Domenico Losurdo (To be published in the journal "Ernest")
"Never did Hitler ordered or allowed to kill a person because of race or religion": this defending the honor of Hitler and the Third Reich can be read in the most recent intervention of Robert Faurisson. After criminalized the events that began with the October revolution and he proceeded to more or less explicit rehabilitation of Mussolini, Franco, the "boys of Salo ', the historical Revison raging for decades to reach its logical conclusion to be drawn.
1. Anti-Jewish Holocaust denial denial and pro-colonialist
To understand the absurdity of the position taken by Faurisson, just to compare it with the description of the war waged by Nazi Germany in Eastern Europe is another exponent of historical revsionismo, namely David Irving. Despite his reticence and his pirouettes, they can not conceal the essential talks about the "barbaric massacres of Soviet Jews," and recognizes that even "covered by thin euphemisms," 'the whole murderous activities of the Nazis' was still call to kill "without distinction of social class, sex or age; the same special teams were able to complete their task "only under the influence of alcohol." Such admissions, however, are severely weakened by the argument that Hitler was perhaps the dark! Yet it is the same Irving observed that the Führer considered "excellent" and worthy of wider dissemination, the proclamation by which the General W. von Reichenau made it clear to his soldiers on an essential point: it was necessary to require a "tough but fair tribute from the Jewish subhumans." The de-humanization of the victims, degraded Untermenschen, opens the door to the "final solution". If you are the ridiculous contortions of Irving, a real insult to the historical truth and memory of the victims can be read in the words of Faurisson. How can the results
revisionist, more or less radical, which is manifested in non-negligible in Western culture? Let us ask ourselves another question: are just insulted by the Jews to be more or less explicit rehabilitation of fascism and even the Third Reich? Reflect on the statement of Faurisson I quoted: "Never did Hitler ordered or allowed to kill a person because of race or religion." We have seen the fate of the Jews during the war against the Soviet Union. But now we read the legislation has not issued by the Führer on the eve of the aggression against Poland: imposes the 'elimination delle forze vitali» del popolo polacco; occorre «procedere in modo brutale» senza lasciarsi inceppare dalla «compassione»; «il diritto è dalla parte del più forte». Analoghe o forse ancora più drastiche sono le direttive che presiedono all’operazione Barbarossa: una volta catturati, occorre eliminare immediatamente i commissari politici, i quadri dell’Armata Rossa, dello Stato sovietico e del partito comunista; in Oriente s’impone una «durezza» estrema e gli ufficiali e i soldati tedeschi sono chiamati a «superare le loro riserve» e i loro scrupoli morali. Nell’ambito del suo progetto di edificazione di un grande impero continentale in Europa orientale, Hitler per un verso assimila gli abitanti di quest’area ai pellorossa: essi devono essere espropriati e decimati in modo da consentire l’espansione coloniale della razza bianca e ariana; per un altro verso la popolazione residua è destinata ad erogare lavoro servile al servizio della razza dei signori. Ma perché popoli di antica civiltà possano essere ricondotti alla condizione di pellerossa (da espropriare e decimare) e di neri (da schiavizzare), «tutti i rappresentanti dell’intellettualità polacca» e russa – sottolinea il Führer – «devono essere annientati»; «ciò può suonare duro ma è pur sempre una legge della vita». Si spiega così la sorte riservata in Polonia al clero cattolico, in the USSR the communist leaders, in both cases the Jews, among the intellectual classes in mind and to inspire and suspected food Bolshevism. As shown, the Faurisson's Holocaust denial is an insult to the memory so the Jews, but Poles, Russians, etc., we are in the presence of "races" to which Hitler's "race of lords" is called upon to impose a different way , a tragic fate.
There are, however, criticism from some quarters that these considerations are addressed. Arguing thus, they say, would carry an unacceptable increase in the number of Holocaust deniers. E 'classical dogmatic objection, refusing to consider the categories used by them: in the formulation of general rules of discourse, they see a threat to their claim to pose as judges, sovereign and irrevocable. The fact remains that the complaint one way of Faurisson's Holocaust denial is itself suffering from denial. And it is precisely this denial that is more prevalent and more dangerous.
