"CODOH" my ass - Bradley Smith's hypocrisy

"CODOH" stands for "Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust", the Holocaust denial organization founded by Bradley Smith.

Recently the so-called "Revisionist Forum" has become the official forum of CODOH's website. For several years the forum has been run by UCLA library assistant Jonnie Hargis ("Hannover"), though now several other persons may help to moderate it. The forum is known for its severe censorship of opposing viewpoints - many prominent online anti-deniers have been banned from it basically for effectively debunking deniers' arguments (though false excuses have been given for their banning). But not only anti-deniers are banned. For example "revisionist" Scott Smith, head of alternative forum "RODOH" ("Real Open Debate on the Holocaust") has also been banned.

Bans are not the only tools of censorship at CODOH forum. Many posts just do not make it there (if the poster is in pre-moderation mode), many are deleted, some are edited before appearing. I have experienced this myself, as did many other participants, whether "revisionists" or anti-"revisionists". Not a perfect "1984" emulation, but pretty close.

Recently a Portuguese denier AS Marques, who for some time has been participating in discussions at CODOH forum (and was initially welcome there) complained about Hargis' practices at Bradley Smith's blog. After several replies Smith has simply deleted the whole thread, but you can read most of it here.

So, what do we have here? A "revisionist" complains about Orwellian practices at a "revisionist" forum. Bradley Smith, this self-described libertarian, striving for the "Open Debate on the Holocaust", turns the blind eye on the complaint, dreams up excuses for Hargis' behavior, and then sends the complaint and the ensuing discussion to the Memory Hole.

That's Open Debate for you, folks.

Update: AS Marques says in the comments that his comments were deleted by his request.

Quick note

We have updated the posting about "k0nsl"-"Haldan" with even juicier quotes.

Just another poor, persecuted "revisionist" victim

Certain "Haldan" at the Cesspit writes:

I have been involved in several discussions lately and all I hear in response is how evil those who does not believe in the allegations that the Germans are supposed to have "gassed" people are, all they can come up with in response is that he or she is a "nazi", and my discsussion partners will even use the quote at the index of the NIZKOR organisation to prove that it is the aim of not believing in such absurdities to "white-wash" National Socialism. A quote from somebody who NIZKOR probably believes represents our thoughts and feelings--what else could they be thinking when they put such tripe so prominently; in any case people will use it to win the argument by labeling the non-Believer a "nazi" and somebody who wants to "white-wash", or as the quote alleges, make National Socialism an "acceptable political alternative again". I just shake my head. I don't know what to reply to such idiocy.

Instead of trying to prove how evil those who does not share their belief are, why can't they explain the procedure of burning one thousand or two thousand people in a swamp, each day and night? Perhaps they would be willing to explain the procedure required for maintaining and cleaning a "gas chamber" in which two thousand bodies has been "gassed" with a fumigant? Why do they not answer such questions. How does one cremate multiple bodies in mere minutes, when it is perfectly known, that it takes sometimes more than one hour to burn just one?

These are just three questions which I have never seen one answer for.

Ah, those evil "exterminationists"! Why would they call an honest seeker of Truth a Nazi?

Here's why.

This "Haldan" (also known as "k0nsl", "Franz Holtzhaeuser", "Micke Andersson", "Jonathan Andersson", "System33r"; "JackBQuick"; apparently he resides in Sweden) has left quite a "paper trail" of the quotes such as these:

Let us make a new beginning today so that we can annihilate the Jew[*]

the Jews are our misfortune. [meta tag at *]

Thanks for giving us such interesting insights of this ancient race of coprophiliacs, urolagniacs, menstruophobes, incest addicts, child rapists, child murderers, slavers, pimps, pornographers, con artists, genocide artists, bloodsuckers, extortioners, and purveryors of filth etc,. etc,. -- the JEW. [*]

[About the above quote:] Those were not insults but rather ambient facts. I need not insult the Jews, one may only note their behaviour; but doing so will earn you the well-known 'anti-Semite' label, which Jews are generous of handing out whenever they wish. [*]

Two thousand children rejoiced with Julius Streicher....

