Eichmann and the Sassen Tapes

[bombsaway]

These reasons (from the Revisionist frame) make it all the more likely Eichmann wouldn't have started parroting the opposition's false narratives almost exactly in a private setting to Nazi sympathizers.

The Hoettl example confirms motives to "parrot the opposition's false narratives" existed among 'Nazis'. Eichmann is proven to have lied about Jewish gassing/extermination, specifically at least twice in his precapture testimony. His other motives have already been outlined here.

The matter of having one's family held captive is much more applicable to Germans in Germany post-war, when the entire government/establishment was under Soviet/Allied (and Jewish) control.

Hoettl:
"He had, shortly before that, made a -report to Himmler, as the latter wanted to know the exact number of Jews who had been killed. On the basis of his information he had obtained the following result:
Approximately four million Jews had been killed in the various extermination camps while an additional two million met death in other ways, the major part of which were shot by operational squads of the Security Police during the campaign against Russia."

This is not a proven lie, from my perspective.

"This wasn't the case in Argentina." Yeah. And you think he still lied.

[Wahrheitssucher]

The more I have pondered on this in recent months/years, the more I feel it is one of the more understated arguments for the revisionist position, across all postwar "Nazi" testimony. Imagine you're shooting and blowing up your enemy for 5+ years straight, killing all of his friends and brothers, or locking him in camps... and then, at the end of this war, this same enemy -- who you know with certainty has little or no moral opposition to raping/killing innocent people (especially your people) en masse -- now has your entire family under their administration, while you are locked away awaiting trial.

Who in the hell can be expected to prioritize giving truthful testimony in such circumstances, with even the slightest hint that their family may be put into jeopardy if they do not comply with the enemy's intended narrative?

Men might sacrifice their own lives when it comes to defending their nation and fellow countrymen... but they will seldom sacrifice their wives and children for the same.

Exactly!

These reasons (from the Revisionist frame) make it all the more likely Eichmann wouldn't have started parroting the opposition's false narratives almost exactly in a private setting to Nazi sympathizers.

Yes he would. I and others have explained why.
You can’t — or won’t — comprehend those explanations.

[Callafangers]

Hoettl:
"He had, shortly before that, made a -report to Himmler, as the latter wanted to know the exact number of Jews who had been killed. On the basis of his information he had obtained the following result:
Approximately four million Jews had been killed in the various extermination camps while an additional two million met death in other ways, the major part of which were shot by operational squads of the Security Police during the campaign against Russia."

This is not a proven lie, from my perspective.

You're conflating things, here. Hoettl lied for material benefits. The point is, this motive was clearly present among some 'Nazis' postwar. And separately (Eichmann's fake 'gassing' at Majdanek and his claiming different totals for extermination, ranging from a couple hundred thousand to millions), we know Eichmann has lied about Jewish extermination.

On Hoettl (from Stagneth):

Ironically, Höttl’s statement is still regarded as unreliable. Much of what he told American investigators after the German defeat in 1945 was not information he had heard himself: he “borrowed” it from other people’s reports and added the occasional exaggeration of his own.

[...]

Later, Höttl would unintentionally strengthen people’s doubts about his credibility. In his autobiography, he claimed to have been aware that this statement would make him a sought-after (and well-paid) witness to the Nazi period. In his final years he managed to start a television career based solely on this statement, then hinted several times that he had never really believed the scale of the Holocaust was so vast. This suggestion, like many things in his last book, proves how easy Höttl found it to spend a lifetime saying things he didn't believe. In one of his last interviews, he said: "As is so often the case, something I lied about came true."

"This wasn't the case in Argentina." Yeah. And you think he still lied.

Yes, and you seem to be not understanding how/why this firmly supports my position. Germans in Germany had their families under a genocidal administration that was mass raping/starving German citizens. This is largely why defendants like those at Nuremberg testified as they did.

This wasn't the case in Argentina, where Eichmann did not feel his family was so threatened. We can break down Eichmann's motives even more clearly, since more is known about his unique situation. He was acting on his own volition, at least while in Argentina. Things naturally became more complex once he was captured and taken to Israel.