2. As the court historians remove the colonial war of extermination against the Soviet Union
Take a historic success in the imperial court in Washington, who writes the Wall Street Journal and by the name of Robert Conquest. These, speaking of Hitler, said peremptorily: "Although hated communism "Jewish", he hated the Communists. " Everyone knows that, since its advent, the Third Reich locked in a bloody crackdown on communists. And this truth is in no way contradicted by the non-aggression treaty in force between Germany and the Soviet Union between 1939 and 1941. As I mentioned in my last book (The language of the Empire), already four years before the Zionists non-aggression pact signed in 1935 an agreement for the transfer to Palestine of a large number of German Jews with a considerable part of their property, but that does not in any way diminish the ferocity of anti-Semitic Nazi regime. On the other hand, for the Nazis tend Judaism and Bolshevism to blend into one: not by chance that the October Revolution is branded as the result of Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy. But the court historian removes this chapter of history, as it ignores the fact that the fury of anti-Nazism is intertwined with its colonialist program: the communist revolution that stimulate the "inferior races" are identified as the main obstacle to the project construction of a great empire in continental Europe. Then you understand the ways in which the Third Reich leads the attack against the Soviet Union. The rebuild in the wake of the recent book by Geoffrey Roberts and courageous: "At the end of 1941 the Germans had captured 3 million di prigionieri sovietici. Nel febbraio 1942 erano morti 2 milioni di questi prigionieri, per lo più a causa dell’inedia, delle malattie e dei maltrattamenti. In aggiunta a ciò, i tedeschi hanno proceduto direttamente all’esecuzione dei prigionieri sospettati di essere comunisti». E cioè, già nei primissimi mesi dell’operazione Barbarossa, i nazisti uccidono o provocano la morte di oltre due milioni di sovietici, colpendo in primo luogo i comunisti. E non è tutto. Mentre è costretto a nascondersi per sfuggire alla «soluzione finale», un eminente intellettuale tedesco di origine ebraica (Victor Klemperer) scrive una nota di diario sulla quale conviene riflettere. Siamo nell’agosto 1942 e la Zeiss-Ikon ricorre al lavoro coatto di operaie polacche, francesi, danesi, ebree e russe; la situazione di queste ultime è particolarmente dura: «Soffrono tanto la fame che le compagne ebree intervengono in loro aiuto. Ciò è proibito; ma si lascia cadere una fetta. Dopo un po’ la russa si piega e poi scompare col pane nel bagno». Dunque, stando a questa testimonianza, la condizione delle schiave russe (o sovietiche) era talvolta persino peggiore di quella delle schiave ebree. Ma Conquest sorvola in modo disinvolto sulla questione coloniale. In tal modo egli si preclude la comprensione dello stesso ebreicidio: comunisti e ebrei, spesso identificati, sono colpiti da una violenza particolare, perché sono bollati come i principali responsabili the revolt of colonial peoples. In Hitler and his chief ideologue (Alfred Rosenberg) Lots and lots are warned against the threat that the Untermensch, the man in the Bolshevik-Jewish-Bolshevik or better is for the supremacy of the white race, or the West or of the race Aryan, a word in the world that only represents the cause of civilization. The historic
dear to the Wall Street Journal is committed to breaking the solidarity (so well illustrated by Klemperer) that the victims in tragic conditions, were able to establish before their executioners. We have here a denial particularly repugnant.
