Exaggeration as a form of argument

[David Thompson]

Michael -- You said:

The image which David Thompson and PeterH seem to have of the personnel of EG D on guard duty along the Dniestr kicking their heels in frustration while waiting to get their hands on some Jews to kill is quite mistaken.

and

contrary to the criticism by David Thompson that all my posts are unsourced

If you confine yourself to facts, your argument will appear less exaggerated. If you don't confine yourself to facts, then we can discuss your exaggerations as well.

[michael mills]

If anyone thinks that any statements of mine are "exaggerations" rather than "facts", then they are welcome to list them (preferably quoting my statemnt in context), and I ma always ready to defend them.

[David Thompson]

Michael -- You said:

If anyone thinks that any statements of mine are "exaggerations" rather than "facts", then they are welcome to list them (preferably quoting my statemnt in context), and I ma always ready to defend them.

Please start with the first two exaggerations I quoted immediately above your post. I'll start a separate thread for the discussion, so as not to distract from this thread.

If other readers have any statements of Michael Mills made in this section of the forum that they believe are "exaggerations" rather than "facts", please commence to list them, taking care to quote them in context. If you can't prove it, don't post it.

[michael mills]

Here is what Peter H wrote:

One view could be that EG-D were late starters in the killing operations,hindered as well in competing with the Rumanians in their own sphere of influence,and underutilised until they reached the Crimea.

And here is what David Thompson wrote:

The stint at frontier guard duty may have reduced the unit's kills.

The implication of what Peter H and David Thompson wrote is that EG D intended to kill Jews, and had a brief to do so, but were prevented from doing so because they were held up by other tasks, such as guard duty.

My words "the personnel of EG D on guard duty along the Dniestr kicking their heels in frustration while waiting to get their hands on some Jews to kill" is simply a more poetic formulation of what Peter H and David Thompson were inferring.

But their inferences are contrary to the historical record. In August 1941, EG D had plenty of opportunity to slughter huge numbers of Jews when Romanian forces drove them over the Dniestr from Bessarabia into the german-occupied zone. But EG D did not kill them) except for some stragglers); rather it drove them back across the Dniestr.

Read Angrick's article. The fact is that doing guard duty on the Dniestr gave EG D more opportunity to kill Jews, as the Romanians drove them over the bridges, rather than reducing their kills. But they did not take advantage of the opportunity.

[Peter H]

Dr Mark Levene's article The experience of Genocide:Armenia 1915-16 and Romania 1941-42,in The Great World War 1914-45,Volume One states that the Dniestr crossings were denied by the Wehrmacht command for mainly practical military reasons:

(1)the 11th Army was still securing Soviet territory to the east.

(2)The threat of major epidemics unleashed by a horde of refugees threatening not only neighbouring communities(including many Volksdeutsche),but also the German fighting man.This same fear arose in December 1941 when 'spillage' from Romanian territory occurred across the frozen Bug.

[Dan]

Hyperbole has been an accepted form of argument forever. Do I need to source that?

[WalterS]

In the following thread:

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... sc&start=0

Mr Mills wrote:

From early 1941 onward, Heydrich developed a plan to deport all the Jews of the German area of influence in Europe into the territory to be conquered from the Soviet Union, apparently to camps in the White Sea area. That was the plan he outlined at the Wannsee Conference.

Note that Mr Mills was NOT saying here that Heydrich had, at some point, contemplated sending Jews to the White Sea, he categorically stated, as though it were fact, that this was what the Wannsee Conference was all about. His purpose in making this statement was, obviously, to put a benign spin on the conference and to deny that its true purpose was to discuss the "Final Solution to the Jewish question."

I challenged Mr Mills on this assertion:

WalterS wrote:

Please point out to us where in the Wannsee notes any discussion of camps on the White Sea occurs. You stated that Heydrich presented such a plan at Wannsee. Show me in the notes where such a plan is discussed.

It will come as no surprise to readers of this forum that Mr Mills never directly answered the question. Instead, he rearranged the sentences in his original post, but kept the original meaning. He never retracted his statement that Heydrich presented the White Sea plan at Wannsee even though he could not back up his claim by citing the Wannsee notes.

Mr Mills then posted two lengthy notes which, instead of supporting his claim about Heydrich presenting a White Sea plan at Wannsee, attempted to dismiss and deride evidence which was posted showing that the purpose of Wansee to discuss the "Final Solution," i.e. the extermination of the Jews of Europe. To this day Mr Mills clings to his White Sea fantasy.

[WalterS]

The categorical statement was that the White Sea plan was presented at Wannsee. It wasn't.

[AAA]

The killings in the Baltic States, which were proportionately much greater than those in the other occupied Soviet areas, up to early summer 1942, seem to have been prompted by the demonstrably anti-Jewish sentiments of the latvian and Lithuanian peoples, and done perhaps as a favour to them.