[Archie]

You guys are speculating about POSSIBILITY here, but it would serve you to think in a probabilistic lens. A jury, faced with someone making repeated, private confessions to involvement in a crime is going to convict 1000/1000 times, absent any compelling reason given for why the defendant might be lying. You think that him wanting to troll Nazi sympathizers is a compelling reason to lie, I beg to differ but we can leave it at that I guess.

Yes, let's think probabilistically here. Say we have an alleged continent wide genocide involving the murder of millions of people. How likely is it that the key evidence for this would be statements given under highly bizarre circumstances for a Life Magazine article recorded more than a decade after the war?

[bombsaway]

You guys are speculating about POSSIBILITY here, but it would serve you to think in a probabilistic lens. A jury, faced with someone making repeated, private confessions to involvement in a crime is going to convict 1000/1000 times, absent any compelling reason given for why the defendant might be lying. You think that him wanting to troll Nazi sympathizers is a compelling reason to lie, I beg to differ but we can leave it at that I guess.

Yes, let's think probabilistically here. Say we have an alleged continent wide genocide involving the murder of millions of people. How likely is it that the key evidence for this would be statements given under highly bizarre circumstances for a Life Magazine article recorded more than a decade after the war?

Your claim that this is "key" evidence is something I reject. There are probably thousands of items of compelling evidence that normal juries would find convincing. For me, the Eichmann-Sassen situation primarily serves to demonstrate the lengths to which your side will go to explain away inconvenient facts, resulting in what I perceive as absurd interpretations. While Eichmann's statements alone wouldn't prove the Holocaust, their troubling nature and lack of a simple counter-explanation should be acknowledged as strong evidence. Instead, there seems to be an effort to create convoluted reasons why Eichmann might have reasonably said such things.

Applying a probabilistic approach, I would pose this question: How probable is it that all definitive (saying what happened) post-war statements from high-ranking Nazis, given without apparent coercion (e.g., Eichmann, Pfannensteil), would uniformly support the orthodox view of events? I am not aware of any Nazi officials offering revisionist accounts post-war, though some may have professed ignorance, which doesn't equate to a denial or confirmation.

[Archie]

You guys are speculating about POSSIBILITY here, but it would serve you to think in a probabilistic lens. A jury, faced with someone making repeated, private confessions to involvement in a crime is going to convict 1000/1000 times, absent any compelling reason given for why the defendant might be lying. You think that him wanting to troll Nazi sympathizers is a compelling reason to lie, I beg to differ but we can leave it at that I guess.

Yes, let's think probabilistically here. Say we have an alleged continent wide genocide involving the murder of millions of people. How likely is it that the key evidence for this would be statements given under highly bizarre circumstances for a Life Magazine article recorded more than a decade after the war?

Your claim that this is "key" evidence is something I reject. There are probably thousands of items of compelling evidence that normal juries would find convincing. For me, the Eichmann-Sassen situation primarily serves to demonstrate the lengths to which your side will go to explain away inconvenient facts, resulting in what I perceive as absurd interpretations. While these statements alone wouldn't prove the Holocaust, their troubling nature and lack of a simple counter-explanation should be acknowledged as strong evidence. Instead, there seems to be an effort to create convoluted reasons why Eichmann might have reasonably said such things.

Applying a probabilistic approach, I would pose this question: How probable is it that all definitive (saying what happened) post-war statements from high-ranking Nazis, given without apparent coercion (e.g., Eichmann, Pfannensteil), would uniformly support the orthodox view of events? I am not aware of any Nazi officials offering revisionist accounts post-war, though some may have professed ignorance, which doesn't equate to a denial or confirmation.

You take Hoess and Gerstein and all the others ones at face value, so of course from your point of view there is no need for any additional convincing (as if you ever needed any!). But given the many problems with those testimonies and the war crimes trials in general, you do in fact "need" Eichmann because the most common revisionist critiques about the war crimes trials would not apply to the Sassen Life mag interviews (assuming...). In my experience, online Holocaust apologists like yourself are too embarrassed to bring up any of the traditionally cited witnesses and tend to play up Eichmann. So by implication, he is one of your star witnesses, at least in the context of the revisionist debate.

