What is History
History, as my recently deceased college professor used to teach, is change through time. You start with a description of the era under analysis, and then you show what factors led to the changes that transformed that era at the end of the survey period. All this necessarily involves gathering facts, and information to present your case for why the past unfolded the way you claim.
This requires the historian to make judgements about which facts are relevant ,which ones are tangential, and which items are not solid facts at all. This makes history very dependent upon the subdisciplines, like economics, sociology, archaeology, and even medical science. The theories that these subdisciplines generate are what moves the historian in one direction or another. The starting hypothesis of historical interpretation is driven by these subdisciplines.
As an example, think about determining the causes of the Great Depression in 1929. If you are of a Keynesian mindset, you will interpret this event in one way. If you are a Friedmanite monetarist coming up in the 1960s and 70s, you will interpret it quite differently. If you are an adherent of the Austrian school of economics, it will look quite different still.
These changes in the subdisciplines are the main reason why every generation typically rewrites history, at least of the major events. This is the genesis of what is known as historical revisionism. There will always be those historians that reinterpret or revise the history of an event(s) using a different theory driven by using a new or different subdiscipline. This new or changing subdiscipline may produce new facts, as medical science did in reinterpreting King George III as not insane but suffering from porphyria. This makes history an ever changing, and wonderfully diverse enterprise that marks us as unique among God’s creatures.
Briefly, let me mention “court historians”. These are not really historians at all but rather propagandists for the regime they work for. The best US example is Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. who was an academic historian who went to work for the Kennedy Administration. In this role he devolved into a worshipful supporter of all that Kennedy did and failed to offer any balanced perspective, all while providing a veneer of academia to his works covering this presidency. These court historians are usually easily identified by their often-physical proximity to the subject matter at hand, and certainly by the obvious unbalanced treatment they offer. They are not much of an intellectual threat in an open society with a diverse intellectual environment. Yet, beware, they may try to close off that marketplace of ideas for some perceived “greater good”.
Facts and Their Uses
Facts, then, are the building blocks of history. There is typically little dispute about facts, especially the “big” facts. There was a Great Depression in the 1930s, there was a First and Second World War, and there was a thing called the Reformation. There is greater dispute about lesser facts. Some will dispute their status as facts. Perhaps, they are forgeries, or legends. Anastasia, the supposed surviving daughter of Tsar Nicholas II comes to mind. Or the myth that Thomas Crapper invented the flush toilet. Part of the role of history is to uncover these non-facts. However, there will always be a tranche of honorable historians who will call into dispute various facts, such is the nature of the discipline of history.
Also, new facts come to light that then require a review and rewrite of the history. One great example is the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the opening of their archives. Also, the lapse of top-secret status after a long number of years (typically after the criminals involved are long dead) will provide the historian with new facts to work with.
As I stated before, the main disagreement about facts concerns which ones are relevant to the issue under discussion, which is heavily dependent upon the historian’s position on the subdisciplines that make up all history. It is these disagreements about, sometimes, which facts are really facts, as well as which facts are relevant that makes it necessary to revise history.
The Purpose of Historical Revision
The purpose then of historical revision is to reflect the changes in the subdisciplines as well as reflect the degradation of what was considered factual, and the uncovering of new facts. The gain for humanity is greater understanding of who we are as humans, and how we got here. This greater understanding has the potential to make us wiser and more judicious in choosing our path forward. Many people consider “revisionist historians” dicey by nature. True, they are often in the minority and may stay there forever. Or they may change the majority’s position and become the new “standard” history. Historical revision is neither good nor bad in and of itself. It all depends upon the strength of the argument and the cogent marshaling of the facts. Of course, this means that much depends upon the strength of the underlying subdisciplines. We should, as with all evaluations of history, be on the lookout for court historians and those who are pursuing an agenda by way of their manipulation of “facts” and the use of spurious “theories”.
A Revision Too Far
This brings us to the main point of this essay, the grotesque abomination called Holocaust Revisionism, or its true term, Denial. Holocaust revisionism is a denial of the underlying big facts. They claim that either the killings did not happen, or that they have been greatly exaggerated.
