Is it possible for our minds to be changed?

[TlsMS93]

“Denying” would be knowing that something happened and still denying that it happened. Where does that fit in our case? In our case, we are still waiting for extraordinary evidence to support these extraordinary claims, or will we claim that the Holocaust narrative is perfectly understandable and coherent by analyzing several layers of studies such as chemistry, physics, thermodynamics, human logistics, infrastructure, natural resources involved, witnesses bringing up anecdotal claims for a serious matter, etc.

[ConfusedJew]

Germans (and many other non-Jewish Europeans) had suffered terribly for decades under initiatives and policies, both within Germany and from outside, which Jews were responsible for and which cost many German lives and captured a great deal of wealth from hard-working German citizens.

The idea that Jews “controlled” wealth disproportionately was a core claim of Nazi propaganda. In reality, while some Jewish individuals were prominent in banking or the press (like other Germans), the vast majority were ordinary small business owners, professionals, or poor urban workers.

Reliable historical economic studies generally place the total Jewish share of Germany’s private wealth in the 1–2% range, with a few estimates up to ~3%. For comparison, that’s roughly in line with their population share, slightly above average due to higher urban education and professional concentration — but far from any idea of “dominance.”

Jewish Germans did not control major heavy industry (coal, steel, chemicals) or large agricultural estates — which made up much of German economic capacity. Some families did own medium-size banks, department stores, or newspapers — which Nazi propaganda inflated to fuel antisemitic myths.

In 1931–32, a German government study (the “Klein Report”) found that Jewish Germans owned about 1%–2% of total real estate and industrial assets.

By the late 1930s, many Jewish-owned businesses had been forcibly transferred or closed through “Aryanization” laws — for example, ~50,000 Jewish-owned businesses in 1933 dropped to a few thousand by 1938.
These expropriations were often for pennies on the mark: buyers were favored Nazi loyalists, not fair-market buyers.

Once the war approached, however, the need to further segregate Jews as well as to seek recompensation for the trillions' of Reichsmarks' worth of materials Jews had thus far acquired and hoarded through primarily subversive and dishonest means (given no one claims Jews' own manual labor built any significant portion of German infrastructure and industry -- starkly disproportionate to their wealth there -- and the facts of Jews overwhelmingly at the center of the most corrupt institutions and movements in Germany by that time, from the dishonest newspapers, to the banking schemes, Weimar-degenerate theater and art, subversive cultural schemes, Marxism, and much more).

There is no credible evidence that German Jews collectively possessed wealth remotely approaching “trillions of Reichsmarks.” The entire German GDP in 1938 was about 125 billion Reichsmarks (in nominal prewar figures). So the total wealth held by Jewish Germans was likely a fraction of that GDP — so in the low billions of Reichsmarks at most.

The reality is that Jewish Germans were a tiny minority with an educated, urban middle-class profile — well above average income compared to poor rural Germans, but nowhere near controlling the economy. Nazi propaganda deliberately exaggerated this to justify persecution and theft. The real goal was to rally the population behind the regime by targeting an unpopular minority and seizing their property to enrich Nazi insiders and fund the war effort. Trump is doing this right now to immigrants.

The entire Nazi confiscation campaign extracted roughly 8–10 billion Reichsmarks — significant for individuals, but tiny compared to total wartime military spending or Germany’s national wealth.

From 1933–1938, Nazis imposed forced sales, boycotts, and discriminatory taxes. By 1938, 50,000+ Jewish businesses had been seized, closed, or forcibly sold at fractions of value. Kristallnacht (Nov 1938) destroyed ~7,500 shops, 267 synagogues, and led to mass arrests and extortion payments.

[ConfusedJew]

“Denying” would be knowing that something happened and still denying that it happened. Where does that fit in our case? In our case, we are still waiting for extraordinary evidence to support these extraordinary claims, or will we claim that the Holocaust narrative is perfectly understandable and coherent by analyzing several layers of studies such as chemistry, physics, thermodynamics, human logistics, infrastructure, natural resources involved, witnesses bringing up anecdotal claims for a serious matter, etc.

