Today, I thought I would go through and highlight a bitesize portion of the information crammed into the main essay on this blog, which is now a bit overfull.
Many Nazi opera conspiracies theories that “reduce the Third Reich to the outcome of Hitler’s alleged [secret] mission to fulfil Wagner’s vision”, claim that “Hitler came to see it as his life’s work to fulfil Wagner’s visions and put his ideas into practice” (both quotes from Sir Ian Kershaw). It has even been asserted that Hitler was on a secret mission to “transform the world into a Wagnerian drama”. It is claimed that Hitler and the National Socialist Party were involved in a grand conspiracy to hide its occult origins in nineteenth century opera, and that Nazism had hidden nineteenth century origins because “Wagner was a prominent forerunner” of Party ideology. Since neither Hitler nor any leading party member ever stated such a thing, it is only possible to pursue the argument through a purported existence of a secret plot to run Dritte Reich policy on operatic principles: it is, in short, a conspiracy theory.
The problem about this is that it simply runs totally counter to what modern historians think about the history of the Dritte Reich and the Holocaust (Shoah). The vast majority of academic historians totally reject the notion that Party ideology can be traced back to either Reformation or nineteenth century Romantic roots, and argue that doing so merely dilutes down both the primacy of National Socialist responsibility as well as the startling originality of their crimes. German history is not to be read in toto as a continuous teleological drive taking the form of a linear escalation of degrees of proto-Nazisms passing from Luther to Wagner culminating in the Dritte Reich. It is just not that straight forward, and moreover it results in reading history backwards, retrospectively straight jacketing everything to conform to the grand linearity of a one-dimensional teleological narrative.
Today I am going to point readers towards the literature they should be reading, and I will let other authors speak for themselves. Readers familiar only with Nazi opera conspiracy literature will find that in entering the world of serious academic Holocaust studies, they will feel like climate change denialists amongst climatologist. One of the most important messages to take away is that you should only read thoroughly nuanced academically credible material on the history of the Dritte Reich written by respected historians. There is a huge speculative literature out there by writers who profiteer off the endless curiousity in this subject by writing grossly reductivistic pop narratives of base emotive appeal, or worse still kitschy speculative nonsense about Nazi UFOs, satanism, werewolves, secret antarctic bases, the missing testicle, great escapes from the bunker to Argentina etc etc. You should not waste your time reading this nonsense. The Nazi opera conspiracy theory stuff also belongs in the same rubbish bin along with Goldhagen’s Hitler’s Willing Executioners and Shirer’s Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.
At the end of the day, trying to find serious academic studies by recognised experts in the field that state that World War II and the Holocaust were caused by a nineteenth century opera composer are as impossible to find as serious scientific treatises that state that the moon is made of cheese. Indeed, if any reader can show me a study by a recognised academic specialising in the field of Hitler and the National Socialist movement, which states that a nineteenth century opera composer was responsible for it, then I will personally give you a leather bound edition of a book by a recognised scientific authority on the moon stating that it is made of cheese.
I thought I would introduce some of the key authors I would recommend reading in place of Nazi opera conspiracy literature and other pieces of pop kitsch. This is not an all inclusive list of key literature on the subject matter, but it will help put the reader on the track to a more nuanced and insightful understanding than reading any speculative conspiracy book.
Sir Richard J. Evans
The writings of the famous Cambridge historian always make for gripping reading. His Third Reich series started out when acting as an expert witness in the David Irving trial, Professor Evans found that there were no books on the era he could recommend, and in which current academic understanding of the era were adequately summarised. My favourite book is actually a summary of essays looking at the methodological approaches to reading German history (and history in general) entitled Rereading German History. I can't count how often I have read that book. Just as illuminating is his Rethinking German History. Also look out for talks given by Sir Richard on youtube, and make sure you follow him on Twitter.