This is an issue for me because it popped up where I never considered it a possibility, among libertarian groups. Specifically, the Mises Institute. The Mises Institute is a libertarian/limited government think tank named for Ludwig von Mises a great Austrian economist and social thinker. He, in fact was of Jewish descent and left Germany precisely to escape the Nazis. Yet, the think tank that bears his name since 1982 has taken a dark turn toward xenophobia, as witnessed by their increasing opposition to immigration. They recently turned even darker as they platformed an outright Holocaust Denier at a “Revisionist History of War Conference” held May 15-17, 2025. At this conference they had as a featured speaker a man named Ron Unz. His bio on the Mises web site says this about him:
Ron Unz owns and operates unz.com, a website heavily censored by Big Tech for publishing and hosting content dangerous to the regime. He is a leader in business, politics, and publishing and has long been a fearless voice of the threats to property, civilization, and culture.
This innocuous verbiage conceals what he is all about, but his web site cannot. Here is a link to one of his more recent posts (which he did not write) titled “How Can You Believe the “Nazi Holocaust” After Having Seen the Jewish Lies About October 7th?”, in which the author argues that because the Israelis lied about some of the atrocities that Hamas committed on October 7th. (which they did) that we now cannot trust “The Jews” about the extent of the Holocaust. This is hardly a libertarian sentiment, collectivizing all members of an ethnic group to disparage an historical event.
While his web site is full of this ugly nonsense the speech Mr. Unz gave at the Mises Institute conference also reveals his true colors. Here is the link to the speech he gave. Here is a 5-minute compilation of his main ideas:
Briefly he claims that the Nuremberg trials contained many myths, such as the making of lampshades and soap from human skin and body parts. The best evidence is that there was at least one lamp shade made from human flesh, but there was no proof of systemic production of such artifacts. It is a myth that human soap was produced from corpses.
Unz also claims that the charges against the Nazis for massacring Polish officers and personnel at Katyn Forest. This has been held to be a Soviet atrocity and has been recognized as such for decades. He claimed that Senator Robert Taft was adamantly against the Nuremberg Trials. That is true but it was because he considered them “Victors Justice”, and ex post facto laws, not because he ever doubted the extent of the Holocaust.
Unz claims that in the 1950s the mainstream media did not believe in the Holocaust. He ties this with a claim made by Norman Finklestein that Israel has manipulated the Holocaust to provide a cover for their land theft in Palestine. Indeed, Finklestein has cogently made that argument in his book The Holocaust Industry. Finklestein also argues against the Holocaust being unique in history as a genocide (sadly he is correct). What Finklestein never does is deny the reality or the extent of the Holocaust. As for the 1950s ignoring of the Holocaust Finklestein addresses that with a great point:
It is hard now to remember that the Nazi holocaust was once a taboo subject. During the early years of the Cold War, mention of the Nazi holocaust was seen as undermining the critical U.S.–West German alliance. It was airing the dirty laundry of the barely de-Nazified West German elites and thereby playing into the hands of the Soviet Union, which didn’t tire of remembering the crimes of the West German “revanchists.”.
Unz finally gets to his main point. That the Holocaust is greatly exaggerated in its scope. That there really were not any “death camps”, that nowhere near 6 million were killed. The typical arguments were trotted out. Hitler never gave written orders, there were no death certificates, and most stunningly Zyklon B was merely a disinfectant. He also likes to point out the links between the Jewish Zionists (those who wanted a homeland in Israel) and the Nazis, as if this proves Nazi benevolence toward the Jews.
Briefly, why would anyone think that Hitler would put this in writing, except in Mein Kampf. Of course, he never gave written orders to massacre Jews, that does not make the orders any less real. The best proof of where the ultimate authority was derived are from the records kept at the Wannsee Conference by Adolf Eichmann, one of the participants. Notable was that it did not institute new policy but rather rationalized and made more efficient the already existing situation. In any event, does anyone with a cursory knowledge of Hitler’s Germany think that so many could have been killed without his approval? As for a lack of death certificates. Are you serious? Does he think executioners at such a mass scale would take the time to fill out irrelevant paperwork. They did not consider Jews as human, so why would they would write up a human death certificate?
As for Zyklon B being a disinfectant, this is technically true. However, it contains Hydrogen Cyanide (HCN) which turns poisonous when exposed to air and causes death by excruciating suffocation. For all we know the German bills of lading showed this as a disinfectant, as it would be unlikely to list a shipment of 55-gallon drums of Jew poison.
As to links between the Zionists and the Nazis, there were some. This is not so surprising upon reflection. The Nazis hated Jews and wanted them removed from Europe. If that removal meant a newly reconstituted Israel, fine. The same dynamic existed amongst antisemitic British elements and the Zionists. This proves nothing.