3. The denial of the Holocaust as a myth pedigree degli Stati Uniti
A subire l’insulto del negazionismo sono le vittime del colonialismo non solo hitleriano. Alcuni anni fa, un altro storico acclamato alla corte imperiale di Washington, John Keegan, ha pubblicato un libro il cui contenuto è stato così sintetizzato nel titolo del maggiore quotidiano italiano: Indiani egoisti e cattivi. Viva Custer. In effetti, c’imbattiamo qui in un omaggio, almeno indiretto, a Custer, il generale che nella sua corrispondenza privata, riecheggiando gli umori ampiamente diffusi nella comunità bianca del tempo, si pronuncia per una «guerra di sterminio». Nel bollare come un «ricco egoista» l’indiano che vorrebbe monopolizzare per sé una terra scarsamente populated and which opposes the expansion white, Keegan did not take notice of the theory of "vital space", the theory according to which Hitler legitimized his war of extermination against the "natives" of Eastern Europe.
is easy to understand the indulgence of the dominant ideology against the denial that removes the horrors of colonial tradition by the Conquistadors of the "discovery" of America until the Third Reich. First draw your attention to this long history means making somehow pay tribute to the revolutionary tradition, from the Jacobins (who abliscono slavery in French colonies) to the Bolsheviks (which appeal to peoples of the colonies to break their chains) and the Red Army at Stalingrad that shatters the dream of Hitler in Europe itself revive the glories of the bloody colonial tradition.
Secondly, it is worth noting that the denial, sometimes explicit sometimes implicit, of the tragedy suffered by Native Americans and by African Americans is an essential component of the family myth of the United States, who may celebrate itself as "the oldest democracy in the world," only on condition that implicitly considered irrelevant to the mass of the fate of those who for centuries have been excluded, oppressed or wiped out by the people of the gentry. Beyond the personalities involved in the forefront of the fight politica e quindi, comprensibilmente, poco interessate a mettere in discussione il mito genealogico (e l’ideologia della guerra) del paese-guida dell’Occidente e dell’Occidente in quanto tale, il negazionismo caratterizza anche l’alta cultura degli Stati Uniti e dell’Europa. Si rifletta sull’aureola di santità che sulle due rive dell’Atlantico circonda la figura di Tocqueville. Questi visita gli Stati Uniti, mentre presidente è Jackson, proprietario di schiavi (a somiglianza di quasi tutti i presidenti dei primi decenni di vita del nuovo paese), protagonista della deportazione dei Cherokee (il 25% muore già nel corso del viaggio di trasferimento) e campione della lotta ad oltranza contro quei «cani savages "who are the Indians, he also loves to rage on their corpses in order to get souvenirs for distribution to friends and acquaintances. Tocqueville was right to point out as an example of "democracy" the U.S. of Jackson, more generally, the country which is among the last to abolish slavery in the Americas and indeed reintroduces this institution in Texas torn by the war on Mexico? E 'is symptomatic that this basic question continues to be evaded.
Thirdly, it is very difficult for the West and especially for his country-driving all the way to deal with the colonial tradition, in a time when Washington claims the right to export by force of arms civilization all over the world. Finally
. Detached from the infamy of which Hitler is guilty at the expense of 'Indian' and 'niggers' in Eastern Europe, the ebreicidio is called upon to justify not only the foundation of Israel, but also its policy of colonial expansion. The indelible horror suffered by Jews in the Third Reich is used to remove the oppression and tragedy that, in certain conditions and in ways quite different, for decades the Palestinians suffer. In the nineteenth century, with Bernard Lazare, the great Jewish left has sought to promote the emancipation of the Jews is already tearing some concessions to the great colonial powers of the time, but in a complex project Orentano revolutionary anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggle of the Jews and that of other oppressed peoples, the fight against antisemitism and racism against the colonial period. Hence Lazare in the comparison between the suffering endured by the Jews and those imposed on blacks in the African colonies of Germany or other countries, the Arabs invested colonial expansion of Italy or the Irish for centuries oppressed by England. In the twentieth century we have seen Klemperer underline the solidarity between the Jewish slaves and slaves of the Third Reich and Soviet Russia. And 'this great tradition that is now trying to isolate and silence.