A good introduction to Evans would be to watch this talk on Youtube:
The Four Volumes of his Third Reich Series:
The Coming of the Third Reich: How the Nazis Destroyed Democracy and Seized Power in Germany
The Third Reich in Power, 1933 - 1939: How the Nazis Won Over the Hearts and Minds of a Nation
The Third Reich at War: How the Nazis Led Germany from Conquest to Disaster
The Third Reich in History and Memory
Yes, Professor Evans does mention Wagner en passant but never identifies him as the comic book villain secretly manipulating the events of world history from beyond the grave. If reading all four volumes of the Third Reich series seems too much I would suggest just The Coming of the Third Reich along with a whatever takes your interest in The Third Reich in History and Memory (a collection of previously published essays).
For those of you thinking that the essence of grasping the historical background to Wagner's own time (1813-1883) that it suffices to read about the era of the Dritte Reich. Not so fast. These are quite different epochs between which little or no continuity exists. To read up on the history of Wagner's era I can highly recommend reading Sir Richard's book The Pursuit of Power: Europe 1814-1914.
Sir Ian Kershaw
Known principally for his two-volume Hitler biography, Professor Kershaw takes a synthetic view that blends the functionalist and structuralist antitheses of historical debate on methodology. A good summary of Kershaw's view of the origins of the Final Solution can be found on the Yad Vashem website, and makes compelling reading. As usual, no mention whatsoever of any nineteenth century opera.
I would also point out the critical discussion of Daniel Goldhagen’s book, Hitler’s Willing Executioners (also discussed by Evans in Rereading German History) in Hitler, the Germans, and the Final Solution. In chapter 12, Kershaw also discusses Finkelstein and Birn in the book A Nation on Trial, which is worth reading at the same time.
Hitler biography by Sir Ian Kershaw: Part I Hubris and Part II Nemesis. Once again, Wagner’s name is mentioned en passant, but is never identified as the cause of events over a half century after his death. As for the suggestion by Joachim Köhler that Hitler could be simply explained by his histrionic Mission to “transform the world into a Wagnerian drama”, Kershaw scoffs and dismisses this as a “gross oversimplification and distortion”.
Professor Kershaw’s latest book is To Hell and Back: Europe 1914-1949. Again, there is not the slightest hint of a suggestion that a critical determinant of world events during this time period was a nineteenth century opera composer.
Thomas Weber
A younger historian who is Professor of History at the University of Aberdeen. I would recommend his book Hitler's First War as a necessary supplement to the Kershaw two-volume biography. Weber focuses in detail on a much narrower yet critical formative period in Hitler's life, and it is immensely informative. Needless to say opera plays no role in the genesis of the political Hitler. Otherwise, it can be read on its own, where it would still be an excellent introduction to the field of study. Richard J. Evans commended the book for how it systematically demythologizes Hitler.
Raul Hilberg
At the time of his death many considered him to be the greatest of all Holocaust historians. He is best known for his monumental three-volume study The Destruction of the European Jews, which has served for a long time as the standard text on the subject. Hilberg does not even mention Richard Wagner in the 1388 pages of the three volumes, let alone once entertaining the histrionic thesis of the secret operatic origins of the Holocaust. Hilberg effectively devotes the same amount of word space to a discussion of Wagner as he does to the discussion of Nazi UFOs—in both instances the number of words devoted to such speculative subjects is zero! The attitude is clear: such rubbish isn’t even worth mentioning. Even if you don't read all three volumes from cover to cover, the systematic exclusion of operatic narratives of the origins of the Final Solution by a key historian in the field needs to be taken seriously, and musicologists wanting to speculate on this field ignore Hilberg at their own peril. There is also a shortened one-volume version of the work.
