Defending HItler

[BH]

My first cousins great grandparents were Jews from Germany. They came to the US right before Hitler took over in the 30's. The great grandfather was still alive at the end of the war and took my cousins grandfather (by now a grown man) with him after the war to look for their relatives they left behind. Most of them lived in the smaller cities of Germany and not the big ones bombed in the war. My cousins great grandfather and grandfather could not find one relative. Something happened to those people.

 

[Hermit]

My first cousins great grandparents were Jews from Germany. They came to the US right before Hitler took over in the 30's. The great grandfather was still alive at the end of the war and took my cousins grandfather (by now a grown man) with him after the war to look for their relatives they left behind. Most of them lived in the smaller cities of Germany and not the big ones bombed in the war. My cousins great grandfather and grandfather could not find one relative. Something happened to those people.

Yeah. Humbleman made them disappear in a totally non-holocaustic way. The (literally) tons of documentation allegedly written by the Nazis themselves purporting to be evidence of the holocaust have actually been forged by the Elders of Zion four decades after they wrote the Protocols.

 

[Bronzeage]

My first cousins great grandparents were Jews from Germany. They came to the US right before Hitler took over in the 30's. The great grandfather was still alive at the end of the war and took my cousins grandfather (by now a grown man) with him after the war to look for their relatives they left behind. Most of them lived in the smaller cities of Germany and not the big ones bombed in the war. My cousins great grandfather and grandfather could not find one relative. Something happened to those people.

Denying the holocaust would be a lot easier, if the Germans had not been such meticulous record keepers.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

So all out Holocaust denial is a 'good attempt?' I shudder to think what Jason would consider to be a bad attempt.

He stated several times that he is acting as if he is Hitler's defense attorney. For his effort, he has you calling him personally a Holocaust denier. This is reflected in the dialogue that Jolly Penguin and I had a few pages back. It's a good thing that the Catholic Church has a better understanding of the role of "Devil's Advocate" or they would wind up excommunicating the very people assigned to argue the counter side of any given case.

Do you think you could do a better job defending Hitler? I would enjoy seeing the attempt.

 

[Ford]

So all out Holocaust denial is a 'good attempt?' I shudder to think what Jason would consider to be a bad attempt.

He stated several times that he is acting as if he is Hitler's defense attorney. For his effort, he has you calling him personally a Holocaust denier.

There's a difference between playing a role to the hilt, and actually believing you're that guy. IMO, our intrepid guest went beyond acting as if, and instead of defending Hitler defended the idea that the Holocaust simply didn't happen.

Do you think you could do a better job defending Hitler?

I'm not sure I could do that, but an honest defense of Hitler would hinge on not denying the Holocaust, but explaining it as necessary. There's a tremendous mountain of evidence which establishes the Holocaust as fact. Denying that fact is absurd, so the only thing left is to explain why it had to happen, or why Hitler believed it had to happen. From my reading of history (and I majored in it) there's simply no doubt that Hitler's Germany set out to exterminate the Jews. That's not up for debate. What you'd have to do if you were defending Hitler is explain why he (and his regime) felt that was a justified course of action.

Denying that it happened isn't a defense. It is just denial.

Do you think you could defend Hitler's decision to wipe out the Jews?

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Do you think you could defend Hitler's decision to wipe out the Jews?

Possibly, but it would be unwise for me to do so. There are too many idiots on this forum who would willingly "mistake" an intellectual exercise on my part as if it was somehow my own position, doing so gladly and eagerly.

Personally, and I have no evidence for this, it wouldn't surprise me if humbleman was a regular forum poster who adopted this new name specifically to keep idiots from attaching that exercise to his actual account.

 

[beero1000]

Do you think you could defend Hitler's decision to wipe out the Jews?

Possibly, but it would be unwise for me to do so. There are too many idiots on this forum who would willingly "mistake" an intellectual exercise on my part as if it was somehow my own position, doing so gladly and eagerly.