My emphasis. Mr. Mills stated this in the Proof of Einsatzgruppen thread. In regards to Latvia at any rate this one ("demonstrably anti-Jewish sentiments")is not only unsupported but unsupportable, and "done perhaps as a favour to them" beggars credibility.

Notably Mr. Mills has quoted Andrievs Ezergailis' “The Holocaust in Latvia” at great length just a few posts later. However, in that same voluminous work, Ezergailis goes to some lengths to examine the initial development of the holocaust in Latvia, including the motives of various Geman authorities, and quite directly contradicts the quoted assertion. From the preface :

A line of misinformation was begun by the Nazis themselves. This study shows that the troops of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, the Einsatzgruppen, upon entering Latvia were ordered to induce the Latvians to kill Jews and then to photograph them doing it. The Einsatzgruppen were followed by Lohse's administrative structure, the civilian government of Ostland. Lohse behaved as if the Germans had not wanted to kill the Jews at all, but only to use their labor to enhance German war aims. The German attempt to obfuscate the issue of responsibility is abundantly clear from Stahlecker's Consolidated Report of 15 October 1941 and even more so from his letter of 6 August 1941 (see Appendix 1) that for decades was hidden in the Latvian State Historical Archives (LVVA). That letter shows that Stahlecker was acting in accordance with fundamental orders and thus confirms the Nirnberg judgment that it was the Nazis who started and finished the final solution.

[WalterS]

OK, Erik. One more time. Here is the "categorical" or declarative statement:

That was the plan he[Heydrich] outlined at the Wannsee Conference. [The plan to relocate Jews to the White Sea]

No such plan was recorded in the Wannsee notes.

[David Thompson]

Dan said:

Hyperbole has been an accepted form of argument forever.

That's why we're discussing it. The point is to distinguish it from a factual representation.

That allows us to discuss this question: Is there a point at which exaggeration becomes misrepresentation or falsification, which is not an accepted form of argument? The distinction is expressed in Michael Mills' statement:

If anyone thinks that any statements of mine are "exaggerations" rather than "facts", then they are welcome to list them (preferably quoting my statemnt in context), and I ma always ready to defend them.

For the reader:

hyperbole -- Rhet. 1. obvious and intentional exaggeration. 2. An extravagant statement, or figure of speech not meant to be taken literally, as "to wait an eternity." [from the Gk hyperbole excess, exaggeration, throwing beyond, equiv. to hyper + bole, to throw]

[walterkaschner]

I usually have a tough time percolating Erik's posts through my hardening grey cells with the hope of grasping his point, but would suggest that his sermon in this thread might possibly be based principally on the text of St. John viii, 7:

"He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her."

Am I close to the mark Erik?

As to the topic at hand Exaggeration as a Form of Argument it would seem to me that the legitimacy of an exaggeration as an argument depends upon its nature and purpose.

Thus if the initial premise of a syllogistic argument is an exaggeration of fact knowingly or recklessly designed to compel an otherwise unwarranted conclusion, then it seems tolerably clear that the exaggeration is impermissable. For example: "All Germans are Nazis, Hans is a German, ergo Hans is a Nazi."

Or, if the exaggeration of fact is designed to heighten the opprobrium associated with the occurence, it is IMO not only impermissible but insulting. Example: " The Nazis gassed 11 million Jews"-when the actual number, whatever it may be, is surely far less than one-half that. Example: "The Allied bombing raid on Dresden killed as many as 350,000 people"- when the actual number was about one-tenth of that. Insulting because it assumes that the real numbers would not be sufficient to arouse the reader's emotion to the same degree of horror and dislike for the perpetrator.

Or, if the exaggeration of fact is designed to lay the basis for an otherwise logical fallacy, I believe it is an illegitimate argument. Example: "Dresden was a totally defenseless city with no military value whatsoever when it was laid waste by the Allied bombing attack. Allied fighter planes strafed innocent civilians." All untrue, and all designed to support a tu quoque argument that the Allies were just as bad as the Germans, and therefor the Germans were not morally culpable.

But then, of course, there are the kind if exaggerations which are not designed to mislead but rather to excite the imagination, to capture attention, to fix the reader's interest, to focus thought - e.g. hyperbole, metaphore, simile - all of which exaggerate, but, as Dan pointed out in his own use of hyperbole "have been an accepted form of argument forever".They may be designed to further a point of view, but are clearly recognizable to an intelligent reader as exaggeration.

And finally, there are the types of exaggerations that I myself am fond of using, and that are therefore ipso facto obviously perfectly legitimate, as well as enlightening, amusing and convincing!

Regards, Kaschner

[David Thompson]

Very nicely put, Walter.