Entries to the index of the third and final 2003 edition of The Destruction of the European Jews under the name of Wagner make no mention whatsoever of Richard Wagner:
All of the other Wagners named are historical figures unrelated to Richard Wagner, although given the degree of hysteria conjured up by Wagner’s name someone is bound to claim that if someone with the same surname as you commits a crime this also makes you guilty of that crime. Perhaps that may have been considered the case in the Middle Ages but it is hardly so today. Readers are encouraged to confirm that Richard Wagner is not once mentioned by Hilberg by undertaking their own word search in the Google books entry for each of the three volumes of Hilberg’s landmark study:
The Destruction of the European Jews: Volume I
The Destruction of the European Jews: Volume II
The Destruction of the European Jews: Volume III
Raul Hilberg’s highly insightful critique of Daniel Goldhagen is also available for free. A similar and complementary discussion of the ideas from David Bankier can be freely downloaded from the Yad Vashem website.
Saul Friedländer
Himself a Holocaust survivor, with both of his parents murdered by the National Socialist regime, Professor Friedländer is the author of a comprehensive two volume study, Nazi Germany and the Jews. There is also some perceptive and insightful commentary on Wagner in the two volume version. A fair summary of what Professor Friedländer says in volume one of this study is found in a review on the Yad Vashem website:
Friedländer emphasizes in this context the special role played by the Bayreuth circle, though not by Richard Wagner himself, in the transmutation of the struggle against the Jews into “the central theme of world history” (p. 89). According to his analysis, Wagner’s anti-Semitism, ... had a profoundly ambivalent quality insofar as no fanatical anti-Semite would have allowed the presence of such close Jewish workers amongst his inner entourage.
The condensed one volume version is also worth looking at in that many may find it less daunting a read than the full version. The following statement on Wagner is found in the one volume version but not in the full version interestingly enough:
...despite the attachment of German Jews to the works of Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss, these composers were not to be performed by Jews. Beethoven was forbidden in 1937, but Mozart had to wait until the next year, after the Anschluss.
Nazi Germany and the Jews: 1933-1945The book Richard Wagner im Dritten Reich (ed. Friedländer), published after volume one of Nazi Germany and the Jews contains essays from a number of authors including Saul Friedländer and Joachim Fest. In this book Friedländer views on Wagner demonstrate further evolution, and he comes to cleanly debunks the idea that the National Socialist policies on the Jews had nineteenth century operatic origins. It desperately needs an English language version to be published, although key quotations from the book can be found in my review of Joachim Köhler’s book.
The remarkable thing is that Friedländer stresses the concept of what he calls “redemptive anti-Semitism”, and, taking a moderate intentionalist approach to the Final Solution, he emphasises the centrality of Hitler's political ideology in driving genocide. Yet for all of that he reads not even the slightest hint of an operatic grand narrative into that redemptive ideology.
Full two volume version of Nazi Germany and the Jews:
Nazi Germany And The Jews: The Years Of Persecution: 1933-1939
Nazi Germany And the Jews: The Years Of Extermination: 1939-1945
Christopher Browning
Another highly respected and oft cited academic. The most important study by Professor Browning, a historian at the University of North Carolina, is The Origins of the Final Solution. It is one of the classical texts on the history of the Holocaust. Wagner’s name once more rates exactly the same number of mentions as Nazi UFOs or satanism. It is not too long, and, although it is now getting a bit old, some might still consider it the first place to start when it comes to books on the subject.
Another study worth mentioning is Ordinary Men, which might well outlive his other studies when it comes to retaining endearing classical status. It strongly questions whether anti-Semitic ideology is sufficient ground to explain how ordinary men turned into killers.
Peter Longerich
Longerich's book on the Holocaust would be my first recommendation for current books on the Shoah for those approaching the subject from a musicology background. His analysis of the relationship between nineteenth century völkisch anti-Semitism and National Socialist ideology is particularly worth studying carefully. New York Books has a good review and summary of Longerich's synthetic approach:
The emerging image of a Holocaust resulting from political motives denies Longerich’s readers the expected moment of doom at the bottom of a descending narrative arc. More obstinately than almost all other historians, Longerich resists the temptation to insert a novelistic climax into the history of the extermination of the Jews. Yet nothing about Longerich’s account questions the importance of the Führer and his ideology. ... Longerich unites ideology and institutions within an interpretation sufficiently flexible to connect Nazi aspirations to Nazi policies. He thereby avoids both extremes of the debates about timing: the popular assumption that after Hitler’s rise to power in 1933 everything was inevitable, and the scholarly search for a particular moment in 1941 when the definitive decision was made.