Personally, and I have no evidence for this, it wouldn't surprise me if humbleman was a regular forum poster who adopted this new name specifically to keep idiots from attaching that exercise to his actual account.

Except that is not how criminal defense law works. A defense attorney can't just make assertions however they want, there is a process of expert analysis of evidence in order to make sure that the statements being made about the evidence are based in fact. Just making shit up about farts in elevators is how trolls work on the internet not how defenses work in courtrooms. And for good reason.

As for the Holocaust, that's about as well-evidenced and analyzed as nearly any event in history, so choosing that tack would mean an essentially certain loss in court. It would be like a suspect flatly denying they committed the crime despite eyewitness testimony, video evidence, fingerprints, DNA, co-conspirator confessions, and more. It's about as good of a defense as claiming they were framed by the Illuminati lizard people and any reasonable person choosing a defense who isn't a denier should know that already. It's suspicious.

Additionally suspicious, in about 150 posts, humbleman has already made it explicitly clear he's an evolution-denier and a relativity-denier (and more). The fact that he does a remarkably convincing impression of a holocaust denier is not a great sign.

Maybe he can come here and put the entire issue to rest by clarifying that he knows that the holocaust actually happened. Let's see what happens...

 

[Ford]

Personally, and I have no evidence for this, it wouldn't surprise me if humbleman was a regular forum poster who adopted this new name specifically to keep idiots from attaching that exercise to his actual account.

The Holocaust denial exercise?

Because again, he wasn't defending "Mr. Hitler" by explaining the reasons behind what his "client" clearly did, but rather by denying that any of it happened. Humbleman repeatedly denied not just the existence of gas chambers, but claimed that their existence was scientifically impossible.

That's patently indefensible.

 

[Hermit]

So all out Holocaust denial is a 'good attempt?' I shudder to think what Jason would consider to be a bad attempt.

He stated several times that he is acting as if he is Hitler's defense attorney. For his effort, he has you calling him personally a Holocaust denier.

Are you suggesting Humbleman was merely engaging in devil's advocacy?

Even if he were, calling all evidence faked, all witnesses liars and claiming the gas chambers could not possibly function because submarines is a laughably idiotic way to go about it. People who take that approach may as well deny evolution on completely nonsensical grounds.

Oh. Wait...

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

So all out Holocaust denial is a 'good attempt?' I shudder to think what Jason would consider to be a bad attempt.

Not just holocaust denial, science denial regarding many points refuted in this thread. Perhaps Jason will also defend this lunacy:
https://talkfreethought.org/showthr...ory-in-history&p=493514&viewfull=1#post493514

 

[laughing dog]

Personally, and I have no evidence for this, it wouldn't surprise me if humbleman was a regular forum poster who adopted this new name specifically to keep idiots from attaching that exercise to his actual account.

The Holocaust denial exercise?

Because again, he wasn't defending "Mr. Hitler" by explaining the reasons behind what his "client" clearly did, but rather by denying that any of it happened.

Strict libertarianism is founded on a denial of reality. So, basing a defense on the denial of reality will naturally appeal to a strict libertarian.

 

[bilby]

You could try to defend Jack the Ripper by claiming that no women were ever murdered in Whitechapel; But I doubt that any court, or any sane layman, would take such a defence any more seriously that humbleman's "No crime ever occurred" defence of Hitler's genocide.

A better tack might be to claim that Hitler himself had no knowledge of the genocide, which was carried out by overzealous subordinates, and was contrary to (or at least not required by) his orders. It's a defence with holes you could fly a Lancaster Bomber through, but it's a better defence than flat out denying that there was ever a crime in the first place. If I was assigned as Hitler's defence attorney, I might perhaps try that one on.

The biggest problem with that is that, as dictator, Hitler really had no way not to be aware of what was happening, given its scale. And the subordinates in question (Presumably the likes of Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich, amongst others - assuming that their deaths are no more a barrier to their testimony than Hitler's is to his being tried in the first place) would presumably be happy to rat him out, rather than carry the can themselves.

