Quote:
I will refrain from posting the sharp reply I had just prepared to yet another hint at my supposed need to "expunge" a "past flirtation with National Socialism" and further nonsense that, very frankly, I consider to be far below the intellectual level of Michael Mills.
The sole reason why I harp on the few details of his past that Mr Muehlenkamp has revealed to us is that I am puzzled by the aggressiveness with which he flings the accusation of anti-Semitism at some contributors to the forum who question certain aspects of the establishment history, even if only marginally, in particular those who question the concept of all Jews as purely passive victims and posit an active role by some Jews, eg various leaders or activists, in creating the chain of events that culminated in the destruction of a large part of European Jewry.
(I do acknowledge that Mr Muehlenkamp has retracted some of his overhasty judgements).
I find Mr Muehlenkamp's aggressiveness puzzling, in that he himself has accepted certain analyses, such as those put forward by the historian Christian Gerlach, which deviate to some extent from the establishment history (which essentially sees the mass-killing of Jews as an irrational act driven solely by a murderous, insane ideology), and which posit a certain brutal and inhumane rationality to the killing of millions, not only Jews.
I see that Michael Mills still can’t help being himself and is unable to kick the habit of grossly misrepresenting his opponent’s statements. Mr. Mills is obviously intelligent enough to recognize that the issue is not questioning certain aspects of the “establishment history” (a term that tells me nothing and obviously describes something which exists only in the minds of those who would like to see themselves as “dissident historians”), but the lack of substantiation of such questioning and an obsessive and telling preoccupation with Jews and “Zionism” that pervades the questioners’ stance. He is also well aware that, even though I had observed such tendencies in him for a long time, my conclusion on his anti-Semitism only came in the sequence of the persistent and rather absurd accusations of “judeocentrism” he leveled against me. The intellectual dishonesty thus becoming apparent from his above statements again confirms my view of him as someone pursuing not historical truth and honest debate, but an ideological agenda.
I also think that Gerlach's general approach to the motivations for German exterminatory policies in the Occupied Eastern Territories is essentially correct. However, I believe that Gerlach has exaggerated the significance of whatever it was Hitler said to his assembled Gauleiters in early December 1941, an assessment that has also been made by a number of historians.
Largely moved by envy that a relative newcomer had found the missing link they had so long been looking for in vain, no doubt. As to what Michael Mills thinks, it is nothing other than his own opinion as long as he can’t demonstrate the substance of his thesis – something I don't consider him to have accomplished in the course of our various discussions on the issue, last on the thread
Holocaust Documents
http://thirdreichforum.com/phpBB2/viewt ... 32268f9a50
of this forum.
With regard to Sanning's book, I actually thought that his chapter on Poland was one of the better ones, and one containing few outright distortions. I was actually puzzled why Professor Zimmerman spent so much effort criticising it, when the real distortions lie elsewhere in the book.
Sanning's figure for the number of Jews in Poland in 1939, 2.7 million, is only 600,000 less than the POlish Government's official estimate of 3.3 million. If Sanning is correct, it would mean that the total number of Polish Jews killed was some 600,000 less than has been estimated (since they were not there to kill), and the total death-roll would need to be adjusted downward by that number, ie from 6 million to 5.4 million.
There is no point in speculating what would have to be concluded from Sanning’s being correct, as he is obviously not. He gratefully grabbed Graml’s figures that most probably resulted from a misunderstanding of Graml’s sources and ignored all indications that these figures couldn’t possibly be correct, namely the official emigration statistics of Poland and the immigration statistics of various countries.
It should be noted that Hilberg, who most certainly accepts the 3.3 million estimate of the size of Polish Jewry in 1939, estimated the total Jewish death-roll at 5.1 million. If 0.6 million is deducted from that figure, it is reduced to 4.5 million, or very close to Reitlinger's higher estimate of 4.6 million.
Hilberg estimated up to 3,000,000 Jewish dead in Poland but only 700,000 in the USSR. Reitlinger’s figures, on the other hand, were 2,350,000 to 2,600,000 for Poland and 700,000 to 750,000 for the USSR. Reitlinger’s higher figure for Poland seems to be closer to the actual figure, which can be obtained by deducting the 73,955 Jewish survivors registered on the territory of Poland by the
Central Commission for the Investigation for German Crimes in Poland after the war from the 2,790,000 Polish Jews which, according to the Korherr Report, came under German rule in the various German-dominated areas that made up the former Polish Republic. In the chapter on Poland of
Dimensionen des Völkermords by Benz et al, Frank Golczewski also arrives at a death toll of ca. 2,700,000 for the Jews of Poland. Both Hilberg and Reitlinger were far below the mark, however, in what concerns the Jews of the Soviet Union, the death toll among which on the territory of the USSR as of September 1939 has been estimated at 1,000,000 to 1,500,000 by subsequent researchers. In the chapter on the Soviet Union of
Dimensionen des Völkermords, Gert Robel plausibly calculates a total of 2.8-2.9 million Jewish victims for the Soviet Union within the borders as of 22. June 1941 and ca. 2.1 million dead for the Soviet Union without the territories annexed in 1939/40.