It has been recently updated for the revised English language edition, and arguably better summarises current academic understanding of the subject than many others slightly older texts, including Browning. Once again, Richard Wagner gets the same number of mentions as being the inevitable cause, or “Prophet” of the Final Solution as either Martin Luther, or for that matter, the aliens. Or to put it another way there is neither a “novelistic climax” nor even more histrionically, an operatic climax engendered by everything having been neatly scripted according to a Grand Masterplan predestining everything as “inevitable” right from Hitler’s rise to power in 1933—let alone according to a nineteenth century operatic Grand Masterplan.
David Cesarani
David Cesarani's final monumental study, Final Solution can be read as an extension and commentary of Longerich's synthetic approach, but further de-emphasises the role of planned human agency, replacing it with a “cock-up theory” of how history devolves as a result of catastrophically unintended twists and turns. Richard J. Evans recommends it so I think it is has to be included. I should warn readers that unlike most historians who prefer to stick to macrohistory, seen from a neutral bird's-eye perspective, Cesarani goes into some graphic microhistorical personal recollections of profoundly disturbing murder and violence. It is not for the squeamish, and I can think of Jewish friends who find this sort of thing too close to home to be able to comfortably read. I also noticed that most lay reviewers were unable to see past these gruesome descriptives to grasp the overarching theoretical structure of Cesarani’s historiographic perspective.
Final Solution: The Fate of the Jews 1933-49 (2015)
Once again a 1056 page academic study fails to come to the conclusion that the Holocaust happened because Hitler was under instructions to carry out the Final Solution by enacting the Grand Masterplan of a historic Mission conferred on him by Martin Luther, Richard Wagner, or the aliens.
I quote a warning written by Cesarani from the introduction to the book:
I could hardly agree more.However there is a yawning gulf between popular understanding of this history and current scholarship on the subject. This is hardly surprising given that most people acquire their knowledge of the Nazi past and the fate of the Jews through novels, films, or earnest but ill-informed lessons at school, which frequently rely on novels for young adults or their filmic versions. Misconceptions are reinforced by the edited and instrumentalized versions purveyed by campaigning bodies and the constellation of organizations devoted to education and commemoration.
Nicholas Stargardt
I cannot recommend his book The German War highly enough. It is immensely readable and difficult to put down. Highly praised by Richard J. Evans, the overall framework of the book is laudably neutral and academic, but it is brought to life with a huge number of personal accounts, many taken from surviving letters and diaries of ordinary people who lived through the war. Once again it is devoid of bombastic speculation about histrionic plots to transform the world according to an operatic vision. It is as far as you can get from that sort of drivel.
Adam Tooze
I am going to include The Wages of Destruction in this reading list as it gives a contrasting socio-economic analysis of the Dritte Reich. It stands in stark contrast to the gross cultural reductivism that seeks to find the origins of the Dritte Reich exclusively in nineteenth century opera. It goes to show that past attempts to seek the origins of National Socialist political policy in the writings of dead poets and philosophers are considered by serious historians to be an abject irrelevance. Despite taking a socio-economic approach to the analysis of history, the book is extremely readable in the way it relates the economic crises of the Weimar Republic to the socio-political level and comes highly recommended. Once again nineteenth century opera composers get exactly the same number of mentions in the book as the aliens and their UFOs.
Zara Steiner
These two masterly volumes on the origins of WWII are so highly regarded I feel compelled to include them. They were keenly anticipated and lavishly praised amongst academic circles.