As to the main point that the 6 million number of Jews estimated killed by the Nazis being an exaggeration, it is a specious claim with no factual basis. The main work on this topic was Raul Hilberg’s The Destruction of the European Jews. This was a painstaking reconstruction of how the Germans killed their victims and the best estimate of how many were murdered. This work was cited and confirmed by the preeminent scholar of government murder RJ Rummel in his masterwork Death by Government. If you want a thorough recitation of the awful fate of Europe’s Jews, these are excellent sources. There is no need to build the entire case in this essay.
The pattern is all the same here. The denier brings up points of legitimate controversy and dispute, throws in some items that have been debunked (i.e. German complicity for the Katyn Forest massacre)and then seamlessly, in a massive non sequitur, moves to deny the entire mass murder of Europe’s Jews. Sow doubt, then plant the denial, reap a generalized revision of basic facts.
So, in the final analysis Holocaust revisionism is a denial of the basic big facts. It would be like denying that there was World War II, or claiming that there was no Great Depression, or that the Reformation was myth. This is patent nonsense. There are certainly aspects of the Holocaust that can be revised and discussed. Among them, how did the “fog of war” contribute to the German actions, and particularly their concealment? What was the complicity of other nations in all of this? How did a population ignore this going on in their midst? Whether this was a unique moral atrocity or is it like other such awful events? However, these questions are only relevant once the basic underlying facts are agreed upon. To pursue a conversation with a denier of the basic underlying facts would be like discussing climate change with a flat earther.
The Holocaust Revisionist Denier is denying that which cannot be denied. It is undeniably true that in Nazi Germany over 16 million were killed in a genocide, including 6 million Jews (Rummel Death by Government pg. 111). The key question is why would anyone take such a position built upon massive illogic , and a basic ignoring of the factual, personal, visual, and data driven evidence?
The Purpose of Holocaust Denial
The purpose of such a blatant disregard for the underlying really big facts is that it serves a current political purpose. I have wracked my brain and surveyed a multitude of material produced by denialists to try and fathom why they would engage in such an intellectually bankrupt endeavor. The only conclusion I can arrive at is their “history” is driven by pure hatred of Jews as Jews. They seek to demonize, and to make Jews an “other”. I wrote about this recently I the context of US foreign policy. This is all nothing but rank antisemitism, real honest to God antisemitism.
Peruse the aforementioned web site of the speaker at the Revisionist History Conference, Ron Unz to get a feel for the hatred that courses through his work. Or check out this piece by Paul Craig Roberts, once a leader among supply siders during the Reagan years. You will see it chock full of Holocaust Denial and pro Hitler sentiment. Gems such as “The “death camps” were in fact work camps.”, and “Every camp had crematoriums.”, or “The horrific photos of masses of skeleton-like dead bodies that are said to be evidence of organized extermination of Jews are in fact camp inmates who died from typhus and starvation in the last days of the war when Germany was disorganized and devoid of medicines and food for labor camps.”, and this stunner “ Hitler was a man of the people. He acted for the German people.”. This type of denialism is always paired with attacks on Jews as Jews for perpetrating such a hoax and shading in favor of Hitler. Such a blatant misuse of history always serves a contemporary purpose, and it is never a benign one.
There are parallels. The denial of Soviet communist atrocities done by people who had an ideological stake in advancing such a program. Or the racist impulse in the Myth of the Lost Cause, which tries to deny that protection of slavery was the main reason for the succession of the South in 1861. This serves to fuel racist ideas that people of color are dishonorable about a noble cause that was gloriously doomed.
The point of all this is not to make you need a shower, though that is likely one outcome. The purpose is to alert the reader to the genuine good that historical revision can offer, but also to warn against its misuse. The misuse of historical revision is to serve a nefarious, usually statist purpose to demonize others as a presage to outright coercive oppression. It is intellectually bankrupt, ripping history out of context and making gross leaps of illogic in an intellectual gymnastic move that would impress Nadia Comăneci.
The damage done here is twofold. First, it strips away the basic morality that separates us from animals. It robs us of any empathy for history’s victims and sets the stage for, first othering, then oppression. Second, it makes it difficult to stand in the way of real oppression gong on today. For example, these deniers hate what Israel is dong in Gaza. Yet their obvious antisemitism gives cover to apologists for the Zionist genocide perpetrated by Israel. It also calls into question the entire enterprise of reviewing and revising history to better understand the past and to counteract official history that is little removed from propaganda. In short, it robs us of the moral clarity necessary to give witness to the wrongs of the past and to illuminate a better path in the future Only by recognizing the truth of our past and seeing through the false narrative of those seething with hate can we hope to more fully walk the path God would have us walk.
Praise Be to God