Anyway, your premise is incorrect. For example, see Himmler here who stated that the Birkenau crematoria were for built for hygienic purposes. You can say that he is lying, except the documents and the timeline of construction strongly support him. In contrast to the Holocaust timeline which is a mess of impossibilities and contradictions.
https://www.codohforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=315

I count Goering as well. Read his IMT statements and his statements to G.M. Gilbert. I would argue that his statements (and Goering was not the only one like this) amount to a denial since it would not have been possible for such a person to have been ignorant.

[bombsaway]

Yes, let's think probabilistically here. Say we have an alleged continent wide genocide involving the murder of millions of people. How likely is it that the key evidence for this would be statements given under highly bizarre circumstances for a Life Magazine article recorded more than a decade after the war?

Your claim that this is "key" evidence is something I reject. There are probably thousands of items of compelling evidence that normal juries would find convincing. For me, the Eichmann-Sassen situation primarily serves to demonstrate the lengths to which your side will go to explain away inconvenient facts, resulting in what I perceive as absurd interpretations. While these statements alone wouldn't prove the Holocaust, their troubling nature and lack of a simple counter-explanation should be acknowledged as strong evidence. Instead, there seems to be an effort to create convoluted reasons why Eichmann might have reasonably said such things.

Applying a probabilistic approach, I would pose this question: How probable is it that all definitive (saying what happened) post-war statements from high-ranking Nazis, given without apparent coercion (e.g., Eichmann, Pfannensteil), would uniformly support the orthodox view of events? I am not aware of any Nazi officials offering revisionist accounts post-war, though some may have professed ignorance, which doesn't equate to a denial or confirmation.

You take Hoess and Gerstein and all the others ones at face value, so of course from your point of view there is no need for any additional convincing (as if you ever needed any!). But given the many problems with those testimonies and the war crimes trials in general, you do in fact "need" Eichmann because the most common revisionist critiques about the war crimes trials would not apply to the Sassen Life mag interviews (assuming...). In my experience, online Holocaust apologists like yourself are too embarrassed to bring up any of the traditionally cited witnesses and tend to play up Eichmann. So by implication, he is one of your star witnesses, at least in the context of the revisionist debate.

Anyway, your premise is incorrect. For example, see Himmler here who stated that the Birkenau crematoria were for built for hygienic purposes. You can say that he is lying, except the documents and the timeline of construction strongly support him. In contrast to the Holocaust timeline which is a mess of impossibilities and contradictions.
https://www.codohforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=315

I count Goering as well. Read his IMT statements and his statements to G.M. Gilbert. I would argue that his statements (and Goering was not the only one like this) amount to a denial since it would not have been possible for such a person to have been ignorant.

I don't ignore Hoess and Gerstein.

I don't "need" Eichmann either, if the Sassen materials didn't exist it wouldn't change anything.

Goerring's statement of ignorance does not amount to denial. It's reasonable for him to do this as a defense strategy, assuming he did know, which is almost certain.

Himmler's statement wasn't post-war, and proves as much anyway as the "official" denials of atrocities that Turks/Soviets/Israeli's and whoever else have given.

If Himmler denied in private to friendly company this would be much more meaningful, but there isn't anything like this for your side.

[Wetzelrad]

I was reading through Browning's book quoted in the OP. His framing on the Eichmann issue took me by surprise:

When I have suggested to my colleagues that we must take seriously Eichmann’s repeated testimony to the effect that he learned from Heydrich in the fall of 1941 of Hitler’s order for the physical destruction of the Jews, I have met with either embarrassed silence or open skepticism. How can I be so gullible? Don’t I know that Eichmann’s testimony is a useless conglomeration of faulty memories on the one hand and calculated lies for legal defense and self-justification on the other? From it we can learn nothing of value about what actually happened during the war, only about Eichmann’s state of mind after the war. These are documents that reveal how Eichmann wished to be remembered, not what he did.

I have no quarrel with those who insist that we must be very cautious and skeptical about using the Eichmann testimony, but I do not believe that such a potentially valuable source can be dismissed summarily without first examining it closely.

Collected Memories: Holocaust History and Postwar Testimony (2003) by Christopher R. Browning, pp.4-5

Browning was apparently in dissent of his historian colleagues who thought Eichmann's body of work was "useless". It's easy to understand why they felt that way. The circumstances of Eichmann's escape, his kidnapping, his show trial, and his various denials, errors, and contradictions provide plenty for Holocaust affirming historians to be embarassed about. Browning defies that consensus in trying to relegitimize Eichmann.