The Lights that Failed
The Triumph of the Dark
Hans Mommsen
Many probably know of Mommsen mostly from the pivotal role he played in the functionalist-structural vs. intentionalist debates of the 1970s, with Mommsen as the key exponent of the functionalist camp. Subsequently historians have come to prefer a synthetic approach combining the two antithesis. As a result, Mommsen’s views naturally evolved with the times, as you can see from this interview with Mommsen published on the Yad Vashem website. If you read German however, I would also recommend that you follow up by reading his final and most recent views on the Holocaust in his book, Das NS-Regime und die Auslöschung des Judentums in Europa. I hope an English version will soon appear.
A key quote from this book that illustrates Mommsen’s view well is as follows:
For the stepwise fulfillment of the escalation of exclusion of Jews from German society up to the “Final Solution” after 1933, the increasing consolidation of hatred towards the Jews represents a conditional, but not sufficient factor. Likewise, the Holocaust never in itself sprang out of a consistent “Masterplan”.
Hans Mommsen: Das NS-Regime und die Auslöschung des Judentums in Europa. My translation.
Based in Israel, the Yad Vashem institute supports excellent academic research into the Holocaust. For example, I noticed Peter Longerich’s book Holocaust acknowledged a research residency at Yad Vashem. However, readers who do not wish to read through long academic tones on the subject are strongly encouraged to take the on-line educational courses from the Yad Vashem Institute. These cost $100 USD per course, but can be expected to be of excellent academic level quality, and are highly recommended.
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| The Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem |
The Nazi Opera Conspiracy Literature
Some will point out that the Nazi opera conspiracy literature is also very large. However, quantity does not imply quality:
Hartmut Zelinsky
It is striking that almost none of these authors are academic historians with any background in the study of the history of the Dritte Reich or the Holocaust. Viereck is the one exception, in a wartime book with propagandist anti-Hun overtones based on his PhD from the 1940s, but I would recommend you read my discussion of him since towards the end of his life Viereck came to angrily denounce the “countless exaggerated articles on WagnerHitler”. Most of this literature is also beginning to look frightfully dated, and slightly ridiculous in the way they assume that studying nineteenth century opera libretti makes an art historian an expert on vastly complex socio-political events in the twentieth century involving tens of millions of people and dozens of nations. Real historians spend time in historical archives, including the recently opened ex-Soviet archives of captured National Socialist era documents. But for Nazi opera conspiracists, it is a lot more fun to speculate based on readings of opera libretti coupled with an understanding of World War Two history culled from watching reruns of Hogan’s Heroes.
Or as Cesarani writes:
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| Most people gain their knowledge about the National Socialist era through watching television shows, films, and novels |
Or as Cesarani writes:
... most people acquire their knowledge of the Nazi past and the fate of the Jews through novels, films, or earnest but ill-informed lessons at school, which frequently rely on novels for young adults or their filmic versions.
Cesarani: Final Solution: The Fate of the Jews 1933-49 (2015)
The end results, says Cesarani, is that there is “a yawning gulf between popular understanding of this history and current scholarship on the subject”. It is a yawning gulf that needs to be bridged. The trouble with pointing to the size of the opera conspiracy literature as evidence of its credibility is that the Nazi satanist (Occult Reich) literature is just as large. Once again, quantity does not imply quality:
Roland
Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier
It is hardly more possible to argue for the credibility of the Nazi opera conspiracy literature than it is to for the Occult Reich literature based on quantity alone. There is a huge dung pile of non-academic drivel out there: in the bin it all goes.
Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier
It is hardly more possible to argue for the credibility of the Nazi opera conspiracy literature than it is to for the Occult Reich literature based on quantity alone. There is a huge dung pile of non-academic drivel out there: in the bin it all goes.