Being a denier is not inherently a bad thing. I "deny" that the 2020 Presidential election was "stolen".

If you don't believe it happened, then you are a denier. That's fine with me. But the question is are you 100% sure or just 99% sure.

If you are absolutely convinced that something is true, then you will never change your mind because any contradictory information will be met with complete skepticism. In order to seek the truth, you need to be open to new information and arguments and adjust your position accordingly.

[ConfusedJew]

The term "Holocaust" is a propaganda tool, it is about marketing an idea and brand recognition. It's like "McDonald's" or "Kleenex". When it comes to the question of Jewish treatment by Germany during WW2, it is meaningless.

The term "Holocaust" has been used for emotional appeals. Whether you want to call that a propaganda tool is debatable.

We don't have to use that term if you don't want but then I need to specifically know what it is that you disagree with or deny from the orthodox interpretation of history so we can get to the finer points of that.

[Callafangers]

The idea that Jews “controlled” wealth disproportionately was a core claim of Nazi propaganda. In reality, while some Jewish individuals were prominent in banking or the press (like other Germans), the vast majority were ordinary small business owners, professionals, or poor urban workers.

Reliable historical economic studies generally place the total Jewish share of Germany’s private wealth in the 1–2% range, with a few estimates up to ~3%. For comparison, that’s roughly in line with their population share, slightly above average due to higher urban education and professional concentration — but far from any idea of “dominance.”

Ah, you're back on the GPT slop, then? Very nice. Please cite your source as to the "1-2% range", for starters. Secondly, it is well-known that Jews accumulate and distribute wealth via international networks, like the example of American Jews funding the Bolshevik takeover in Russia, both in 1905 then again in 1917.

Jews were indeed about just ~1% of the German population, and yet:

Studies demonstrate that the contribution of German Jews to their country
during 1918–1933 was vastly disproportionate to their numbers. The roughly
600,000 German Jews who identified themselves as adherents of Judaism com-
prised no more than 0.9 percent of the total population. (Since anti-Semites
identified Jews on the basis of ancestry, not religious faith, it must be noted that
Jews professing Christianity were not listed as Jews in Germany’s census re-
ports.) Yet Jews held more than 3.5 percent of all positions in banking, com-
merce, and the professions (largely excluded from the judiciary and the civil
service,* they comprised 11 percent of doctors, 16 percent of lawyers and no-
taries, and 13 percent of patent attorneys). They owned 40 percent of Germany’s
textile firms and almost 60 percent of the wholesale and retail clothing busi-
nesses, and their establishments transacted 79 percent of the country’s depart-
ment-store business. About 50 percent of Germany’s private banks were owned
by Jews, with such names as Bleichroder, Bonn,* Mendelssohn, and Warburg*
being notable. Jews held key positions in science and industry—IG Farben*
employed several Jewish scientists and included a Jew on its board of direc-
tors—and, through the Mosse* and Ullstein* concerns, controlled Germany’s
two largest publishing houses. Highly visible in journalism, music,* art, and
literature, they were central to the Republic’s intellectual life. The bulk of Ger-
many’s progressive activists [Marxists] were also Jewish.

Vincent, C. Paul (1997) A Historical Dictionary of Germany's Weimar Republic, p. 229

More from ConfusedJew:

Jewish Germans did not control major heavy industry (coal, steel, chemicals) or large agricultural estates — which made up much of German economic capacity. Some families did own medium-size banks, department stores, or newspapers — which Nazi propaganda inflated to fuel antisemitic myths.

Indeed, Jews controlled things like Marxist political movements, degenerate art and theater, debt-lending at high interest rates and inflationary tactics, and more. Overall, the presence of Jews in Germany (as with other nations) meant the decline and suffering of the German nation and people.

But please, don't let that stop you from providing more GPT output. You're on a roll, here, CJ!:

In 1931–32, a German government study (the “Klein Report”) found that Jewish Germans owned about 1%–2% of total real estate and industrial assets.

