The Inane Logic of Internet Holocaust Denialism (Response 1/3)

Plain ignorance and poor historical methodologies

*Note that I am not a Holocaust historian nor am I pursuing Holocaust Studies as a career; I am training to become a New Testament scholar. I am simply a decently informed amateur on Holocaust historiography and therefore believe, partly because of my unique background in biblical studies, that I can offer fresh commentary on the topic*

Following the definition given in the David Irving v Penguin Books defamation case, Holocaust denial can be defined as the belief that the Holocaust was not a systematically enforced program for the destruction of European Jewry. A program eventually involving the use of gas chambers, gas vans, other forms of extrajudicial killings, and additional means of accomplishing this goal. The essential attribute that makes one a denier is the refusal to recognize the systematic scope of the Holocaust. Conversely, a conventionalist account of the Holocaust holds that the Holocaust was a systematically enforced program for the destruction of European Jewry that involved the use of gas chambers, gas vans, other forms of extrajudicial killings, and additional means of accomplishing this goal.¹ Holocaust deniers through the decades have been of many ideological backgrounds and a single comprehensive statement on the ideological commitments of deniers is impossible—for a more extreme example, the highly influential French denier Paul Rassinier in the 1970s was a left-wing communist and Holocaust survivor who lived through the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora camps—but denialist sentiments on the Internet almost always are confined among individuals whose ideological commitments revolve around reinvigorating National Socialist principles. Presumably for them, denying the Holocaust removes the guilt otherwise associated with supporting an ideology that, in its material output, led to the avoidable death of millions.

I distinguish Internet Denialism from “Academic” Denialism for two reasons. The first is a substantive reason. “Academic” Deniers (ADs) are, despite the ideological biases that often overlap with deniers on the Internet, fact-finders who do indeed scour the extant archives, form logically valid (yet hardly sound) arguments, and even on rare occasions bring new evidence or considerations to light that conventional historiography has overlooked, which prompts historians to reconsider or at the very least readjust some arguments. On that last point, it is only by what would be seen as denialist work had it been done in the 1950s and 60s (and it was) that the number of deaths at Auschwitz-Birkenau was conclusively shown in the 80s and 90s to have been around 1.1-1.3 million rather than the 3 million number claimed at the Nuremberg Tribunal or the 4 million number claimed by post-war Soviet propagandists.² This revised count is the number now accepted by the Auschwitz museum.³ Another instance of ADs contributing positively to scholarship on the Holocaust is that the minority side, who argued that the gas chambers at Dachau were never in full operation, were proven correct, contrary to the claims of an initial US Army report on the camp. As someone who went to Dachau in May 2025 and asked the tour guide whether the gas chambers were ever used, I can vouch that the tour guide will, after some consideration, state that they were never used for mass killings; the museum’s website now states the same, though notes that small-scale gassing tests may have been conducted on prisoners.⁴ In contrast to ADs, Online Deniers (ODs) are popularizers of AD scholarship and repeat much while contributing little. They have never brought anything new or interesting to the light of Holocaust historiography. Rightly, they are even more ignored by historians than ADs.

The second reason I distinguish between Internet Denialism and “Academic” Denialism is due to personal intellectual limitations. Critically assessing the work of figures like Carlo Mattogno, Germar Rudolf, Nick Kollerstrom, and all the rest writing in recent years and publishing at Rudolf’s own Castle Hill Publishers or the infamous Journal of Historical Review has been done in depth by others who are, unlike myself, far more familiar with the source languages (German, Polish, Russian) of relevant documents and have studied the topic for years. A necessary source on this front is the online counter-denialist blog Holocaust Controversies.⁵ Stephen Atkins, Robert Wistrich, and Michael Salter have also contributed to the literature on counter-denialism.⁶ Newcomers to the literature would benefit by reading Lang Berel’s article.⁷ I stick with what I can handle and leave the big fish for others.

And what I can handle is pointing out the illogical arguments made by one particular OD who has recently emerged and remains unaddressed by counter-deniers despite his growth in prominence — Karl Radl. Not much is available about Radl from a Google search, and, as with Mattogno, there is plausible reason to assume this is an anonymous psyuedonym (the only book publications by the supposed PhD, omitting his self-published work arguing the Victorian serial killer Jack the Ripper was Jewish—something most Ripper scholars today acknowledge is likely—are two German-language books on Mussolini) as Radl supposedly bears a German name and surname yet speaks with an unmistakable British accent in every podcast appearence. Whatever the case, Radl, like other popular online denialist creators, is less of a fact-finder than a popularizer and therefore qualifies as an OD and not an AD. (His work outside of the Holocaust, however, involves deeper historical investigations).

In this post, I wish to address one central argument that continues to arise on Radl’s openly anti-semitic Substack titled Semitic Controversies.⁸ Soon, I will address two of his posts in particular that rely on the conclusions of the following argument. This argument is the basis for most species of Internet Denialism; noticing its presence may very well be used as a heuristic to determine whether you are encountering an OD or an AD. Very few ADs would ever publicly make this argument. ODs should take note of their “academic” forefathers.