It is interesting that the Occult Reich literature, the Nazi opera conspiracy literature, and the Nazi UFO literature almost seamlessly merge into one another, feeding off one another, and perpetuating their existence along the same speculative continuum. For example take a look at this speculative post linking UFOs with Nazi satanism:
Thule was a neo-Gnostic racist group, which became a rallying front for the societal roots of Nazi thought. The chief architect of the Thule group was Baron Rudolf von Sebottendorff (Rudolf Glauer) who had direct contact with the Dervish Orders and knew a great deal about Islamic mysticism, particularly Sufism in all its aspects. He also had contact with Herman Pohl, leader of the German Order Walvater of the Holy Grail and his son lived in the United States for a short time after the war, where he was reported to be working on a top secret UFO project in Texas for the US Government.
Reports of Aryan looking saucer pilots are many. Long haired blond folks that speak German. It is interesting to note that the so- called "venusian" saucer design of contactees all look like German saucer designs.
The Thule Society is still alive in the minds of neo-Nazi (Fourth Reich) occultists.
From UFO's and the Occult Reich
For more details on how Nazi opera conspiracy literature and the Occult Reich literature feed off each other see my analysis of Joachim Köhler's opera conspiracy book. It seems that speculation breeds speculation ad infinitum. Fairy tales beget fairy tales. Worse still, this feeds into and actively encourages a mythologised occultist version of Nazism that circulates around neo-Nazi circles.
While on the subject of books to avoid, I would also include The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer. Shirer asserts that Hitler wasn’t acting on Wagner’s orders at all, but was instead Martin Luther’s stooge. I have dealt with Shirer previously. While the literature pushing the “Luther hypothesis” caricaturing him as the comic book villain responsible for World War II and the Holocaust is small compared to the opera conspiracy literature, Shirer’s bestselling book has probably outsold all of the opera conspiracy books combined by an order of magnitude. The sheer quantity of books sold does nothing to convince modern historians of its quality. Historians simply no more think that National Socialism was a Lutheran clerico-fascist movement than they think it was a Wagnerian operatico-fascist movement.
Serious historians no more cite the Nazi opera conspiracy literature than they do the Occult Reich or Nazi UFO literature. After all, the best way to look at any serious book is to look at the bibliography. If the bibliography contains a reference to any of these speculative conspiracy books (other than to quickly debunk them), then you can guarantee that it is total nonsense. None of the recommended books included in my suggested reading list ever reference Nazi opera conspiracy literature in supportive citations (although on exceedingly rare occasion someone like Kershaw might make a peevish dismissive comment about the likes of Köhler relegated to the footnotes). In general, authors can no more be bothered discussing the shortcomings of Nazi opera conspiracy theories than they can be bothered discussing the idiocy of the Nazi UFO literature.
Some better educated readers with an academic background reading history or in Holocaust studies will find all of this so uncontroversial that it hardly needs stating. Certainly, if you have studied history at university, or taken a course on Holocaust studies from somewhere like the Yad Vashem Institute, I won’t be saying anything new. However, this is far from the case amongst the ignorant general populace. I recently got trolled by someone claiming I am a “Holocaust denialist” because I rejected Nazi opera conspiracies. After all it was just “obvious” that the Holocaust had nineteenth century operatic origins. If that were the case, then a Jewish Holocaust historian like Raul Hilberg (Wikipedia says he “was widely considered to be the world’s preeminent scholar of the Holocaust”) would be a Holocaust denier. His 1388 page three volume study based on a lifetime of research on the Holocaust and detailing the murder of six million in vast detail from a structuralist perspective would constitute a Holocaust denialist thesis merely because Hilberg will have no truck with the claim that it was “obviously” caused by a nineteenth century opera composer—“obviously” in collaborations with the opera loving blonde aliens. By promoting the work of authors like Hilberg, Kershaw, Mommsen, Friedländer, and Longerich, the Yad Vashem Holocaust Institute in Israel would be a Holocaust denialist institute. Yet that sort of thinking, however grossly absurd, is so utterly pervasive and emotionally deep-seated as to be impossible to unseat. Historians are perfectly right to point out a truly frightful “yawning gulf” between serious historiography and pop history. Trolls who remain unconvinced are most welcome to haunt neo-Nazi websites recommending that all aspiring fascists dutifully read this blog thread as a superlative example of their beloved “Holocaust denialism”. Just don’t blame me when you get death threats.