Hmm, ConfusedJew, can you tell us more about this report? Can you cite a source, perhaps? I'm having trouble finding it and am starting to think that your ChatGPT hallucinated the existence of this report.

Please provide a source for this "Klein Report" that you are pretending to have seen yourself.

If not, admit that you are engaging in the exact slimy behavior I've accused you of all along.

By the late 1930s, many Jewish-owned businesses had been forcibly transferred or closed through “Aryanization” laws — for example, ~50,000 Jewish-owned businesses in 1933 dropped to a few thousand by 1938.
These expropriations were often for pennies on the mark: buyers were favored Nazi loyalists, not fair-market buyers.

I don't dispute your last [AI] statement above. The issue is: Germany was suffering by international Jewish-led boycott by this time. For Jews to be expropriated at this time therefore makes perfect sense. It seems you are implying that it was "unfair" to treat German Jews in this way but we have already been over the fact that Jewish collective behavior necessitates a collective response, see here:

'Criticism of Jews as a Collective (Not Just as Individuals) is Ethical and Warranted'
https://www.codohforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=144

[fireofice]

Here's an article on Jewish representation:

https://ideasanddata.wordpress.com/2020 ... -politics/

For Germany in particular, skip to the chapter on Germany in this book by Richard Lynn:

https://archive.org/details/the-chosen-people-1

[ConfusedJew]

Ah, you're back on the GPT slop, then? Very nice. Please cite your source as to the "1-2% range", for starters. Secondly, it is well-known that Jews accumulate and distribute wealth via international networks, like the example of American Jews funding the Bolshevik takeover in Russia, both in 1905 then again in 1917.

Helmut Genschel, Die Verdrängung der Juden aus der Wirtschaft im Dritten Reich (1966, later editions) was a foundational German economic history text on “Aryanization”. He used 1930s German government surveys (notably the Klein Report, 1931–32) plus Reich finance ministry records. His history concluded that Jewish Germans owned 1–2% of the national wealth, slightly higher than their 0.75% share of the population due to urban professional over-representation.

It was corroborated by Avraham Barkai, From Boycott to Annihilation: The Economic Struggle of German Jews 1933–1943 (1989) — an economic study based on Nazi economic and finance ministry archives.

Both of these sources rely on Nazi-era state data because the Nazis themselves wanted to measure precisely how much could be seized and reallocated.

A few individual Jewish socialists and intellectuals were active in Russia’s revolutionary circles (e.g., Trotsky was Jewish by birth). Some leftist Jewish emigrants in New York and elsewhere did sympathize with the Russian Revolution. Some small donations were made by left-wing immigrant groups (Yiddish socialist newspapers, workers’ associations) to support exiled revolutionaries. But there is no evidence to show a large-scale coordinated funding by "American Jews" as a group. You are welcome to prove me wrong.


Jews were indeed about just ~1% of the German population, and yet:

Studies demonstrate that the contribution of German Jews to their country
during 1918–1933 was vastly disproportionate to their numbers. The roughly
600,000 German Jews who identified themselves as adherents of Judaism com-
prised no more than 0.9 percent of the total population. (Since anti-Semites
identified Jews on the basis of ancestry, not religious faith, it must be noted that
Jews professing Christianity were not listed as Jews in Germany’s census re-
ports.) Yet Jews held more than 3.5 percent of all positions in banking, com-
merce, and the professions (largely excluded from the judiciary and the civil
service,* they comprised 11 percent of doctors, 16 percent of lawyers and no-
taries, and 13 percent of patent attorneys). They owned 40 percent of Germany’s
textile firms and almost 60 percent of the wholesale and retail clothing busi-
nesses, and their establishments transacted 79 percent of the country’s depart-
ment-store business. About 50 percent of Germany’s private banks were owned
by Jews, with such names as Bleichroder, Bonn,* Mendelssohn, and Warburg*
being notable. Jews held key positions in science and industry—IG Farben*
employed several Jewish scientists and included a Jew on its board of direc-
tors—and, through the Mosse* and Ullstein* concerns, controlled Germany’s
two largest publishing houses. Highly visible in journalism, music,* art, and
literature, they were central to the Republic’s intellectual life. The bulk of Ger-
many’s progressive activists [Marxists] were also Jewish.

