Why do neo-nazis have a tendency to deny that the Holocaust happened? Wouldn’t that be a piece of history they’d be proud of and want to celebrate?
I don’t think I’ll ever really understand the thought processes of people on the Right.
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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Genocide casts an unforgiving light on the offending state. People tend to ignore everything else because of what the offending state has done.
An example is Cincinnati Reds owner Marge Schott, who got into hot water once because of comments she said about Hitler having done good. The systematic extermination of millions of people isn’t easily ignored.
This is one reason why the Turks are so bent out of shape about avoiding the genocide label.
i get that part of it. What I don’t get is why you would become a neo-nazi if you didn’t think the genocide was at least partly groovy.
What’s the appeal of Naziism and if you can operate some death camps?
Would anyone listen to you if you said mass extermination was acceptable? If you were on the street and saw a guy with a swastika armband saying genocide was cool and part of his group’s beliefs, would that make you want to listen and/or join the group? The vast majority of people would not.
that doesn’t really make sense to me because I assume that someone who hates Jews and thinks Hitler was great is going to be aware of the Holocaust and think it was a reasonable thing to do. And I don’t think regular people are recruited into Neo-Nazi organizations. You’ve got to be predisposed to that kind of thing, don’t you?
Those kind of thoughts are fine within friendly confines, but the outside world finds those thoughts unacceptable. So they cook up the denial to try and defeat that.
As for pre-disposition, if you were ground down by life’s circumstances, some of the things these organizations spout would make some kind of sense to you and/or would be a ready excuse to blame your lot in life on someone else.
on your last point, I think getting ground down by life can be the predisposition I’m talking about. The other thing, aside from just being mentally ill, would be growing up in the white power culture where the adults you respect teach it to you.
I would think maybe there’s 2 sides to their wanting to ignore the holocaust…
First, as was mentioned, Genocide, as presently viewed and defined has a heavy negative connotation, and they want people to like them….not just view them positively, but to be liked
Second, for the more hardcore…. the Holocaust wasn’t anything such. It wasn’t murder–that implies that the dead are People. Jews and the Nazi-Party-defined ‘undesirables’ (Gays, Catholics, Romany/Gypsies, mentally/physically handicapped, deformed, etc)..weren’t “People”. They were dehumanized and objectivized to the point that killing them was like squashing roaches…killing vermin that was to be thanked. In that respect, then, the Holocaust would be a gross mis-characterization (to them) of the job they saw themselves as doing. It’s not a Holocaust to call the Orkin man…
I need to go wash my brain now….thinking about this makes me feel like I’ve bathed in offal…….
against the Europeans who collaborated in this atrocity.
I think that’s the reason why they deny. It means that Jews are to be pitied for what they suffered.
To these neo-Nazi types, they haven’t suffered enough, but they would rather continue their version of pogroms on their own time and on the quiet.
Which is why these neo-Confederate types keep harping on their rights against those of blacks. We’re not worth the time. We aren’t to be bothered with. We bring the human race down.
NBC just had a reporter questioning someone from a neo Nazi group. These individuals consider themselves an affirmative action group for whites. Much like the Republican party is for the rich, I suppose.
Ok. I can sort of understand wanting to belong to a group that looks out for the interests of white people. But how does that get me to shooting up museums? I mean, other racially-based organizations don’t do shit like that.
persecution complex
I think you have it right there. The thing that most distinguishes Nazism from fascism in general is the Jewish conspiracy theory. Fascism, after all, is decidedly nationalist, but it is not inherently racist. (Granted, it often works out that way because national boundaries often fall along ethnic boundaries.)
It makes perfect sense to attack a Holocaust museum, not because Nazis, neo- or otherwise, really believe the Holocaust was a hoax, but because they believe that the Holocaust is a powerful propaganda tool in the hands of the worldwide anti-Aryan Jewish conspiracy in which they believe so fervently.
That said, looking for coherent reasoning in an inherently anti-intellectual movement is usually a fruitless task. If the neo-Nazi in question was actually thinking, he’d have realized that attacking a Holocaust museum only reinforces the public perception of Jews as persecuted victims, instead of the nefarious overlords the Nazis would like us to think they are. Thinking is not, however, their strong suit.
who really knows what motivates and drives fanatics to do these kinds of thing? certainly not l.
l suspect it has something to do with striking out at the symbolism of the object…ie: the museum episode today.
the kkk used to take great pleasure in bombing and burning black churches…and if there were people inside, all the better. the so called eco-terrorists like to torch suv’s and ski-lodges…usually less harmful to human life…but attacking the symbol, nonetheless.
Suppose it works like this. It’s really hard for anybody who grew up post-WWII to separate Nazis from genocide conceptually. But that’s just because of a remarkably successful post-WWII disinformation campaign by the press, controlled by you-know-whom. They made it so that there is almost a Pavlovian response. You see a picture of Hitler, your mind conjures up an image of a Nazi death camp.
But suppose that is all a big lie (and typical of the you-know-whos to project onto Nazis their own nefarious techniques of persuasion). If you disregard the genocide, which never happened, you can view Nazism as being about putting racially superior people in control of things, in order to build a stronger country, a country free of decadent beliefs and practices, a country with a strong military to reconquer all the lands that had been taken away from Germany, and to protect civilization from the Communists.
So holocaust denial and neo-Nazism are perfectly consistent.
Booman, is called a sick mind..for what ever the thing is they hate..it is hate and revenge. This kind of mind processing that is very hard to understand…They are very miserable ppl. A sick mind needs tending to asap. However; there are too many sick minds nowadays to tend to, it seems. When they are egged on by the likes off rush, newt, and o’riley, etc it is inevitable that they will place their thoughts into actions.
you’re making the classical mistake of asking for sense out of senselessness.
do you really believe there exists an explanation that will allow you to conclude: “ok, that makes sense now.” … ?
if one does, i’d worry about my mental health.
Humans prefer cockiness to expertise
My experience with neo-Nazis, which is much broader than I would like, is that they do believe the Holocaust really happened. But part of the Nazi ethical system is that it is okay to lie to the public to further the cause, so in the absence of a sympathetic audience, they try to rehabilitate the movement’s image.
The original Nazis, if you’ll recall, were not trumpeting the details of the Final Solution to the general public while it was ongoing, figuring that it would not meet with public approval. Granted, anyone with half a brain and a willingness to face the truth knew approximately what was going on, but people with half a brain and a willingness to face the truth are not an abundant commodity, particularly in wartime.
The goal of fascists, the Nazi subgroup included, is not to convert the public. True belief is nice, but quiet obedience will do just fine, thank you. The only time fascists particularly care about willing public support is at the beginning, when they are still working at subverting a democracy.