Institute for Historical Review

The Institute for Historical Review (IHR) is a pseudoscientific organization. The IHR is considered by many leading historians to be the world's leading Holocaust denial organization. It was founded in 1978 in Torrance , California . In its own understanding, the IHR is a "training, research and publication center in the service of the public interest, dedicated to promoting public awareness of history".

history

The founders of IHR were the British David McCalden (also known as Lewis Brandon), a former member of the right-wing National Front , and the American Willis Carto , head of the (now defunct) "Liberty Lobby". This was an anti-Semitic organization that became famous for publishing the populist newspaper Spotlight (today: American Free Press ).

McCalden left in a dispute with Carto in 1981. Carto lost its influence over the IHR in 1993 in an internal power struggle with its employees. After the institute was bequeathed an inheritance of millions, a dispute broke out over the rights of disposal over the money, which Carto finally lost in the legal battles in 2001. Since 1993, Mark Weber , formerly an activist of the NSDAP structural organization , has headed the IHR, which since then has become even more clearly a neo-Nazi institution than it was before.

In 1979 the IHR offered the sum of US $ 50,000 as a reward for verifiable evidence that " gas chambers with the purpose of killing people existed in or near Auschwitz ". Auschwitz survivor Mel Mermelstein submitted a notarized report in which he described his internment in the extermination camp and the last moments in the life of his mother and two sisters, whose forced entry into gas chamber V he had observed. The IHR ignored this submission, whereupon Mermelstein sued the institute for breach of contract. The IHR was sentenced to pay the reward and an additional $ 40,000 in court. As a result of this trial, the California Supreme Court declared the Holocaust to be an indisputable known court fact.

Since 1979 IHR has organized numerous symposia at which well-known Holocaust deniers such as Arthur Butz , Robert Faurisson , Jürgen Graf , David Irving , Fred A. Leuchter , Joseph Sobran , Pete McCloskey , Florentine Rost van Tonningen , Carlo Mattogno , Ahmed Rami , Bradley Smith , Ernst Zündel and sympathizers presented revisionist theses and statements on related topics (such as the role of Winston Churchill, who was particularly hated by revisionists ).

The IHR-affiliated Noontide Press publishes anti-Semitic , National Socialist and neo-Nazi “classics” such as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion , Mein Kampf and “ The Myth of the 20th Century ” in English translation, as well as more recent titles with comparable content.

The IHR has been in decline since around the mid-1990s. The trials against Carto were the main preoccupation of the institute for years. It has increasingly limited its activities to maintaining contacts with its members and friendly organizations, and its publicity has also been weakened by the tightening of crackdown on Holocaust deniers in many countries . Nevertheless, the IHR last tried to hold a conference in Sacramento / California in April 2004 together with the neo-Nazi “National Alliance”. However, this had to be canceled after the landlord of the meeting rooms learned what the event was.

Holocaust denial

According to critics (e.g. the Anti-Defamation League and numerous comparable organizations), the IHR is an anti-Semitic organization that is associated with neo-Nazi groups. The main goal of the IHR is to disseminate pseudo-arguments that make the denial of the extermination of the Jews and the genocide of other groups plausible and that should make them appear scientifically justifiable theses. The self-designation for this form of Holocaust denial is “revisionism”, which is contrasted with what the revisionists call “exterminationism” (i.e. the recognition of the Holocaust as a fact); These terms are intended to give the impression that there are two competing and equally justified historical approaches in researching the history of National Socialism .

Similar criticisms have also been made in newspapers in several countries (e.g. in the USA and Lebanon) and in reports on the British television station Channel 4. Deborah Lipstadt - whose statements in the comparable case of the Holocaust denier David Irving were confirmed by the court - has called the IHR an anti-Semitic and scientifically dubious institution and described in detail the means by which the historical science is with "scientific" symposia written out in seemingly neutral language and the provision tried to infiltrate publication opportunities for young scientists.

