plenty of others have pointed out those logical fallacies so I'm not going to waste time and space doing it all over again. I said I wouldn't discuss anything from back then on this page. I did eventually write an essay explaining my objections to the page, not in terms of a detailed analysis of the page but setting out what I thought was missing from it in terms of balance. It's here: Essay:A_critical_view_of_the_article_on_Holocaust_Denial. If you want to comment on it the place to do so is the article's comment page, not here Qwertyuiop (talk) 15:01, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Assertions and rhetorical tricks like portraying the burden of proof as a personal attack is non-starter for anyone with a lick of sense. You haven't changed your MO in the last 5+ years.  What a waste of time then and now.  -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 16:19, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Are you asserting that the article is not as I describe it: "a collection of strawmen, false dichotomies, poisoning the well...supported by sarcasm"? Qwertyuiop (talk) 17:22, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
 * The real question is why I am wasting my life debating someone that has no evidence against something that does. You have been asked for evidence and provided none, just rhetorical BS, for 5 years through now.  That's literally it and you failed so badly.  That's why you and your point have been repeated failures that I will be happy to ignore instead of giving you the attention that you seem to crave.  -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 18:16, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
 * The answer to a straightforward question is not "The real question is...". You should have gone into politics. I'll repeat the question once only. If you ignore it a third time you're on " ignore". In fact you're on ignore anyway as a complete timewaster more interested in provoking petty squabbles than discussing the issue. Are you asserting that the article is not as I describe it: "a collection of strawmen, false dichotomies, poisoning the well...supported by sarcasm"? Goodbye. Qwertyuiop (talk) 20:19, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
 * There's no ignore function on a wiki.--Kugelschreiber (talk) (mail) (block) 20:29, 2 May 2016 (UTC) 20:29, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
 * There's one in my head. ;) Qwertyuiop (talk) 21:18, 2 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Mm. Should we get quotes from deniers, then? Sir ℱ℧ℤℤϒℂᗩℑᑭƠℑᗩℑƠ (talk/stalk) 18:54, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
 * It sure as heck would help, yes. ikanreed You probably didn't deserve that 19:00, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Most claims in the "red herrings" sections are in IHR:s 66 questions. The IHR is representative of hard-core Holocaust denial. /Strom (talk) 01:32, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Would you mind citing it as such? 03:44, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Cover story soon?
How close are we to certifying this article as a cover story? I think the latest additions by FCP that restructured the intro did a lot to bring it closer to Gold quality. I'd already vote to accept it as a front page article myself, though I'm not debating that improvements can and should be performed on it. Thoughts on this? Reverend Black Percy (talk) 23:08, 22 April 2016 (UTC)
 * I just added a sourced segment myself to help bring the article closer to front page quality. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 23:29, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

Renewed push
Article has been reorganized into 4 main sections -- I think it's better for it. Article has had tons of images added. What more does this need? 14:28, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I've done a first pass on the article, mainly adding links and images. There are still places with "citation needed", and there are failed links from references that need to be fixed. Once these are fixed, I would support it for a cover article. Bongolian (talk) 20:57, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I've now completed a second pass on the article, cleaning up the references. I would now support gold. Bongolian (talk) 07:26, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Great stuff as always, Bongolian! Thank you so much. I also support Gold now. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 11:30, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you, Percy! Bongolian (talk) 05:25, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

2017, CAN WE COVER STORY THIS
Looks like the cover nom got mistakenly archived. I think this should be on the cover. Any objections? - David Gerard (talk) 13:05, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
 * (No idea how protocol goes) No objections from this happy camper! Ɀexcoiler Kingbolt Noooooooo!  There's a roach on my Wall! 15:21, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Yeah, let's step on the gas! Er... By which I mean, I support covering! Reverend Black Percy (talk) 17:39, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, it's good to go gold. Bongolian (talk) 06:10, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Golding at long frickin' last - David Gerard (talk) 12:18, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

2nd to last paragraph in intro
The numbers in that get mixed around a bit unless I'm completely misreading it. 1 jumps from being Fake to being "it wasn't bad"

Addition regarding the Nuremberg trials
A valid complaint would be how the war crime trials were deliberately set up so that only war crimes commited by the Axis powers but were not commited by the Allied powers were considered worthy of trial and conviction. Freda Utley states:

Few Americans at home may be aware of it, but their representatives at Nuremberg have expressly stated that the victors are not bound by the same laws as the vanquished. When the German defense counsel argued that if it was a crime against international law for the Germans in occupied Poland and Russia to confiscate private property, use civilians and prisoners of war as forced laborers, and starve the people in the occupied territories, then why is it not also a crime for American, British, French or Russian Military Government to do the same thing, they were told: “The Allied Powers are not subject to the limitations of the Hague Convention and rules of land warfare.” Some examples of this include Karl Dönitz, who was found not guilty as the Allied force commited the same war crimes as he did:

"In view of all the facts proved and in particular of an order of the British Admiralty announced on the 8th May, 1940, according to which all vessels should be sunk at sight in the Skagerrak, and the answers to interrogatories by Admiral Nimitz stating that unrestricted submarine warfare was carried on in the Pacific Ocean by the United States from the first day that nation entered the war, the sentence of Doenitz is not assessed on the ground of his breaches of the international law of submarine warfare." This inevitably means that it isn't that German war criminals were somehow not war criminals, but rather that many of them such were found not guilty. Thus, the unfairness of the trial does not serve to defend war criminals of Nazi Germany, but rather to show how many of them were not deemed guilty by the Tribunal despite them having commited atrocities, simply because the Allied force did the same. This also of course means many Allied war criminals were not convicted, however that is a different discussion than the one at hand.

I added this and twice it has been reverted. The first reverter claims that citing Chomsky is not valid, despite Chomsky's works regarding history and politics to be tremendously important and there is little to criticize about the claims put forth here. The second claims that Freda Utley is not valid as a citation simply because Holocaust deniers cite her apparently, which is nowhere near a valid criticism of the source. Neither addressed the example put forth regarding Karl Donitz as a prime example of "war crimes" really being "Axis War Crimes" and Allied war crimes being ignored.

I will post this again in a day or two if there are no responses. Codefuser (talk) 30 Sept 2018 (UTC)

This Article is not about Holocaust Denial
As I read this article, it becomes evident, it does not center on holocaust denialisms, or present any cases or fair examples of it. It's only focuses on denial of Holocaust denial. You should change the headline. It is misleading.


 * The article title is fine. 23:56, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

Blaming the Poles and Muslims
The article briefly mentions laws against blaming Poles for the Holocaust, but the topic of Polish complicity is controversial; blaming Poles isn't necessarily denialism. (Just as some Jews, e.g. Hannah Arendt, have discussed Jewish complicity.)

What about claims that Muslims were the real instigators, not the Nazis/Germans. e.g. (I'm sure I've seen claims that British or Americans suggested genocide to Hitler but can't find a reference - it maybe ties into the "Darwin made Hitler do it" creationist argument.)

Another controversial topic is that the German people had little or no knowledge of what was happening; this isn't necessarily denialism but can cross over into it. --Annanoon (talk) 11:07, 7 March 2019 (UTC)


 * it is denialism though isnt it. its not outright saying it didnt happen, or wasnt as bad as believed, its giving claims of complicity too much weight, as if hitler was some unknowing dupe led astray by those dastardly muslims. its either to negate the blame by nazis or to villify by association. whatever the motive, it ends with 'maybe the nazis werent that bad after all'. its utter shit. AMassiveGay (talk) 13:16, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Feel free to add a section on this to the article. Bongolian (talk) 17:53, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

The Holocaust was a state secret in the Third Reich. The stage of mass killings did not happen inside Germany itself but instead in ghettos (starvation and disease), concentration camps (working people to exhaustion on starvation rations if not to outright execution as in gas chambers), and sites of mass shootings (typically in Ukraine and Belarus). People deputed to operate the telephone exchange or deliver written communications were told to not mention words such as Vernichtung (annihilation or extermination) or bureaucratic terms of the Holocaust. The Allies knew, but did not believe that relating the reality of the Holocaust would serve any purpose because such would not be believable. After all, the Germans thought themselves a civilized and enlightened people even if their leaders were barbaric in the extreme.

Bad things (from economic ruin to extermination) happened to Jews outside the view of civilians of Germany itself, let alone France, the Netherlands, Italy, Hungary, or Norway. Jews would be murdered out of sight and out of mind of most Germans. Jews obviously had no means of communicating their plight to people of conscience, and those had no idea of what a word like "resettlement in the East" really meant. It is safe to say that no Germans were taking pleasure trips to Poland or the occupied portions of the USSR.

Soldiers of the Wehrmacht often did know even if not complicit. If complicit? They knew.Pbrower2a (talk) 09:05, 24 January 2021 (UTC)—

use of terms
intro:
 * assertion that the Holocaust ..
 * never happened (denial),
 * or
 * happened vastly differently from the "official" story (revision)

Although that sounds how logical people might use the terms denial/revision, for critics of those who question the narrative, it isn't actually how they are used.

"vastly" for example, is not a requirement. Even slightly disagreeing with something will get some criticized as a "revisionist". For example, if instead of 6,000,000 Jews, someone says only 5,999,999 Jews died, they would be condemned as a "revisionist" even though this is not a VAST difference. A term like that also allows too much interpretation. If you proposed 5,999,000 for example, would a difference of 1000 be fast? What about 10,000 or 100,000 or 1,000,000 ? There is no established amount of what "vast" means.

For that reason, I am removing that adjective, it's worthless.

Secondly, "revisionists" tend to just get called "deniers" because even if the revision keeps the number high it's still "Denying". Ty (talk) 20:12, 18 June 2019 (UTC)