Likewise, even the Wikipedia entries on World War II or the Holocaust fail to state that these events were caused by a nineteenth century opera composer. Not even the Hebrew version of the Wikipedia entry on the Holocaust makes even a single mention of nineteenth century opera as a precedent to the Shoah. The angry mob of readers who like to troll this blog are perfectly at liberty to edit the Wikipedia entries themselves in the language of their choice, changing it so it states that World War II and the Holocaust were caused by a nineteenth century opera composer who was long dead when these events took place. Do not blame me if your edits get immediately deleted by an irate editor. You would have as much luck here as you would in editing the Wikipedia entry on the moon so that it stated that the moon was made of cheese. I am not a Wikipedia editor and so you cannot blame me at all for this state of affairs.
It seems nonetheless that for some the categorical imperative of Holocaust studies is to prove the “obvious” transcendental Truth of Nazi opera conspiracies or be damned as a Holocaust denialist ripe to hang on the same gallows as Eichmann. I am reminded of the great philosopher, Hegel, being dumbfounded and unable to argue against his cleaning lady who says to him that “it always rains when we eat fish”—true, you’re wasting your time arguing with that! The only way to prevent this sort of mind-numbing populist myopia is through promotion of quality education on the subject, open-minded academic discussion, and discouragement of wanton speculation devoid of a quality evidence base. After all, we are compelled to accept the veracity of the Holocaust as a historical event because of evidence, which means that we are equally compelled to research the historical origins of National Socialism, World War II, and the Final Solution along scrupulously evidence-based lines. This means we must all reject UFOlogical type of populist speculations involving satanism, aliens, and wacky grand conspiracies to “transform the world into a Wagnerian drama”.
Finally, I must add that people are welcome to raise reasonably argued objection to what has been said here. However, “you are a Holocaust denier because you reject Nazi opera conspiracies” is not a reasonable counterargument. That is like arguing that “you are a Holocaust denier because you reject Nazi UFO conspiracies”. Even less is it acceptable, as one obnoxious troll did, to accuse me of being a Nazi because I read German since Jewish historians often read German so that they can study primary archival material in the original, something which is considered a strength not a weakness. Nor is it reasonable to counter “they do so!” to the statement that no serious academic historian thinks the Holocaust was caused by a nineteenth century opera composer. Screaming “they do so...they do so!” over and over again without providing supportive evidence is how hysterical little children argue.
If you wish to present a counterargument kindly do so by calmly providing evidence like a bibliographic citation to a work that can be referenced and independently checked. With quotations from leading Party members, please ensure that they are to primary source citations that can be verified e.g. Goebbels, Joseph; diaries 1st of April 1939 “we are making flying saucers in collaboration with the opera loving aliens”—fake Nazi quotations are legion. If you do take Holocaust studies seriously because you think that truth and justice are sacrosanct to you, then you are best advised to passionately protect this subject area from intrusion by frivolous speculators, most of whom are driven by their own dubious agendas.
