Need help debating a Holocaust denier

[SpaceMarine93]

I had been arguing with this right-wing historical revisionist online who kept saying the Holocaust never happened. He kept raising the Leuchter Report as 'evidence' that the Nazis did not use Zykon B in exterminating Jews and other minorities in the gas chambers.

I know the Leuchter Report was bullcrap. I tried to point out that the Leuchter Report is a pseudoscientific paper filled with crap/distorted data and holes bigger then the craters on the Moon, and that Leuchter himself had less integrity than a doorknob, he threw these at me as evidence of Leuchter's credibility and accuracy of his report.

http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v12/v12p421_Weber.html

http://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4111

Can't find any article and information to raise as a counterpoint. Can anyone suggest anything?

[PeZook]

Leuchner's basic assumption about gas concentrations necessary to perform the executions is basically untrue, and thus his entire report falls apart ; Leuchner assumed executing people in camps would require the same concentrations as US gas chambers used to execute single people in the most humanitarian ways possible.

But since the Nazis were not concerned with humanitarism at all, the required concentrations would be an order of magnitude less than what Leuchner assumed ; Therefore, his entire thesis falls apart.

Check out this essay by Stuart Slade.

[Silver Jedi]

Honestly those aren't very good sources. Everything contained in them is actually pretty well debunked in the wikipedia article about the report. You could attack the fact that the first "essay" cites no real sources, and simply restates the same tired claims. If you can, I'd try to dismiss this one out of hand and focus on the second: a forum post by some random dude on a denier forum which simply restates the conclusions from the report about cyanide in the wall samples.

Both of these gloss over the bigger issues invalidating the work. Despite lying under oath to claim otherwise, Leuchter was not a trained chemist or toxicologist (or engineer for that matter). He did not understand the work he was doing; of course his sloppy field work lead to wildly inaccurate conclusions!

The big thing I would hammer this guy about is the cyanide levels in the walls, and the fact the Leuchter had neither the training nor the the experience to conduct the kind of research he supposedly was. The wiki link covers the problems with his methodologies pretty well. I'd use that in conjunction with the idea that "designing" gas chambers for american prisons does not qualify you to do forensic investigation, and does not qualify you to make the kind of chemical analysis he tried to. Much like your denier friend, Leuchter was probably too ignorant to even realize what he was doing wrong. It's like asking a bartender to tells us if an ancient clay pot once held alcohol.

btw, that second link may be NSFW

[CJvR]

There seems to plenty of material on that...
http://www.nizkor.org/faqs/auschwitz/au ... aq-06.html
http://www.nizkor.org/faqs/leuchter/

[Zaune]

To be brutally honest, the fact you're even having to have the argument suggests that this is a losing proposition; even most of the out and out Hitler apologists have backpedalled from this one and started claiming that Himmler and co pulled the whole thing off behind the Fuhrer's back. Anything short of dragging his sorry arse all the way to Auschwitz is probably a waste of time and effort, and even that isn't guaranteed to work.

[Skywalker_T-65]

I would say that dragging him to Auschwitz wouldn't work either. If someone is this willing to deny the Holocaust ever happened, then nothing will change his mind. I've tried debating people like this before (in person...which made it even worse) and they refused to listen. You just can not batter past the Wall of Ignorance...which is sad really, but nothing to do about it.

[rematog]

The whole question of "is this much or that much gas required to kill" is a pointless. The testimony of ten's of thousands of inmate's and of thousands of US Army personnel, up to and including future President Eisenhower support the existing of concentration camps that killed hundreds of thousands of people.

'nuff said, the Nazi's were murdering bastards and the ones who swung deserved it and the ones who committed suicide cheated the hangman.

Someone who denies reality for their own satisfaction is a fool.

Arguing with Holocaust Denier's is like arguing with Fools, do it too much and it's hard to tell who looks more foolish....

[Zinegata]

Talking nonsense about gas concentrations is not overturning several million dead bodies, an enormous archive of photographic evidence, a large number of actual Nazi party documents, and hours and hours worth of eyewitness testimony.

It's like claiming the world is flat because my house is built on a very level piece of concrete - it's irrelevant data trying to overturn an absolutely enormous mountain of data.

[PeZook]

Talking nonsense about gas concentrations is not overturning several million dead bodies, an enormous archive of photographic evidence, a large number of actual Nazi party documents, and hours and hours worth of eyewitness testimony.

It's like claiming the world is flat because my house is built on a very level piece of concrete - it's irrelevant data trying to overturn an absolutely enormous mountain of data.

No, if they could actually prove it was impossible to use the gas chambers in the way described in documentation, then that's that - witness testimony about the camps has to be wrong. I agree it doesn't matter for everything else (most victims of the Nazi murder spree were not actually murdered in the camps, but shot, starved to death etc.).

But they can't, of course.

[Simon_Jester]

I'm not sure I agree, PeZook.

I mean, suppose I've proved by the principles of chemical engineering that a given gas is not toxic in a given concentration under certain conditions. But people keep turning up dead. Which is more likely: that there's some kind of weird thing that's killing those people, and it's not actually the gas? Or that I don't know as much as you thought about chemical engineering? Sometimes it's the former. Sometimes... well, that's how we learn- we think something will work or not work, and are surprised. Some number of empirical observations will always overwhelm a given theory.

Thankfully there haven't been enough things like the Auschwitz gas chambers to make it certain that we really know everything there is to know about that sort of murder-factory. If someone "scientifically" proved the gas chambers didn't work, I'd be more likely to assume that there's something we don't know about poisons than I would to assume that there weren't really large numbers of people killed in gas chambers. The Germans built and operated the things for a reason, after all; if the reasons given in the documentation aren't valid, what was it?