The Gauleiter [Streicher] told the little ones about the terrible times after the war, when the Devil dominated mankind. "Do you know who the Devil is," he asked his breathlessly listening audience. "The Jew, the Jew," resounded from a thousand children's voices.[*]

Obviously untrue and only a Jew would continue after being instructed that the claim is not true. [*]

It is true, isn't it, Mathis? Somebody instructs you that your claims has no basis in reality, that they lack merits and that there simply isn't any proof whatsoever for your claims - yet you continue in the same spirit. It is only possible in the mind of a Jew. They never get it, and when you tell them, they just deny the information, pretend they never saw it, and repeat their false claims. [*]

Maybe you two should ask the question why Jews lie so often and so much. It should prove interesting even for your low standards. [*]

Jews' are famous for arson.

:) [*]

It does make a difference to point out that you are a Jew, another one in the line, to make false and fictitious claims. This is what Jews are famous for and I don't understand why it should be considered 'anti-semitism' to point that out. [*]

Jewish logic is incredibly awkward. It is truly idiotic. [*]

No, Mathis, you're a Jew. A quick look in the mirror will certainly tell, those 'eyes of death' [yes; they truly look lifeless], the ugly shape of the thin cranium, those obscenely huge ears, lets not even mention the nose. The mouth looks like a small hole, lips are hard to tell, probably a puffy under-lip. Apart from that, it looks like your forehead is retreating. No manly traits, either.

You're a Jew. Be proud [*]

Dear Mr. Mathis,

Can you verify if it really is you on the below photograph or if it isn't?

andrew.mathis.net/mathis.jpg

The eyes of that person look very deceitful. You say you are a Jew and
I have seen this trait in other Jews aswell. I can give examples.

Faithfully,
-F. H [*]

Well, that at least proves that you're not an anti-Semite.

Exactly. I hope you mean it, because it is a well-known fact, that many Jews will write one thing and it will mean something entirely different. [*]

If there was a "holocaust" it must have been of insignificant and absolutely laughable proportions; if so, why are the Jews moaning about it so much, whenever they get a chance?
The German civilian population who was the victim of repeated fire-bombs are "holocaust" victims a hundred times more than the Jews who were just sent to concentration camps (safe-keeping), where they learned how to work, how to be somewhat decent.
There was no "jewish holocaust", no "gas chambers" and no "systematic extermination". A couple of them died in the end of the war because of the conditions imposed on Germany by the Allied bombers (the infrastructure broke down completely), and a couple of them died while trying to play soldiers without belonging to a proper army, and whilst not wearing a recognized uniform -- you know, terrorists or as it used to be called; partisans. Cowards who usually ambushed the victims, but never engaged the enemy in a honest way.
To hell with the "holocaust" lies and those who try to uphold them. [*]

Germany was forced into war. The jews declared war on Germany 1933[*]

I guess you have just verified that what I said in regards to Jews, making false claims whilst having been informed of their false nature, was true afterall. [*]

Bring every little Jud' with you from America and various European countries so that we might have some peace, decency and also a reinstatement of morals, values and such.
With your people at the controls there is nothing else to expect but a decline of what I just mentioned above. These are perfectly normal observations and is not "hatred", which I am sure you will probably "spew" out from the tip of the lip, its always like that, when confronted with something you cannot handle. [*]

Um. Why would anybody assume that such a nice guy is a Nazi?

Cesspit residents strike back!

They have finally noticed this blog and are starting to address our arguments!..

Not.

No comments necessary

Here are responses of "revisionists" to the arson attack on the Holocaust History Project office:
Official CODOH forum

Why would Revisionists want them silenced? Are they kidding? Their material is a blessing to Revisionists efforts. Their laughable 'documents' and the irrational material on their website have been utterly demolished by Revisionists, each and every one.
"a pair of military uniforms worn by a judge at the Dachau trials". What's up with that? Do these clowns run around in WWII uniforms?

There has been quite a lot of cases during the last years of "hate crimes" being perpetrated by the "victims", and I wouldn't put it past Mazal et.al in this case. I mean, their "evidence" and "refutations" are mainly made out of thin air, so they could easily replace the old ones.

Two thousand (2,000) books? I would imagine many of them would be Holocaust books. Holocaust books in the future will be the testament to the scope of the fraud. As things start to spiral downwards for the Holocaust community they will be making a effort to burn their own books. You know, attempts at erasing the record. Who knows, maybe the process is already in motion. They could even have mass burnings and then try to capitalize on it.

What if it was a group of Jewish lesbians imitating the hate crime at Claremont college in California.