The IHR contradicts such allegations: “The institute is by no means engaged in 'Holocaust denial'. Every responsible scientist in 20th century history recognizes the great catastrophe suffered by European Jewry during World War II . However, over the years the IHR has published detailed books and numerous haunting essays that question certain aspects of the conventional exterminationist history of the Holocaust and point to some specific exaggerations and mistakes. ”According to a statement by Mark Weber, IHR members admit that the National Socialist measures against the Jews (and other groups) may have resulted in a few deaths, but the number of six million victims is an "exaggeration".

According to established historians and scholars, the IHR does not conduct serious historical research, but rather pseudoscience with the aim of denying the Holocaust. The editorial board of a leading historical journal, the Journal of American History , said: “We all despise the core of the Institute for Historical Review's arguments for moral and scientific reasons . We reject their request for professional recognition. "

An article about one of the IHR's conferences published in The Independent in 2003 said: “The Institute for Historical Review claims in all promotional materials that its members are 'objective historians' dedicated only to discovering' the truth about the Holocaust and other controversial historical events'. Ten minutes into the conference, this claim seems implausible. The audience responded with applause to a flood of anti-Semitic allegations and slander. "

Journal of Historical Review

The IHR has published the Journal of Historical Review (JHR) since 1980 , in which articles appear without external scientific supervision, as is common in the United States in scientific journals. According to the critics (including the ADL, the Danish Center for Holocaust and Genocide Research, and other scholars, e.g. Robert Hanyok, historian with the National Security Agency ), the journal is to be assessed as pseudoscientific. During the 1980s, the journal published numerous articles by the French Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson .

An article about the JHR in the History Teacher journal read : "The journal is shockingly racist and anti-Semitic: articles on 'America's failed racial policy' and anti-Israel articles accompany those dealing with gas chambers ... <...> these should be Call people simply 'Holocaust deniers'. "

The journal ceased its publication in 2002. The reason given on the IHR's website is “lack of staff and resources”.

Connections with Islamic opponents of Israel

In an article published in Hitlist magazine in 2002, Kevin Coogan wrote that organizations of American and European Holocaust deniers like the IHR have recently tried to establish links with radical Middle Eastern extremists. According to Coogan, Ahmed Rami , whose Swedish broadcaster Radio Islam spreads anti-Semitic, Holocaust-denying and Nazi-friendly propaganda, helped IHR organize a conference that was to take place in December 2001 in a Hezbollah- ruled district of Beirut , but which did not materialize after international protests. With the help of the Jordanian Anti-Israel Writers 'Association, an alternative event was then held on the subject of "What Happened to the Revisionist Historians' Conference in Beirut?"

literature

• Christian Mentel: Journal of Historical Review (USA, 1980–1986; 1988–2002) . In: Wolfgang Benz (Hrsg.) Handbuch des Antisemitismus , Vol. 6: Publications . de Gruyter Saur, Berlin / New York 2013, ISBN 978-3-11-025872-1 , p. 308 ff.

Individual evidence

1. ^ CNN (March 5, 2002). Similar descriptions use David S. Wyman, Institute for Holocaust Studies Archive link ( Memento of the original of November 3, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , the National Review (April 7, 2003), and Michael Shermer, Alex Grobman: Denying History . University of California Press, 2002 
2. ↑ Auschwitz denier back to core business ( Memento of the original from March 13, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , redok , January 8, 2009  
3. ^ Wording of the judgment at Nizkor Project , May 6, 1995
4. ↑ See Anti-Defamation League ( memento of the original from January 15, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Danish Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies ( Memento of the original of March 10, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
5. ↑ See Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 29, 2005, pp. J-1. Lebanon Daily Star, March 24, 2001, Channel 4
6. ↑ Text on the main page of the IHR website
7. ↑ Journal of American History, Vol 80, No. 3, p. 1213
8. ^ The Independent, April 13, 2003, p. 18.
9. ↑ History Teacher , Vol. 28, No.4, p. 526.