How many documents were fabricated?

[Archie]

Especially if for most revisionists the disagreement is essentially numerical.

I call a bluff on this. Do you think the after capturing Kiev the Nazis instructed the Jewish population of the city to assemble for resettlement (of which most did), then killed them?

"It is ordered that the Jews are to be "resettled". This is done in such a way that the Jews are ordered to gather in the following night with their best clothes and jewlry at collection places. No difference is made between classes, sex and age. They are then brought to a previously selected site outside the town. On the pretext that certain formalities are still to be fulfilled, they have to put aside their jewlry and clothes. They are taken off side the street and liquidated. The resulting situations are so shocking that they can not be described. The consequences for the German commandos are inevitable. In general, the execution can only be carried out under numbness with alcohol. A SD officer ordered to watch had to endure a nightmare of the most dreadful kind the following night according to his description."

The big picture on the shootings is that you claim ~2,000,000 Jews were shot in the east. I reject this for reasons already explained. Given the paper evidence, I see two main ways to reconcile this from a revisionist perspective.

1) Some of the documents may be forged or be of dubious provenance.
2) Some may be from an irrelevant source or be based on rumors or things of that nature.
2) Some may be circumstantial/inexplicit/ambiguous
2) The documents could be genuine but the numbers, for whatever reasons, could wildly inflated. Even Holocaust historians admit that to an extent. Inflated body counts are actually extremely common in war. This is a point you have continually dodged for years every time we have discussed this. I see this as the most obvious way to reconcile the paper evidence with the lack of mass graves.

But let's say, hypothetically, that you were able to show truly overwhelming evidence for your 2,000,000 number. What then? Most revisionists would presumably concede those killings. However even that extreme scenario would not automatically resolve the questions over the gas chambers and death camps and that is frankly what most people are interested in. Those areas could still be contested. That's why I see your Einsatzgruppen focus as somewhat irrelevant. To be clear, it's fine to discuss it but it's weird for you to continue avoiding all other areas. Given the current state of evidence we don't have to concede your 2,000,000 shootings.

Re: #14 specifically, I mentioned it in my comment to you five years ago.

I would sort them in three categories. Documents 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 12, 17, 18 are rather vague and I don't see them as very strong for your case. Documents 4, 7, 10, 11, 15, 16 are incriminating but they are USSR exhibits which to me makes them somewhat questionable. Then 8, 9, 13, 14, 19, 20 are other incriminating documents, although 14 doesn't give any numbers. The last one appears to have been an NMT document (NO-2657). Some of the facsimiles don't look very impressive (just regular typed pages). If they are authentic, we also have the question of numerical accuracy (see my earlier post).

I agreed that it was incriminating even though no number was mentioned. I'll add that the document is transcribed from a secondary source. There's no archival reference or provenance for it. Stolze was captured by the Red Army and the Soviets used his postwar statements at Nuremberg. And if I wanted to go all defense lawyer on you, I would ask if Stolze was a direct witness or is reporting secondhand. It's not strong enough for me to change my mind. Not even close.

[bombsaway]

I used 14 because there was no number given. You don't need numbers to realize the Nazis were committing atrocities, basically unheard of recent history. Even w the Khmer Rouge and most repressive USSR got it wasn't like this. Women and children weren't being specifically targeted.

Here I highlight one particular kind of atrocity, which was repeated in hundreds of locations across occupied USSR:

The nazis would gather up the already sequestered Jews in towns and cities, every Jew there pretty much, give them some excuse (resettlement usually), then take them to a secluded place and shoot them.

Do you think this was happening in a regular way?

I've answered far more questions than you on this forum, but make it concrete when you ask me. Sometimes it feels like you're asking yourself questions more than me. What specifically should I answer to? Use a question mark.

[Archie]

I used 14 because there was no number given. You don't need numbers to realize the Nazis were committing atrocities, basically unheard of recent history. Even w the Khmer Rouge and most repressive USSR got it wasn't like this. They weren't killing women and children like this.

Here I highlight one particular kind of atrocity, which was repeated in hundreds of locations across occupied USSR:

The nazis would gather up the already sequestered Jews in towns and cities, everyone pretty much, give them some excuse (resettlement usually), then take them to a secluded place and shoot them.