 

[BH]

It has been a long time since I've read anything about the Holocaust. I would not even say I know as much as most laymen. It's been 20 years since I took a grad course in Twentieth Century Europe at university and studied Nazi Germany and World War Two over three weeks. Yep, three weeks was it. I seem to recall that at that time there was no definitive handwritten paper found with Hitler's signature on it ordering the extermination of Jews, Gypsies, Homosexuals, and Jehovah Witnesses in the death camps. My memory could very well be mistaken and its possible I am just forgetting what was studied or maybe none of us read it had been discovered. I do seem to recall we did have signatures from him ordering the elimination of people thought of as mentally retarded. We also had written records of his orders to shoot Jews found on the Eastern front. If this is the case why is it so hard to think he would have had to know the Holocaust was going on and if did not order it at least had to approve of it to let it happen? And if he ordered Jews in Russia shot why would he care if Jews in France, Germany, et al were gassed? To me, ordering the extermination of chronically ill people and retarded people and shooting any Jews found in Russia should be crominal enough to put him away for life or give him the death penalty if you believe in that.


Another thing. I had a cousin who was in the Army in the early 50's through the late 60's. He was stationed in Germany for a few years and helped process Nazi archives in some way for the allies. Anyway, he claims (he has been dead twenty years) that he saw a draft of some future book Hitler wanted to publish where he said when he conquered the US he was going to kill all of the Jews here as well as all the blacks. He was going to make Mexicans slaves when he conquered Mexico and Americans of English and American descent would be considered equal to German Germans whereas all other whites would be kinda second tier. That's what he told me one time. Again it's been years and I may be forgetting something.

Anyway, this cousin's wife was a German born in Berlin during the Blitz. Her father was a member of the SS. Towards the end of the war a pastor od a church preached a sermon in some town against the Hitler regime and he was told by his superiors to burn the church down and get the preacher. He refused and was shot himself for the refusal. I'd like to think there was at least one guy who was a good guy in the SS.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Maybe we consider it to be a fascist exercise because the bit quoted was obviously written as a vigorous defense of the man and the ideology, rather than the actual arguments that a defense would attempt to muster in this sort of case:

1. Sanity
2. Blame underlings
3. Blame environment, circumstances

A real lawyer would realize that the whole thing is indefensible, and so attempt to shift the narrative to something else. In short, the defense would have resembled the defenses actually argued at Nuremberg. But those arguments were made to save men, not the ideology, and so have no use to the people who would like to 'exercise' their 'intellect' in this fashion.

I didn't start this topic.

But, so far, it is a great adventure defending Hitler.

I just noticed that something fishy is going around, and this will be just an opportunity to clear up cloudy things input to Hitler.

My review of the allies as killing millions of people as collateral damage is sound when you read and analyze the several targets which the allies claim they destroyed in WW2.

You make an account of the tons of bombs dropped over German sites. You make an estimate of how many free labor people Germans use in their war machine, and you come out with the reality that the bombs dropped by the allies didn't believe in natural selection but killed the whole inside factories, storage buildings, etc. which include hundreds of detainees in each target.

At the end of the war, those "missing" bodies must be justified some how... so leave it to the beaver... Hitler was gone to defend himself, easy target to input those deaths.

Time to review history and verify is such claims about Hitler are real.

That would mean all those Jews who were freed from the camps were lying, all independently conspiring. Not to mention German officers were all independently creating the same lie with official documents. It is amazing that Jason thinks these are good arguments.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Personally, and I have no evidence for this, it wouldn't surprise me if humbleman was a regular forum poster who adopted this new name specifically to keep idiots from attaching that exercise to his actual account.

The Holocaust denial exercise?

Because again, he wasn't defending "Mr. Hitler" by explaining the reasons behind what his "client" clearly did, but rather by denying that any of it happened.

Strict libertarianism is founded on a denial of reality. So, basing a defense on the denial of reality will naturally appeal to a strict libertarian.