He closes the chapter by saying Eichmann's story "has been dismissed" but "has not been disproven". It is "possible" and even "quite probable". These are not the words of confidence that we usually hear around the Holocaust narrative. They rather sound like the words of someone desperately trying to rescue an idea that others had already given up on.

[Nessie]

Eichmann did not use the trial defence of no crime was committed and that the accusation of mass murder was false.

Lmao, once again exposing your stupendous ignorance and naivete. You think Eichmann was just going to casually announce in an Israeli court that the Holocaust is fake and they would have allowed him to do this? The same people who violently kidnapped him from Argentina?

Also, Nessie, Eichmann didn't personally work in the Kremas so according to you he is worthless as a witness (see our recent discussion about Himmler's denial of the Holocaust).

Eichmann was in a position to claim that Jews were transported and resettled in the east, since that was his job, according to you. I am not so naive as to believe that he, nor any other Nazis, did not have the guts to speak out when accused of mass murder, deny the crime and say what really happened. Your claim, that you tried to deny, that 100% of eyewitnesses lied, and the lack of exculpatory evidence from senior Nazis, such as Eichmann, is only credible to deep-rooted conspiracists.

Eichmann was one of a large number of Nazis, in South America, who could have spoken out when their fellow Nazis were being put on trial. They could have provided exculpatory evidence, proving no crime, but according to revisionists, they were all cowards who kept quiet.

[Nessie]

...
Excellent points!
As mentioned previously, a very powerful tool of coercion concerns threats to a victim’s family, viz threats against the life of his wife and children.

Even as someone completely innocent of any involvement in the treatment of jews in wartime Europe, I myself curtailed for a considerable period my activity arguing against the obviously false aspects of the narrative. And the reason was to protect my children from embarrassment, awkward situations and possible career damage.

We all know what happened to courageous German soldiers who had been at Auschwitz like Thies Christophersen and Wilhelm Stäglich.
We also know the persecution and career destruction of uninvolved, noble, Germanic people like Walter Lüfftl, Ernst Zündel, Júrgen Graf and Ursula Haverbeck.
If that can happen to people completely uninvolved in any way with the alleged crimes, then I suggest decent, fair-minded, honest people should be able to acknowledge that the likelihood of threats being made to Adolf Eichmann regarding the safety of his family in order to get him to make certain statements is EXTREMELY LIKELY!

Your claim that all Germans have been too scared to speak out, when listing some who have not been so scared, despite the potential consequences and have spoken out, is not convincing. It also does not explain those who admitted mass murders took place, despite the consequences for that!

I do not believe that all Germans are such cowards, that none would come forward to blow a hoax, by revealing exculpatory evidence about the mass resettlement of millions of Jews, so they were still alive in 1944 and liberated in 1945. Or, what was the real purpose of the AR camps, Chelmno, or A-B Kremas.

[Nessie]

As mentioned previously, a very powerful tool of coercion concerns threats to a victim’s family, viz threats against the life of his wife and children.

The more I have pondered on this in recent months/years, the more I feel it is one of the more understated arguments for the revisionist position, across all postwar "Nazi" testimony. Imagine you're shooting and blowing up your enemy for 5+ years straight, killing all of his friends and brothers, or locking him in camps... and then, at the end of this war, this same enemy -- who you know with certainty has little or no moral opposition to raping/killing innocent people (especially your people) en masse -- now has your entire family under their administration, while you are locked away awaiting trial.

Who in the hell can be expected to prioritize giving truthful testimony in such circumstances, with even the slightest hint that their family may be put into jeopardy if they do not comply with the enemy's intended narrative?

Men might sacrifice their own lives when it comes to defending their nation and fellow countrymen... but they will seldom sacrifice their wives and children for the same.

If I was faced with consequences for both admitting to and not admitting to a crime I did not commit, as so-called revisionists suggest was happening to the Nazis, I would not admit to the crime I did not commit.

You have zero evidence that the Nazis who went on trial, in West and then unified Germany, had reason to fear for the lives of their families. Start with Oskar Groening. How many of his immediate family were still alive and prove they faced serious consequences, if Groening had denied the Kremas were used for gassings and instead, he revealed their actual purpose.