4. The Appeals history for the freedom of expression
At this point we must reflect on the legislation in place in countries like France, Germany, Austria and now tents and also extend to Italy and the European Union as a whole. Against this possibility is ruled an appeal filed by eminent historians such as Angelo d'Orsi, Enzo Traverso, etc., which received massive membership in the community of historians and which I drafted: we need to respect freedom of opinion and expression; the historical truth is not a doctrine or religion of the state, to be imposed by recourse to the police and courts. No wonder that such arguments prove Deaf West's official ideology "democratic", more surprising is the lack of sensitivity in environments demonstrate some left, who generally like to boast of having broken with the underestimation of the "formal freedom" that disrupt the " Real Socialism ". The legislation restricts freedoms we should remain indifferent because it affects Irving, Faurisson and other characters of the same type? At least the left that I mentioned earlier I would remind the condemnation in 1925 of the law formulated by Gramsci Mussolini against the Masonic lodges: in reality it was intended to pave the way for the suppression of the labor movement. In our day to think about the anti-hunting witch that characterizes the political climate in Eastern Europe ...
But just defense of freedom of opinion and expression, which is at the center of the Appeal of historians and which alone can ensure a credible and effective fight against the historical revisionism and denial, I would add a further argument. The so-called anti-revisionist legislation already in place or to be launched, provides a dual intolerable discrimination: Irving, who albeit partial and twisted recognized the infamous anti-Jewish Third Reich, he spent one year in prison, the historians who make a mockery of the Soviet victims of Nazi barbarism that the war of extermination that transfigure against the Indians (taken as a model for Hitler), are the heroes of the western mass-media scene. The second and more serious discrimination is among the victims: it is assured the memory of some but not others. Indeed witnessing a phenomenon on which it is worthwhile to consider: While the entire European Union wants to extend the anti-Holocaust denier, here in Estonia removed the monument that pays tribute to the memory of Soviet soldiers. Apparently, there are not even teantivi rehabilitation or understanding of the Third Reich. There is an episode revealing the climate that is emerging for some years. In April 2000 the then Ambassador of Latvia in Norway wrote a letter the 'International Herald Tribune in which he explained that the application for admission to the Eurosystem and NATO: the country wants to reiterate the "European heritage" and Western and the "Nordic cultural ties." It is to boggle here is a pattern emerge particularly expensive in Rosenberg and in general the Third Reich, who led the East to its colonial war of enslavement and extermination precisely celebrating the superior civilization of the Nordic and outer wear, as opposed Asian barbarism. And, on the other hand, we already know provides the Conquest in the middle of his speech celebrating the superiority of 'anglocelti' compared to all other peoples of the world. E ' racial grounds, with some variations, would have aroused the enthusiasm of Hitler. One conclusion: to be effective, the fight against Holocaust denial should be made to the end and no play, even unintentionally, new forms of discrimination. However, this is a fight that can not be putting the tail of the lead managers of the drift revisionist raging for decades in the West!
Bibliography
Robert Faurisson, revisionist victories, Effepi, Genova, 2007, p. 12;
Robert Conquest, Stalin Breaker of Nations (1991), Penguin Books, New York, 1992, p. 174;
Geoffrey Roberts Stalin's Wars. From World War to Cold War, 1939-1953, Yale Universitry Press, New Haven and London, 2006, p. 85;
Victor Klemperer, Ich will Zeugnis ablegen bis zum letzten, Aufbau, Berlin, 1996 (fifth edition), vol. II, p. 194;
Adolf Hitler, Reden und Proklamationen 1932-1945, edited by Max Domarus, Süddeutscher Verlag, München, 1965 (see especially the speech of 22 August 1939, September 28, 1940 and 30 March and 8 November 1941;
Valdis Krastins, Latvia's Past and Present, in "International Herald Tribune of April 7, 2000, p. 7.
Although not clear from the texts cited here, I refer to my recently released book: The language of ' Empire. Lexicon American ideology, Laterza, Roma-Bari.