[PeZook]

Well, yes, you're basically right: the proof they'd have to present would have to be something about very basic principles, ones we are reasonably sure are true in all conditions - like, say, they gas not being toxic. Unfortunately for the assholes, nothing of the sort exists: HCl is definitely toxic to humans, it was definitely used in the chambers, etc.

I don't think I have to mention they will never be able to come up with such a proper silver bullet

Now, as others point out, even IF the holocaust deniers managed, somehow, to prove the gas used in concentration camps was not toxic, they'd still be SOL, because all it will prove is that the gas chambers were not used for mass murder, not that the mass murder didn't happen. But I think they're doing this as a sort of "gateway" thing, a way to seed doubt and make their conspiracy theory sound just a bit more valid.

Or they're just like all the other conspiracy theorists who think one imperfection in a single photo means the lunar landings were faked

---

On another note: few people know of this, but in the Auschwitz museum, one of the Auschwitz 1 barracks has been converted into a gallery. What does this gallery display?

Memoranda, signed orders and correspondence where the German occupiers are calmly discussing with each other best ways to annihilate conquered nations through murder and starvation. There's enough of them to plaster entire walls, top to bottom.

[Zaune]

On another note: few people know of this, but in the Auschwitz museum, one of the Auschwitz 1 barracks has been converted into a gallery. What does this gallery display?

Memoranda, signed orders and correspondence where the German occupiers are calmly discussing with each other best ways to annihilate conquered nations through murder and starvation. There's enough of them to plaster entire walls, top to bottom.

This is why I suspect that a great many Holocaust "deniers" really believe that the Holocaust was a good and noble undertaking, but lack the moral courage to come out and say so.

[Omeganian]

There is a rather interesting text in Russian about the subject, with the conclusion that many of the Holocaust denialists are essentially honest, but follow a strange religion and are thus very good in mindstop and doublethink. They cannot believe that Hitler the Messiah intended to do a bad thing, and thus convince themselves that he didn't intend a literal destruction, but only lesser measures... which are for some reason, are considered a good thing. Arguing is very difficult in such circumstances.

[edaw1982]

They took notes, they lined people up in an orderly fashion.
'Old people in this line, young men in this line, women and children in this line'....that makes it even worse for me.
Like the difference between 'Crime of Passion' versus 'Pre-meditated Murder'.
The Holocaust wasn't done in the heat of the moment. It was organized, and orderly and that to me makes it even worse than some soldiers going apeshit and killing everyone in a village, or some Tribe going for a bloody spree for the latest generation-long spree of violence.

I was wondering, if 'The Holocaust' nowdays cover all the deaths? Or is it still linked and referred to cover just the Jewish deaths?
And if so, is there a term to cover everyone else who died (the gays, gypsies, political-prisoners, conscentious objectors, asocials, criminals; etcetera?).

[Zaune]

There is a rather interesting text in Russian about the subject, with the conclusion that many of the Holocaust denialists are essentially honest, but follow a strange religion and are thus very good in mindstop and doublethink. They cannot believe that Hitler the Messiah intended to do a bad thing, and thus convince themselves that he didn't intend a literal destruction, but only lesser measures... which are for some reason, are considered a good thing. Arguing is very difficult in such circumstances.

I suppose you can blame the Nazis for that as well, actually. If Hitler ever gave written authorisation for the Final Solution, it was given top priority when they started destroying evidence in the face of the Allied advance. In fact, Reynard Heydritch is on record somewhere (at the Wannsee Conference I think) as stating that Himmler had specifically requested the Fuhrer not sign anything for reasons of plausible deniability. What good they thought it would do him to claim that his subordinates had set it all up behind his back I have no idea.

I was wondering, if 'The Holocaust' nowdays cover all the deaths? Or is it still linked and referred to cover just the Jewish deaths?
And if so, is there a term to cover everyone else who died (the gays, gypsies, political-prisoners, conscentious objectors, asocials, criminals; etcetera?).

In the UK, "The Holocaust" is normally used as a catch-all term for every ethnic group massacred by the Nazis. I can't speak for other countries.

[phred]

I was wondering, if 'The Holocaust' nowdays cover all the deaths? Or is it still linked and referred to cover just the Jewish deaths?
And if so, is there a term to cover everyone else who died (the gays, gypsies, political-prisoners, conscentious objectors, asocials, criminals; etcetera?).

I can't speak for anyone else here, but my friends, family, and I always considered 'The Holocaust' to refer to everyone sent to those camps. It may just come from being raised as a member of one of those persecuted groups, however.

IIRC the camps were originally constructed for political prisoners, and then expanded to cover the 'Jewish Question' and any other undesirables

[Zinegata]

They cannot believe that Hitler the Messiah intended to do a bad thing, and thus convince themselves that he didn't intend a literal destruction, but only lesser measures... which are for some reason, are considered a good thing. Arguing is very difficult in such circumstances.

Arguing that Hitler wasn't evil has been going on for a long time, and I think the first guy who stirred the pot was the historian AJP Taylor when he argued that Hitler was "just another European leader", comparable to Churchill or Chamberlain.

(I will now go hide in a corner as Thanas emerges in rage at the mention of AJP, who did seem to have very bad ideas).

[Spoonist]

I had been arguing with this right-wing historical revisionist online who kept saying the Holocaust never happened.

If you really are doing a "debate" like this then first ask yourself what your goal is.
Is it to convince an audience that the guy is wrong?
or
Is it to convince the guy that he is wrong?

Completely different things with completely different approaches.
If you want him to realise that he is wrong then do it like you have to do it with the religious. Make the argument from inside their groupthink.
ie in this case, who are sources he would trust? Then build from there.
If you want to convince an audience then point out the stupidity of the arguments in an entertaining way.