Vincent, C. Paul (1997) A Historical Dictionary of Germany's Weimar Republic, p. 229

The percentages you cite are accurate for specific professions and industries but these numbers reflect urban, middle-class, and liberal-profession clustering, not control of Germany’s entire wealth base.

Most German capital was in heavy industry, mining, and agriculture — these sectors were overwhelmingly non-Jewish. Ruhr coal and steel was controlled by the Krupp, Thyssen, Mannesmann families. Railways and military armaments were state-owned or controlled by old industrial dynasties. Large landed estates were controlled by old Prussian aristocracy. Jewish families had almost no share in these backbone sectors.

Many private merchant banks were Jewish-owned as you mentioned but the major banks dominating industrial finance — Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Bank, Commerzbank — were overwhelmingly non-Jewish and vastly larger. Deutsche Bank’s balance sheet dwarfed any single private merchant bank.

High Jewish presence in clothing shops and department stores reflected long-standing niches where Jews could operate despite restrictions in other fields. It was important for the urban consumer economy but small compared to the value of steel production, chemical plants, or shipping which were much larger economic drivers.

High cultural and professional presence translated to visibility, not national macroeconomic dominance. Nazi propaganda magnified Jewish presence in urban, visible industries and liberal professions to craft the image of a sinister “Jewish takeover.” Rural Germans who had never seen a Jewish doctor or lawyer easily believed these urban stats meant “Jews control Germany.”

While the quote you shared is historically true based on sector representation, the national wealth share figure (1–2%) is also true for total real assets, because Germany’s wealth base was mostly non-Jewish, rooted in heavy industry and big commercial banks.

More from ConfusedJew:
Indeed, Jews controlled things like Marxist political movements, degenerate art and theater, debt-lending at high interest rates and inflationary tactics, and more. Overall, the presence of Jews in Germany (as with other nations) meant the decline and suffering of the German nation and people.

Some prominent early Marxist and communist figures were indeed of Jewish heritage like Rosa Luxemburg while Karl Liebknecht and Karl Marx and were partially Jewish. However, not all Marxists or leftists were Jewish; the vast majority of party members, militant workers, and trade unionists were ethnic German Christians.

Moderate left parties (like the SPD — Social Democratic Party) were not Marxist revolutionaries; they participated in parliamentary democracy and had many non-Jewish leaders. The rising support for socialism and communism wasn't a "Jewish plot" but rather driven by industrial working-class conditions, supported mainly by non-Jews.

The 1923 hyperinflation was caused by WWI costs, reparations, and the collapse of trust in the Mark — not by Jews. The Reichsbank (German central bank) and government policies drove currency devaluation.

But please, don't let that stop you from providing more GPT output. You're on a roll, here, CJ!:

In 1931–32, a German government study (the “Klein Report”) found that Jewish Germans owned about 1%–2% of total real estate and industrial assets.

Hmm, ConfusedJew, can you tell us more about this report? Can you cite a source, perhaps? I'm having trouble finding it and am starting to think that your ChatGPT hallucinated the existence of this report.

Please provide a source for this "Klein Report" that you are pretending to have seen yourself.

If not, admit that you are engaging in the exact slimy behavior I've accused you of all along.

I'm not pretending to see the Klein Report, I'm just referencing it as a source from other sources. But the “Klein Report” (Klein-Bericht in German) was named after Dr. Julius Klein, who was an official at the Reich Statistical Office. It was compiled around 1931–1932 by the Reich Ministry of Economics and the Reich Statistical Office. It was not a public report — it was an internal survey prepared for the Weimar government’s economic policy makers. Later, the Nazis used it (and updated versions) as a basis for their “Aryanization” plans.

Parts of it are quoted or summarized in the two books that I mentioned. It's also held in the Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archives). Some files were microfilmed and can be requested from German state archives. Some specialized university libraries in Germany and Israel also hold microfilm copies. The Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archives) holds the original microfilm copies and are available for on-site viewing or ordering digital scans through requested archival services.