Denier at RODOH

The truth is that the arsonists are Mazal, Keren et al.
This is their surrender. They found out that there is no prove for the h-cheese.

Another denier at RODOH

Jews' are famous for arson.
:)

What They Won't Tell You At CODOH

Somehow, I doubt Hargis/Hannover will ever link over CODOH to this particular story from the Middle East Times in his pro-Iranian Zeal.

Former Iranian president attacks Ahmadinejad over Holocaust
By Stefan Smith
AFP
Published March 1, 2006

Iran's former reformist president Mohammad Khatami has described the Holocaust as a "historical reality" - a stinging attack on his controversial and revisionist successor Mahmud Ahmadinejad.
"We should speak out if even a single Jew is killed. Don't forget that one of the crimes of Hitler, Nazism and German national socialism was the massacre of innocent people, among them many Jews," the cleric said in comments carried in the Iranian press on Wednesday. The Holocaust, he asserted, should be recognized "even if this historical reality has been misused and there is enormous pressure on the Palestinian people".

Ahmadinejad has caused international outrage by insisting that the Holocaust - the killing of an estimated 6 million Jews by the Nazis and their allies during World War II in death camps and elsewhere - was a myth used to justify the creation of Israel. He has also said that the Jewish state "must be wiped off the map" or moved as far away as Alaska - comments that have provoked anger in the West and even condemnation from the UN Security Council. Ahmadinejad's violent rhetoric has also served to increase tensions over Iran's atomic energy drive, seen in the West as a mask for weapons development.
Khatami served as Iran's president from 1997 to 2005, and attempted to open up Iran to the West and initiate a "dialogue among civilizations" - in stark contrast to the ultraconservative agenda of Ahmadinejad. The mild-mannered former president, who has shied away from the political limelight since leaving office, also asserted Muslims were not out to persecute Jews. "The persecution of Jews, just like Nazism, is a Western phenomenon. In the east, we have always lived side by side with them. And we follow a religion that states that the death of an innocent person is the death of all of humanity," Khatami said.
He also argued that it was of little importance "whether the number killed [during the Holocaust] was high or not" - but at the same time went on to accuse Israel's leaders as being "victims of fascism and practicing fascist policies today".
Ahmadinejad also came under attack from the prominent and centrist Shargh newspaper, which complained that "the Holocaust has, as wished for by the president, become a topic of our foreign policy".
"The Jewish question was never a problem for Iran or Islam, and is a Christian-European problem," the paper argued. "Don't we have enough with the nuclear question, human rights, free elections and political in-fighting, so do we need to add another problem to that?" it said, saying that Iran would be better off "thinking of the creation of a Palestinian state rather than the destruction of Israel". But an editorial in the ultra-hardline Kayhan newspaper, a firm supporter of Ahmadinejad, continued to champion Holocaust revisionism. The president's controversial remarks, the paper said, were "like a dagger in the side of the US and its allies".
Iran's top-selling daily, Hamshahri, is also running a contest for cartoons of the Holocaust in a tit-for-tat move over European newspaper publications of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed that have angered Muslims worldwide. And Iran's foreign ministry is sticking by its plan to host a conference on the Holocaust - an idea that British Prime Minister Tony Blair has described as "shocking, ridiculous, stupid". Last month Iran's Ambassador to Portugal Mohammed Taheri also questioned the Holocaust, telling Portuguese public radio that "to incinerate 6 million people, you'd need around 15 years". Iran has nevertheless offered to send a team of "independent investigators" to the former Nazi death camps.

Meet Moonbat

Meet Moonbat. He's a typical Holocaust Denier. He has genuine learning difficulties and reading comprehension problems, since he's, you guessed it, from the Moon. Though some actually doubt the existence of the Moon and claim it's just another Hoax. But we know better, don't we?
You'll be seeing a lot of Moonbat in the coming weeks and months, so I wanted to get the introductions out the way early, since we're all friends round here (so far).

Told you we'd have fun.

[Addendum: just to clarify, "moonbat" is usually a word used by the far-right to describe the left. We began using it in 2006 to denote crazy Holocaust deniers, who are found among far-left and far-right extremists, certainly not meaning that Holocaust denial is somehow peculiar to the far-left (in fact, in our experience the far-right deny the Holocaust much more frequently). If anything, our dear Moonbat's surname is Wingnut. So, meet Moonbat the Wingnut!]

