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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   26439 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 15, 2024

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Man, if only they had somehow tracked the guy who wrote those Wannsee minutes down. Maybe interrogated him, or had a big trial or something. What an incredibly insightful process that would have been. Shame it didn't happen.

Your hate is too obvious, it makes the shtick too visible. You need to apply a few more layers of lacquer or something. I don't get the point of it all either, it's too effortful to be merely the product of some kind of stubborn contrarianism. I know you're lying, you know you're lying, you know I know you're lying, what's the point?

An interrogation in a show trial from a rogue state that violated international law by kidnapping someone is not a good way to establish the use of code-words in the minutes to a meeting. Decades before the Eichmann circus, Josef Bühler, the deputy governor of the General Government and attendee of the Wannsee Conference testified at the IMT as a defense witness for Hans Frank in 1946, and claimed that the purpose of Wannsee was to discuss the forced resettlement of Jews in the northeast of Europe:

I ask you now, did the Governor General send you to Berlin for that conference; and if so, what was the subject of the conference?

BUEHLER: Yes, I was sent to the conference and the subject of the conference was the Jewish problem. I might say in advance that from the beginning Jewish questions in the Government General were considered as coming under the jurisdiction of the Higher SS and Police Leader and handled accordingly. The handling of Jewish matters by the state administration was supervised and merely tolerated by the Police.

During the years 1940 and 1941 incredible numbers of people, mostly Jews, were brought into the Government General in spite of the objections and protests of the Governor General and his administration. This completely unexpected, unprepared for, and undesired bringing in of the Jewish population from other territories put the administration of the Government General in an extremely difficult position.

Accommodating these masses, feeding them, and caring for their health-combating epidemics for instance-almost, or rather, definitely overtaxed the capacity of the territory. Particularly threatening was the spread of typhus, not only in the ghettos but also among the Polish population and the Germans in the Government General. It appeared as if that epidemic would spread even to the Reich and to the Eastern Front.

At that moment Heydrich's invitation to the Governor General was received. The conference was originally supposed to take place in November 1941, but it was frequently postponed and it may have taken place in February 1942.

Because of the special problems of the Government General I had asked Heydrich for a personal interview and he received me. On that occasion, among many other things, I described in particular the catastrophic conditions which had resulted from the arbitrary bringing of Jews into the Government General. He replied that for this very reason he had invited the Governor General to the conference. The Reichsfuehrer SS, so he said, had received an order from the Fuehrer to round up all the Jews of Europe and to settle them in the Northeast of Europe, in Russia. I asked him whether this meant that the further arrival of Jews in the Government General would cease, and whether the hundreds of thousands of Jews who had been brought into the Government General without the permission of the Governor General would be moved out again. Heydrich promised me both these things. Heydrich said furthermore that the Fuehrer had given an order that Theresienstadt, a town in the Protectorate, would become a reservation in which old and sick Jews, and weak Jews who could not stand the strains of resettlement, were to be accommodated in the future. This information left me definitely convinced that the resettlement of the Jews, if not for the sake of the Jews, then for the sake of the reputation and prestige of the German people, would be carried out in a humane fashion. The removal of the Jews from the Government General was subsequently carried out exclusively by the Police....

You must admit though, that it's likely he understands that if he does say, yeah we did decide to exterminate the Jews and I was in on it, is unlikely to go well for him after the war. So why do you think you can trust what he says? He has a huge incentive to say, oh no, from my understanding we were just going to move them.

If I were a Nazi, that is exactly what I would say once we lost!

Yes, if you assume the conclusion, you can explain behavior in that light.

It's not assuming the conclusion. It's pointing out IF the conclusion is right then his words cannot be trusted. You can't then rely on his words to disprove the conclusion. Because he would say the same thing either way.

An accused murderer who is guilty is highly likely to lie. Which is why we generally do not accept "I didn't do it" on its own to exonerate them and let them go with an apology as part of an investigation. We check their alibis against other people, were they at the bar they claimed to be at? Did anyone see them?

But pointing out that someone accused of X is not often a credible witness in their own defense is not particularly radical. It can't be used as evidence they did do X, because of course an innocent person will also claim (honestly!) they didn't do it, but it doesn't on its own tell you they are innocent either. because there is a significant incentive to lie to protect themselves.

OJ says he was innocent, should he be believed?

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