I don't dispute your last [AI] statement above. The issue is: Germany was suffering by international Jewish-led boycott by this time. For Jews to be expropriated at this time therefore makes perfect sense. It seems you are implying that it was "unfair" to treat German Jews in this way but we have already been over the fact that Jewish collective behavior necessitates a collective response, see here:

'Criticism of Jews as a Collective (Not Just as Individuals) is Ethical and Warranted'
https://www.codohforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=144

The anti-Nazi boycott you refer to was organized after Hitler came to power in 1933, not before. In March 1933, international Jewish organizations (mainly in Britain and the US) called for a boycott of German goods in response to Nazi attacks on Jewish citizens and businesses immediately after Hitler took office. The Nazi government then used this boycott as propaganda to claim a “global Jewish conspiracy” was strangling Germany — a useful tool to justify further repression. The boycott was a reaction to Nazi persecution — not a cause of it. The Nazi goal was not an economic tit-for-tat but a systematic removal of Jews from all aspects of German life.

You asset that Jewish collective behavior necessitated a collective response. Even if there was an issue with "Jewish collective behavior", which I dispute, you are advocating for collective punishment which is immoral in my opinion and now illegal under international law. I don't believe in collective punishment but should you be punished because other people in your family, religion, ethnic group, race have done bad things? Do you really want to live in a world where you can be punished for other people's wrongdoings?

[Nessie]

....

2. How many Jews do you think the Nazis killed?

2. Perhaps a couple hundred thousand given the scale of partisan warfare but its difficult to say with any precision due to the many sources deliberately falsifying information.

In that case, there should have been c6-7million Jews alive in the camps and ghettos in 1944-5. There is no evidence of that, instead the evidence is that there were only a few hundred thousand liberated in 1945.

How can you seriously believe there were no mass murders, when you cannot evidence millions of Jews still alive in 1945?

[Nessie]

“Denying” would be knowing that something happened and still denying that it happened. Where does that fit in our case? In our case, we are still waiting for extraordinary evidence to support these extraordinary claims, or will we claim that the Holocaust narrative is perfectly understandable and coherent by analyzing several layers of studies such as chemistry, physics, thermodynamics, human logistics, infrastructure, natural resources involved, witnesses bringing up anecdotal claims for a serious matter, etc.

You have been given a mountain of evidence to support the Holocaust, but you deny that. You deny there were mass murders of millions. You then fail to revise the history and evidence what did happen. That makes you a historical denier, rather than a historical revisionist.

[Callafangers]

In that case, there should have been c6-7million Jews alive in the camps and ghettos in 1944-5. There is no evidence of that, instead the evidence is that there were only a few hundred thousand liberated in 1945.

How can you seriously believe there were no mass murders, when you cannot evidence millions of Jews still alive in 1945?

This is at the core of the debate all of us beat on about daily from both sides. You can't show they are underground, you can't show they were burned, you can't prove the policy existed. I can't prove where they went specifically but the circumstantial evidence that is left between us supports my position, not yours. Moreover, there are myriad other potential causes of death during WW2 than 'extermination'. Some could not survive transit, others perish by disease, others by lack of food/medicine especially late in war, others by exposure. All of this was happening during the war and was able to continue post-war into Soviet captivity. What happened thereafter lacks specific evidence which is what we should expect from global powers working together to shape a crucial narrative for their preconceived world order.

[bombsaway]

This is at the core of the debate all of us beat on about daily from both sides. You can't show they are underground, you can't show they were burned, you can't prove the policy existed. I can't prove where they went specifically but the circumstantial evidence that is left between us supports my position, not yours.

You're disallowing witness and documentary evidence, arbitrarily. Even if assign 1/1000th probative value to this direct evidence, that's still more than you have. You have to rely on circumstantial evidence to assert the mass event you believe in. Even so, the grave reports I've looked at indicate mass cremains, and the circumstantial evidence for the Holocaust is immense. This, eg, is circumstantial evidence :

The fact that Jews receive special treatment requires no further discussion. However, it appears hardly believable that in this context things happen such as are mentioned in the Generalkommissar's report of 1 June 1943. What is Katyn against that? Imagine only that these occurrences would become known to the other side and be exploited by them! Most likely such propaganda would have no effect only because people who hear and read about it simply would not be ready to believe it.