Some better educated readers with an academic background reading history or in Holocaust studies will find all of this so uncontroversial that it hardly needs stating. Certainly, if you have studied history at university, or taken a course on Holocaust studies from somewhere like the Yad Vashem Institute, I won’t be saying anything new. However, this is far from the case amongst the ignorant general populace. I recently got trolled by someone claiming I am a “Holocaust denialist” because I rejected Nazi opera conspiracies. After all it was just “obvious” that the Holocaust had nineteenth century operatic origins. If that were the case, then a Jewish Holocaust historian like Raul Hilberg (Wikipedia says he “was widely considered to be the world’s preeminent scholar of the Holocaust”) would be a Holocaust denier. His 1388 page three volume study based on a lifetime of research on the Holocaust and detailing the murder of six million in vast detail from a structuralist perspective would constitute a Holocaust denialist thesis merely because Hilberg will have no truck with the claim that it was “obviously” caused by a nineteenth century opera composer—“obviously” in collaborations with the opera loving blonde aliens. By promoting the work of authors like Hilberg, Kershaw, Mommsen, Friedländer, and Longerich, the Yad Vashem Holocaust Institute in Israel would be a Holocaust denialist institute. Yet that sort of thinking, however grossly absurd, is so utterly pervasive and emotionally deep-seated as to be impossible to unseat. Historians are perfectly right to point out a truly frightful “yawning gulf” between serious historiography and pop history. Trolls who remain unconvinced are most welcome to haunt neo-Nazi websites recommending that all aspiring fascists dutifully read this blog thread as a superlative example of their beloved “Holocaust denialism”. Just don’t blame me when you get death threats.
Likewise, even the Wikipedia entries on World War II or the Holocaust fail to state that these events were caused by a nineteenth century opera composer. Not even the Hebrew version of the Wikipedia entry on the Holocaust makes even a single mention of nineteenth century opera as a precedent to the Shoah. The angry mob of readers who like to troll this blog are perfectly at liberty to edit the Wikipedia entries themselves in the language of their choice, changing it so it states that World War II and the Holocaust were caused by a nineteenth century opera composer who was long dead when these events took place. Do not blame me if your edits get immediately deleted by an irate editor. You would have as much luck here as you would in editing the Wikipedia entry on the moon so that it stated that the moon was made of cheese. I am not a Wikipedia editor and so you cannot blame me at all for this state of affairs.
It seems nonetheless that for some the categorical imperative of Holocaust studies is to prove the “obvious” transcendental Truth of Nazi opera conspiracies or be damned as a Holocaust denialist ripe to hang on the same gallows as Eichmann. I am reminded of the great philosopher, Hegel, being dumbfounded and unable to argue against his cleaning lady who says to him that “it always rains when we eat fish”—true, you’re wasting your time arguing with that! The only way to prevent this sort of mind-numbing populist myopia is through promotion of quality education on the subject, open-minded academic discussion, and discouragement of wanton speculation devoid of a quality evidence base. After all, we are compelled to accept the veracity of the Holocaust as a historical event because of evidence, which means that we are equally compelled to research the historical origins of National Socialism, World War II, and the Final Solution along scrupulously evidence-based lines. This means we must all reject UFOlogical type of populist speculations involving satanism, aliens, and wacky grand conspiracies to “transform the world into a Wagnerian drama”.
Finally, I must add that people are welcome to raise reasonably argued objection to what has been said here. However, “you are a Holocaust denier because you reject Nazi opera conspiracies” is not a reasonable counterargument. That is like arguing that “you are a Holocaust denier because you reject Nazi UFO conspiracies”. Even less is it acceptable, as one obnoxious troll did, to accuse me of being a Nazi because I read German since Jewish historians often read German so that they can study primary archival material in the original, something which is considered a strength not a weakness. Nor is it reasonable to counter “they do so!” to the statement that no serious academic historian thinks the Holocaust was caused by a nineteenth century opera composer. Screaming “they do so...they do so!” over and over again without providing supportive evidence is how hysterical little children argue.
If you wish to present a counterargument kindly do so by calmly providing evidence like a bibliographic citation to a work that can be referenced and independently checked. With quotations from leading Party members, please ensure that they are to primary source citations that can be verified e.g. Goebbels, Joseph; diaries 1st of April 1939 “we are making flying saucers in collaboration with the opera loving aliens”—fake Nazi quotations are legion. If you do take Holocaust studies seriously because you think that truth and justice are sacrosanct to you, then you are best advised to passionately protect this subject area from intrusion by frivolous speculators, most of whom are driven by their own dubious agendas.
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