BERLIN COUNTERS HOLOCAUST CONFERENCE: "This Is What Happened"

[moondust]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,453691,00.html

December 11, 2006

BERLIN COUNTERS HOLOCAUST CONFERENCE
"This Is What Happened"

As the world looks on with concern, Tehran kicked off its Holocaust conference on Monday. Berlin, too, is hosting a conference. The German one, though, is aimed at keeping the Holocaust from becoming a matter for political debate.

~snip~

Germany, too, is holding a counter conference on Monday. While Thomas Krüger, head of Germany's Federal Agency for Civic Education -- which is sponsoring the event -- is wary of giving the Tehran gathering too much credence, he says: "The denial or questioning of the Holocaust cannot remain uncommented. We have to do what we can to counter this current before it begins to make inroads into our society."

Especially concerning for Krüger and the Germans is the fact that neo-Nazis in Germany have shown solidarity with Ahmadinejad and even waved Iranian flags during the World Cup tournament in Germany last summer. Indeed, Islamism and neo-Nazism are two sides of the same Holocaust denial coin, Krüger says.

Wolfgang Benz, head of Germany's Center for Anti-Semitism Research, says: "We have to say very clearly: This is what happened. Reality cannot be a matter for debate and does not belong in the political realm to be viewed according to one's political ideology."

~more~

[baldguy]

1. If there had been a large Muslim population in Germany in the '30s & '40s

They would have been put in camps & herded into gas chambers along with the Jews and the Gypsies.

[geek tragedy]

2. A fact lost on Offhismeds.

Curious that he acts as an apologist for and shares much of an ideology with the same brutes who gladly would have tossed him and his entire family into an oven.

[msmcghee]

5. Not really disagreeing but . .

. . wasn't it the case that the Reich had extensive cooperation with Arab regimes in the ME since control of the Suez and the Med was militarily necessary and they needed allies there - especially Palestine via the Mufti of Jerusalem? And of course they shared a hatred of Jews.

IMO racism is an adjustable hatred. It's just a way to focus one's hatred on particular groups in a more vicious way than if racial characteristics were not used. If any despised political or cultural group has identifiable racial characteristics - those can serve as an irremovable tattoo that psychologically anchors the other smears.

When hatred occurs between members of the same race they will adopt other signals like clothing colors, hair styles, etc. The problem with those is they are not indelible.

[geek tragedy]

9. The Muslims' turn would have come. eom

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

11. The muslims' turn is coming now.

700,000 dead in Iraq.

[Kellyiswise]

13. Your opinion is very insightful and probably the truest description of hatred

expressed on this board. There are many ways to give rise to hate: race, color, religion, economic status, economic philosophy, control of natural resources, education, ethnicity, sects and groups within religions, political affiliations, political philosophy, nationality. People will always find ways to express their hate just give them enough time. Too bad it isn't the same level of effort to express love and peace.

[eagler]

3. That's side stepping the issue and nothing but speculation.

The Holocaust was a tragedy for humanity not just the Jewish people.

[Orrin_73]

4. Bosnians and German Muslims living in Cologne

opened a mosque there during the ww2, even Hitler himself send a message to congratulate them.
The first mosque in Germany was opened during the reign of Frederick the Great he allowed it and also congratuleted them. Hitler did not hate muslims in general.

[Javaman]

6. This is what I just wrote a friend regarding this...

I love this line…

"The aim of this conference is not to deny or confirm the Holocaust" (from an article regarding the Iran Holocaust conference)

Yeah right, tell me another. When their mission statement opens like this, it’s the equivalent of Exxon telling us that there is no such thing as global warming.

They are pigs. There are revisionist historians in every part of the word. The thing these idiots (Iranians) refuse to understand, that for the first time in history, a societal genocide was actually recorded, filmed and cataloged. (thanks to IBM and the innovative camera technology of Arriflex of Austria. Not to mention the anal retentive record keeping of the Germans.

[Karenina]

8. How 'bout those Abu Ghraib pix, eh?

Do you still judge German society? Just wondering.

[geek tragedy]

10. I don't believe that poster was dissing

German society--just pointing out that the Germans were rather meticulous about their record-keeping.

[Javaman]

12. Thank you. nt

[Javaman]

14. And to answer your remark...

I am talking about the Holocaust.

If anything at all, Abu Gharib only shows us that humanity hasn't learned a single thing since the killing of 6 millions Jews, Gypsies, Germans, French, Italians, Gays, Mentally handicapped people, little people, deformed people and many other people I have forgotten to list.

I'm of German descent and frankly, what the Germans during the 1930's and 1940's is an absolute disgrace upon not only the world but also of humanity. And for any nation in this day in age to seriously deny that it happened or to continue those same practices has a screw loose.

Abu Gharib is an abomination.

So please before you begin passing judgment upon me, be so enlightened next time and think before you write and respond like an adult or even better, just PM me.

This needless to say is one topic I do not take lightly.

[Karenina]

15. Nor do I.

And thank you for making my point.

[truthisfreedom]

7. "Reality cannot be a matter for debate and does not belong in the political realm to be viewed

according to one's political ideology."

Someone should tell junior this, and the rest of the neocon/"global warming does not exist" idiots.