[Nessie]

In that case, there should have been c6-7million Jews alive in the camps and ghettos in 1944-5. There is no evidence of that, instead the evidence is that there were only a few hundred thousand liberated in 1945.

How can you seriously believe there were no mass murders, when you cannot evidence millions of Jews still alive in 1945?

This is at the core of the debate all of us beat on about daily from both sides. You can't show they are underground, you can't show they were burned, you can't prove the policy existed.

There is a ton of evidence of mass shootings and gassings.

I can't prove where they went specifically but the circumstantial evidence that is left between us supports my position, not yours.

The circumstantial evidence is in my favour. There is evidence to prove motive and opportunity to kill Jews, as part of a wider policy to remove them from occupied Europe, which aligns with the closure of all the ghettos by 1944 and the falling camp population, such that by 1945, only a few hundred thousand Jews were liberated, out of the c7 million that had been arrested.

Moreover, there are myriad other potential causes of death during WW2 than 'extermination'. Some could not survive transit, others perish by disease, others by lack of food/medicine especially late in war, others by exposure.

The Nazis and their allies, along with occupied countries, arrested c7 million Jews 1939-44. Do you not think millions dying in camps and during transports is not a genocide?

All of this was happening during the war and was able to continue post-war into Soviet captivity.

What Soviet captivity? The Soviets hardly liberated any Jews, as the Nazis marched as many west as possible.

What happened thereafter lacks specific evidence which is what we should expect from global powers working together to shape a crucial narrative for their preconceived world order.

That is a barefaced lie. All the aligned and occupied countries, who were split by the Cold War into highly competitive factions, were never going to cooperate in a hoax that had every country carrying responsibility for the deaths of their Jewish citizens, from the very cooperative Dutch to the Romanians who shot their own Jewish citizens. You imagine a global alliance that did not exist.

[Wahrheitssucher]

[deleted]

[Nessie]

The only way a so-called revisionist can change my mind, is for them to actually revise the history of the Jews under Nazi occupation, 1939 to 1945, producing an evidenced chronology that proves what happened inside the AR camps, Chelmno and A-B Kremas, millions of Jews in camps and ghettos in 1945, and liberated in 1945. That would prove there was no Holocaust that included mass murder.

It is not clear what would change so-called revisionists minds, since they are pretty impervious to evidence.

[Nessie]

Yes, it is possible to have our views and understanding corrected and amended.

Yes, it is possible for ‘minds to be changed’.

All it requires is an attitude of intellectual honesty.

We can ALL have our ‘minds changed’, but ONLY if we are interested in truth and accuracy ABOVE personal aggrandisement.

That will require not minding being wrong.
And not being overly concerned to be shown to be wrong in the opinion of others.
That is perhaps the biggest obstacle for the majority of humanity, whatever the topic.

Egocentricity prevents people from admitting error.

That is because a vain person sets more store in ‘appearing’ right, in being seen to be ‘winning’ an argument, than in collectively building factual accuracy.
To such people being ‘right’ in their own mind — and the minds of others — is MORE IMPORTANT than ascertaining truth.

I agree with the above, though it makes one glaring omission. Evidence. The "winner" should be the side with the best evidence. That is clearly the historians, who have reached a consensus, because of the volume of corroborating evidence from documents, witnesses, forensics, physical items and circumstances, proving mass gassings and cremations.

So-called revisionists cannot even reach a consensus, since their various claims are, individually, so poorly evidenced. For example, the claim the Kremas were in fact used as bomb shelters, 1943-4. If that claim was well evidenced, with witnesses, documents etc, then revisionists would favour it as the revised history of the Kremas. But, it is poorly evidenced, so other so-called revisionists claim the Kremas were delousing chambers, with others claiming that was impossible and others claiming they were in fact used as mass showers, or corpse stores.