Intention and Explanation

This is where we begin.

To choose the title of a twenty-five-year-old essay by Tim Mason to headline the first post of this blog might at first glance seem obscure. But although Mason was writing a quarter of a century ago, his exposition of the debate been the rival intentionalist and structuralist or functionalist schools of interpretation of the Third Reich retains a power and impact which has rarely been bettered since. Moreover, this essay, to be found in the collection Nazism, Fascism and the Working Class, Cambridge, 1996, was one of the few occasions in which the leading historian of Nazi Germany of his era tackled the subject of the mass murder of European Jewry, the Holocaust. Like many historians of the 1960s generation that began to study the Third Reich intensively, Mason concentrated his efforts on the period leading up to the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939. He openly admitted that he was psychologically incapable of confronting the horrors of Nazism at war; a psychic block which some of his friends believe may have contributed to his tragic decision to take his own life in 1990.

Holocaust deniers would only snort at this tragedy. How could anyone be so affected by atrocities that never happened? To the doyens of 'historical revisionism', Mason's personal tragedy would become transmogrified into a far-right morality tale: look, see, the psychic damage that is being done because of this incessant propaganda about the Holocaust!

Yet they have reckoned without two things. The first is that the study of the Third Reich consists of much more than the forensics of the gas chambers at Auschwitz. I would almost wager that few leading 'revisionists' other than David Irving would even be aware of Mason's existence, let alone his writings. Holocaust denial fails not only as an account of the Holocaust, but of the Hitler era as a whole; it is a curious, stunted, impoverished freak-show of a history that has nothing to do with the rich historiography of Nazi Germany.

The second omission that 'historical revisionists' have made is to abstract their obsessions with the gas-chambers from the surrounding context of Nazi persecution and mass-murder of European Jews. They proffer interpretations of the death-camps and, more rarely, of Nazi Judenpolitik, that bear no resemblance to the reality of wie es eigentlich gewesen war, how it really happened. Time and time again one hears a litany from Holocaust deniers - it is alleged that six million Jews died in the gas chambers. Wrong. They confuse the 'Hollycaust' of media myth with the grubby reality of genocide; a reality that encompassed deliberately-induced starvation, epidemic diseases incubated inside ghettos and concentration camps; mass executions by rifles, machine-guns and the Genickschuss.

As a practising historian of the Third Reich and Stalinist Russia at war, I hope to dedicate some of my postings to this collective blog to discussing the genuine revisionist controversies that make my chosen profession and field so exciting. All historiography barring the first draft of history - the newspapers of the day - is by its very nature revisionist, challenging our previous interpretations of the past, and in the process hopefully forcing us to think through the events afresh. Since long before I began researching in this field, the study of the Third Reich and the Holocaust has proven especially controversial. Perhaps beginning with Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem in the 1960s, these controversies have come thicker and faster. From the intentionalist-functionalist debate of the late 1970s, the field moved on to disputing the tasks of the Einsatzgruppen five years later, and soon after to the Historikersteit of 1987. Before the end of the Cold War, German historians were tearing into Götz Aly and Susanne Heim for daring to highlight 'The Economics of the Final Solution'. They did so again after unification when Aly and Heim published Vordenker der Vernichtung in 1991, since translated into English as Architects of Annihilation. Five years later came the turn of Daniel Jonah Goldhagen and Hitler's Willing Executioners. This in turn generated a follow-on controversy over Norman Finkelstein's critique and subsequent publication of The Holocaust Industry. Finkelstein himself then intervened into the latest controversy, over Jan Tomas Gross's Neighbours and the pogrom of Jedwabne in eastern Poland scant weeks after the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.

Holocaust Controversies was set up in part to discuss these debates between historians as well as news related to them. Since both myself and some of my fellow contributors have interests in similar controversies over the Stalinist regime in the Soviet Union, we will from time to time also discuss these debates, which offer so many remarkable parallels and sharp contrasts with the historiography of Nazi Germany.

But this blog has an additional, perhaps more important purpose, namely to confront the arguments of Holocaust Revisionism and 'historical revisionism' in general. It may come as no surprise to learn that professional, mainstream historians have paid relatively little attention to what they regard as the ramblings of cranks. I can testify to meeting expert witnesses for the defense in the David Irving libel trial, world-famous professors, who have never heard of the leading Italian Holocaust denier Carlo Mattogno.