Do you follow me around simply to post vapid but rude posts about me?

 

[LordKiran]

Strict libertarianism is founded on a denial of reality. So, basing a defense on the denial of reality will naturally appeal to a strict libertarian.

Do you follow me around simply to post vapid but rude posts about me?

Don't start nuthin' won't be nuthin'.

 

[Bronzeage]

Strict libertarianism is founded on a denial of reality. So, basing a defense on the denial of reality will naturally appeal to a strict libertarian.

Do you follow me around simply to post vapid but rude posts about me?

You misspelled valid. Libertarianism does require a good degree of denial of reality, if only to prevent one from feeling disingenuous when attempting to explain it, all over again. One may be able to explain why Hitler thought the Jewish people should be exterminated, but one cannot defend the action, anymore than one could defend third degree burns.

 

[laughing dog]

Strict libertarianism is founded on a denial of reality. So, basing a defense on the denial of reality will naturally appeal to a strict libertarian.

Do you follow me around simply to post vapid but rude posts about me?

I did not respond to your post on purpose nor was my observation rude, so your question is based on either paranoia or simply poor reasoning skills. But it is clear you are following me around to make observably false claims.
I do hope the therapeutic effect for you outweighs the overall embarrassment these posts pose for you, so that at least this silly responses of yours have some value for someone.

As an aside, I know many self-proclaimed libertarians. They are reasonable people with whom I disagree. But none of them denies reality at all, unlike a number of self-proclaimed libertarians in this forum do on a routine basis. Often, I wonder whether it this is a phenomenon of faceless internet fora or not. In any case, I now understand the genesis of the epithet "libertard", even though I disagree with it.

 

[Sarpedon]

The "Devil's Advocate" position was not used as a platform with which to spread heresy. These so-called 'intellectual exercises' are highly suspect to be actual white supremacist propaganda, for many reasons.

1. Although it purports to be a defense of 'mr Hitler,' pages of this thread have gone by without him being mentioned, only long winded and implausible arguments as to how the Holocaust didn't happen. Some of these arguments I have never seen before, though I suspect if we investigated we'd find them originating on a white supremacist site.

2. As pointed out, this is not how a real lawyer would ever defend a client. I do not know what how the law firm of Harvestdancer and Humbleman operates, but most lawyers defending a murder suspect don't go around denying that the murder actually occurred. If this were an actual criminal defense, I suspect the lawyer would use insanity as their main argument. A real lawyer might have pointed out that thanks to his quack physician, Hitler was continually on drugs throughout the entire war. A real lawyer would have talked about his being gassed in world war 1. I have never, ever, seen one of these supposedly 'intellectual exercises' use that defense, only real historians in their musings, within books that make no attempt to deny the holocaust. Why would that be? Because the ostensible goal is not the actual goal.

3. A concerted effort to deny the Holocaust actually exists, so therefore, 'exercises' like this cannot be regarded as existing in a vacuum. While yes, an intellectual defense of Hitler might be an appropriate thing for discussion on a legal board, or among historians, or so forth, that one should appear on this board, which has for years been used by open white supremacists as a place to test their ideas, at the same time as white supremacist philosophy is attempting to stage a comeback, cannot be regarded without suspicion.

4. Finally, Jason's continual, deliberate obtuseness, where he feigns ignorance of the dodgy tactics of his political allies, is something that I have observed before, and is well on display here. He can see all kinds of political conspiracies on the left, but he cannot fathom how an 'intellectual, devil's advocate argument might be used to actually spread these contrarian ideas. And yet he never comes down with his 'you can't prove that's so, so take it at face value,' when its on the other side.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

So all out Holocaust denial is a 'good attempt?' I shudder to think what Jason would consider to be a bad attempt.

He stated several times that he is acting as if he is Hitler's defense attorney. For his effort, he has you calling him personally a Holocaust denier.

Are you suggesting Humbleman was merely engaging in devil's advocacy?

I suspect that is the case, although having never conversed directly with him I cannot tell.