Part of your problem is that you don't seem to read much of the actual literature from either side (you've said yourself that you disregard secondary sources) but then you also don't do any proper reading of primary source materials. Normally historians would study related records in groups and in context. Your research in contrast appears to be mostly just reposting stuff from Holocaust Controversies (and AI) without any consideration for how slanted and cherry-picked it is.

You should try reading through the Einsatzgruppen reports in context (and the secondary literature as well) rather than just pulling snippets from HC. When I read through the OSRs I did not come away thinking they were indicative of an extermination policy.

OSR 10
"It is obvious that the cleansing activities have to extend first of all to the Bolsheviks and the Jews."

OSR 13
"Bielsk-Podlaski: ... Leaders of Jewish intelligentsia (in particular teachers, lawyers, Soviet officials) liquidated."

OSR 14
-mentions concentration camp for Jews in Kaunas
-mentions retaliations against Jews (for helping NKVD, with cooperation of Ukrainians)

OSR 19
"In Kaunas, up to now a total of 7,800 Jews have been liquidated, partly through pogroms and partly through shooting by Lithuanian Kommandos. All corpses have been removed. Further mass shootings are no longer possible. Therefore, I summoned a Jewish committee and explained that up to now we had no reason to interfere with the internal arrangements between the Lithuanians and the Jews."

"In Zborov, 600 Jews liquidated by Waffen-SS as a retaliation measure for Soviet atrocities."

OSR 20
On July 5, 1941, 15 Jews were executed as reprisal for the bestial murder of the Ukrainian nationalist leader ..."

OSR 21
Says 1050 Jews liquidated but also says Jewish committee was set up and a ghetto was formed
Some references to "special treatment" meaning killing in this context

OSR 24
Says Latvians softer on the JQ than the Lithuanians
"Until now EK1b has shot 1150 Jews in Daugavpils."
"400 Jews were killed during pogroms in Riga"
"Russians and Jews committed these murders in very cruel ways." (Bolshevist atrocities)
"40 men were liquidated on the basis of well-founded denunciations made by the inhabitants. Mainly Jews between 20 and 40 years of age were rounded up, artisans and specialists being set aside as far as possible. Apart from these executions in Lvov, reprisal measures were carried out at other places also: 132 Jews, for instance, were shot in Dobromil.
"Since 32 Ukrainians has been murdered in Yavorov, 15 Jews were liquidated in retaliation."
"On July 2 the corpses of 10 German Wehrmacht soldiers were found. In retaliation, 1160 Jews were shot by the Ukrainians with the help of one platoon of the police and one platoon of the infantry."

OSR 25
"During the past days and nights, considerable excesses were carried out repeatedly against Jews by Rumanian soldiers... Following the wish of the commander of the 170th Division, the Rumanian commanding general restricted himself in the last moment to the shooting of 15 male Jews."

OSR 26
"As the German troops marched in, most of the Jews fled to Russia and into the surrounding forests. Most of the cases of arson in the town are committed by Jews. As the German troops marched in, they found some 60 totally mutilated Latvians, whereupon 80 Jews were liquidated."

OSR 28
"So far a total of 240 executions have been carried out in Rovno: mostly Jewish Bolshevik agents and informers of the NKVD."
"In retaliation, the Ukrainians killed 130 Jews with sticks."
"The troops passing by who saw these horrors, in particular the bodies of the murdered German soldiers, killed approximately 600 Jews and burned down their houses."

OSR 30
"187 Soviet Russians and Jews turned over by the army, some civilian prisoners, were shot in Zhitomir."

OSR 31
"A solution of the Jewish question during the war seems impossible in this area because of the tremendous number of Jews. It could only be achieved through deportations."

OSR 32
"In Minsk the entire Jewish intelligentsia has been liquidated (teachers, professors, lawyers, etc., except medical personnel)."
Ghetto police set up to keep order in Jewish quarter.
"A Jewish health service, which is subordinated to the city health department, has been set up in order to prevent epidemics in the Jewish quarter."

OSR 33
"Immediate measures were taken for the solution of the Jewish question by installing Jewish councils, identifying all Jews over 10 years of age with special badges, setting up labor gangs of all Jews aged 15-55. The establishment of ghettos is already in progress and already partly accomplished."

OSR 36
"about 200 persons are being liquidated daily in Minsk. This concerns Bolshevik officials, criminals, Asiatics, etc."

