I have seen some instances (e.g. by Dr. Terry at the HC blog, years ago) where exterminationists will attempt to criticize or discredit revisionist interpretations of 'Holocaust' documentation in noting that revisionists, for certain documents, have pointed out two or more separate lines of critique, such as that the document:
- Lacks evidence of authenticity (e.g. lacking clear chain-of-custody)
- Shows signs of forgery or postwar modifications
- Doesn't actually say anything genocidal-incriminating
Some exterminationists have responded to imply a lack of confidence of the revisionist author who would simultaneously say "it doesn't say anything incriminating" but "it's a fake anyway".
There are two things happening, here:
- Reversal of burden-of-proof
- Exterminationists assuming the document's authenticity and genocidal implications, rather than proving them through critical assessment; then implying revisionists must refute that assumption
- Treating source-critical investigation as anomalous or improper
- The extent that modern historiography has adopted source-uncritical practices is an extent to which the field has become unsound; a shift perhaps largely derived from post-WW2 political pressure and influences
In other words, official historiography points and gawks at revisionists (schoolyard tactics) for
doing the historiographer's job for them -- that is, critically reviewing documentation before accepting it, and recognizing the broader context of
means and motives (a crucial variable for source criticism) amid wartime and post-war global tensions and superpowers.