Yet one only needs type in a concentration camp-related Google search to be met with a barrage of hits to 'Revisionist' websites. In this sense, professional historians have left the internet wide open for colonisation by deniers. Valiant efforts have been made by many, starting with the 1990s Nizkor project and the flame wars on alt.revisionism, to battle deniers online. We have linked to many such organisations, not least the explicit anti-denier site The Holocaust History Project as well as the implicit rebuttal of many a denier argument, the Aktion Reinhard Camps website. Some of the contributors to Holocaust Controversies are members of both organisations, yet this blog is independent of them both, and remains the expression of our personal views, not those of any corporate body.

The contributors here met online at the RODOH forum, the only place on the internet where there is Real Open Debate On the Holocaust. Other internet forums have either censored denial, or censor its rebuttal, but RODOH has allowed deniers and anti-deniers to argue with each other freely and openly.

The decision to set up Holocaust Controversies was a simple one: a blog allows forms of expression which a forum cannot; by its very nature, it demands more from the writers than even the best php-ed bulletin board can ever do. We are not, then, fleeing a denier onslaught; we can still be found hanging out over at RODOH. Rather, we hope that the medium of a blog will allow us to hone, refine and develop our arguments, and to present material that falls in between the quickfire postings of a forum, and longer essays that might find homes elsewhere.

In engaging with denier arguments, some might charge that we pay them too much respect. Yet this reckons without the insidiousness of what are otherwise absurd debating-points. Like it or not, Holocaust Denial must be confronted. In spite of the work done by web projects and academics to demolish Holocaust Denier arguments, 'revisionist' literature is mushrooming yearly and by no means all arguments have been deconstructed and exposed. We therefore will from time to time post reviews, critiques and ongoing debates about the 'classics' of 'Revisionist' literature, which we hope readers may find instructive, even perhaps enlightening as to the inadequacies of 'Revisionist' argumentation.

Yet we also intend to have fun here. So much of what is posted on the internet as 'Revisionism' is so ludicrously absurd that we will also respond with laughter. In part, we were compelled to set up this blog in order to maintain a record of the illogicalities, inanities and insanities to be found on the heavily censored, hyper-moderated circle-jerk known as The Revisionist Forum over at the Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust website. That we informally call this The Cesspit will persist so long as this forum remains censored and inaccessible for us. Most contributors here have either been banned from CODOH forum or have not even bothered trying to post there, knowing full well they would not survive much longer than.... well, you can probably guess.

'Revisionists' might charge that the playing-field is not level; that 'Revisionist' writers are hampered in their research efforts, persecuted, prosecuted and thrown into jail. Let it be stated from the outset that we do not endorse censorship of any kind; nor are we in favour of anti-Holocaust Denial laws being passed in Britain or the United States. We would prefer that continental countries such as Germany, Austria and France did not make martyrs out of Deniers. Yet it should not be forgotten that Holocaust Deniers are convicted and sentenced for hate-speech, not for 'revising history'. No functionalists can be found in jail, as much as some within my profession might like to lock up mavericks like Christian Gerlach or Götz Aly.

In Britain, the bar for incitement is set relatively high; as it should be. We will show no compunction or mercy towards revisionists who express what we feel are racist or antisemitic views; we will accuse and criticise them accordingly. It is however up to others to decide whether their racism has breached the laws of the land in question. As far as we are concerned, it is beyond proven that David Irving, for example, is a racist antisemite; yet he would not be convicted in a British court.

Therefore, we will state the following: we are paying Holocaust Denial the respect of engaging its arguments on a scientific, historiographical basis. No others. If we discuss history, comments from readers are welcome on the history, from all viewpoints. Should readers post tired old saws about how many 'revisionists' are jailed in their comments on history posts, their posts will be edited or deleted at the administrators' whim. This is editing and moderating, not censorship.

We will, however, also discuss the politics of Holocaust controversies and Holocaust Denial. Readers are welcome to comment on the proprieties of censorship, jail sentences and the International Conspiracy in response to those posts.

In similar fashion, we reserve the right to use the terms Holocaust Denial and 'Revisionism' interchangeably. This is our blog, after all.

With that, let the blogging begin.