LOOKING EAST: THE IHR AT THE CROSSROADS   I. SPLINTERS ON THE LUNATIC FRINGE From its beginning in 1978 the Institute for Historical Review (IHR ) was in the forefront of the intellectual fraud of Holocaust denial.  Under the control its co-founder, Willis Carto, the IHR prospered as part of a complex of organizations with the common goal of propagating anti-Semitism in theUnited States.  "Liberty Lobby v. Dow-Jones Co." 838 F.2d 1287 (D.C. Cir.;1987) After Carto was ousted from his position, the IHR has been through a financial crisis caused by the loss of old followers and its failure or inability to recruit new ones.  As a result the current management of the IHR has evidently attempted to obtain new financing from the Arab states of the Middle East.   Carto's bedrock support was drawn from the rich vein of anti-Semitism that permeates many nativist American movements and which he mined through his mailing list -- the core of which were the subscribers to his racist tabloid, "The Spotlight."  The targets of the mailing list were receptive to such discredited hate literature as "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion"and "The International Jew" and willingly emptied their wallets when Carto called.  They provided willing subscribers to the "Journal" issued by the IHR and regular buyers of the books it published.     A second core constituency, one more directly interested in the denial of the Holocaust,  were pro-Nazi and neo-Nazi activists whose primary interestis rehabilitating the reputation of the Third Reich.  One of the publishing houses catering to these Nazi sympathizers state "It is also Castle Hill Publisher’s goal to correct unjust reporting or accounts of events of the 20th century. It is also the Foundation's goal to further public debate about the subject generally described as 'Holocaust'." . . . . Lastly, it is Castle Hill Publisher’s goal to restore, with all available legal means, the honor and reputation of all persons and/or organizations who are found to have been unjustly accused or even convicted of criminal acts, especially such as were allegedly committed during World War Two." ("About Castle Hill Publishers")  For many of these people, their admiration for Hitler and their fidelity to the ideals of National Socialism have become an obsession which defines their lives. To these fanatics the Nazis were "the good  guys" (denier and neo-Nazi Alex Vange) following a "beautiful dream" that is "worth dying for."  (denier and neo-Nazi David Michael).  This attitude is typified up by the British denier and neo-Nazi David Michael who summed up World War II with the statement "There was a war.  Your side won.  Our side lost."  Just as they identify with the Nazis in the war, they idealize Adolf Hitler as Greg Raven, CEO of the IHR. did: My only concern is in going after the facts. As such, I am not interested in defending Adolf Hitler to my dying breath. I will say, however, that he was a great man . . . certainly greater than Churchill and FDR put together, and possibly the greatest leader of our century, if not longer. This is not to say that he was perfect, but he [sic] about the best thing that could have happened to Germany." (March 13, 1992) Or romanticize his rule as did David Irving who, just a week after the attack on the World Trade Center, wrote: A wail of sirens draws our attention to the window: A glistening cavalcade of black, armour plated,  overlong stretch limousines with police outriders is sweeping up Connecticut Avenue: Tony Blair has arrived, and is enjoying American hospitality on his way up to the embassy. I again draw the comparison with Hitler's cavalcade in Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will: The Fuhrer stands upright in an open car, greeted by cheering crowds. Neither Bush nor Blaircan afford such luxuries now -- an ugly product of their policies."("Radical's Diary"; September 20, 2001).      As can be expected, anti-American sentiments are, of course, as ubiquitous in denier circles as ants at a picnic.  Whether it is David Michael exulting that September 11 was a "glorious day" (September 11, 2001) or David Irving chortling about "the possible collapse of the United States' economy"(Radical's Diary; September 17, 2001), the hatred of the United States is as clear and as fervent as their love of Nazi Germany.      The attempt to legitimize Adolf Hitler is a hard sell to American audiences.  Not only is it inherently anti-American but the arguments of Holocaust deniers are frequently twisted distortions of history or consist of convoluted and recondite technical quibbles.  They are lines of reasoning which are difficult for other than a committed believer to understand and inevitably lead to counter-intuitive results. Not only must the potential acolytes of such pseudo-scholars as Germar Rudolf, Arthur Butz, and Robert Faurisson  accept the premise that the brave men who stormed the beaches at Normandy were an incarnation of the forces of evil but agree as well that cyanide gas cannot be used to murder large numbers of people or that the victims of these murders cannot be burned in crematoria.  Few people without a strong motive such as hatred for Jews or adulation of Adolf Hitler are willing to follow that path to the lunatic fringe of Holocaust denial.  As one denier, Germar Rudolf - speaking more like a carnival barker than an academic - cautioned his colleagues in Holocaust denial: "If you want to bring Holocaust Revisionism into the mainstream, you have to wrap it into a nice package that people will buy.  Focusing too much on it looks like we are paranoids obsessed with counting rotting corpses. . . . The Holocaust is the core, but no fruit tastes well if it consists of a core only." (e-mail dated May 17, 2002)   The road to legitimizing National Socialism is also blocked by the immovable stone of the Holocaust.  Deniers can quibble about numbers all they wish.  They can minimize the number of the victims of Nazi atrocities and magnify the civilian dead in Germany for days on end.  But they cannot explain away the Holocaust.  They cannot create a moral equivalency as long as the Holocaust remains in history books.  The shootings by the Einsatzgruppen and the gas chambers of Auschwitz are horrors that will forever stain the reputation of National Socialism and bar it  from general acceptance. The only way to remove this impediment is to deny its existence.  Because of the Holocaust Adolf Hitler will be a paradigm for evil for as long as history is written.  The only way to change this is to deny that the Holocaust occurred.  And the easiest way to deny the Holocaust is to attack the victims of that criminal conspiracy as liars and frauds plotting to besmirch the reputation of innocent Nazis.  The only way to deny the Holocaust is, at bottom, to attack the Jews with the smears and calumnies of the classic anti-Semite.  The alliance between nativist anti-Semites and pro-Nazis was, therefore, one of convenience based on common goals and methods rather than a common philosophy.   II  FEAR AND LOATHING IN SAN DIEGO III MANNING THE BARRICADES AT FORT ZINDERNEUF IV IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF ALAN QUARTERMAIN
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