OSR 37
"There were about 30,000 Jews living in Zhitomir, that is somewhat more than 30% of the entire population. The greatest part of them fled before the occupation of the German Army. According to conservative estimates, there are now about 5,000 Jews (9% of the entire population) in Zhitomir."
"...have to date shot approximately 400 Jews, Communists, and informants for the NKVD. Thus, Einsatzkommmando 4a has carried out 2531 executions."

Of this sampling of material (and note that even these selections are concentrated and therefore somewhat misleading), there is certainly discussion of killing in relatively insignificant numbers. And that is probably plenty enough for you and your confirmation bias. But if read more neutrally (and especially if read as a whole and in context) it is clear to me that these units were not established for the purpose of exterminating the Jews. They had a much broader mission and many details specifically contradict the idea of an official "extermination" policy. And indeed this is what the orthodox historians now say (that it "evolved" over time and that initially there was not a blanket extermination policy).

There are executions of Jews mentioned but also Bolsheviks and others considered to be troublesome. Many of the actions are described as reprisals. You can say the reprisals were too harsh or that this was just a pretext but if the official policy is extermination then why do you need a pretext? There's mention of large numbers of Jews leaving. Some mention a degree of cooperation with the Jews. For the official story to be true, they would have to have killed virtually all of the Jews in the occupied territories (over 100% if any significant number did in fact leave).

Do you think this was happening in a regular way?

The question is vague. Do I think there was some shooting of Jews, Communists, and terrorists? Sure. Do I think 2,000,000 Jews were shot? No, not even close.

I've answered far more questions than you on this forum, but make it concrete. Sometimes it feels like you're asking yourself questions more than me. What specifically should I answer to? Use a question mark.

I am very reasonable in engaging with the other side. In fact, I've explained your side's position better than you ever have. (How's your essay coming along btw? Oh, that's right you said you write one and spent months on it and failed). And needless to say you are unable to comprehend much less express revisionist arguments at all.
viewtopic.php?p=21373#p21373

Go back to the first page. You demanded that I go through a list of 20 documents (which you merely swiped from HC), most of them obscure, and attest to the authenticity of each one. That's not a simple request because obviously it would take a lot of time to do thorough background research on each of those documents. Despite that I gave you a fairly direct answer or as much of one as is reasonable to expect for a forum thread.

Meanwhile you in this very thread have refused to answer my questions. For example,
-How many non-Einsatzgruppen documents do you think would have to be forgeries (from a revisionist perspective)? [This is absolutely fundamental to this thread which you yourself started]
-Do you think it is likely that the kill counts in the Einsatzgruppen reports could be significantly inflated?

The first one is hard so I can cut you some slack on that one. But since that's the whole point of this thread you could at least say you're not sure or give some ballpark estimate. The second question is dead simple yet you have dodged it for five plus years even though it's trivial to answer and requires no research.

[bombsaway]

it's easy for me to do

-How many non-Einsatzgruppen documents do you think would have to be forgeries (from a revisionist perspective)? [This is absolutely fundamental to this thread which you yourself started]

If you believe they weren't systematically going from town to town, gathering up the Jews there, and killing them -- HUNDREDS

Revisionist like david Irving accepted the systematic nature of the killings in the east, that's not the sense I get from most of this forum

Do you think it is likely that the kill counts in the Einsatzgruppen reports could be significantly inflated?

NO

I'm not sure what ratio you're thinking of but not like 2x or anything like that. I think they may have been inflated to some degree, because EG leaders were pretty much told, kill as many Jews as you can. So yeah they wanted to look good. This helps you numerically but not qualitatively - which is what I'm asking you about and which you have been dodging.

to be clear - this (systematically going from town to town, gathering up the Jews there, and killing them) is not a numerical question. It's qualitative. I'll call your bluff and say you don't believe this happened.

maybe let me ask you a simple yes no question like you asked me, should be hard for you to weasel out of

was the "the general resettlement of the Jews" (in the Generalbezierk Wolhynien) a mass killing operation?

[HansHill]

...I think they may have been inflated to some degree...

So you in effect agree with Archie's position that he made clear on page 1 of this thread:

Einsatzgruppen
Just because a document is "authentic" does not mean it is accurate. This seems to be a point anti-revisionists cannot grasp.

And three pages later you are demonstrating that whilst you agree, you don't grasp it still, three pages later.