Harry Elmer Barnes

by D. P.

A student essay from Dr. Elliot Neaman's History 210 class (historical methods - fall 1997)

The topic that I have chosen to discuss for my term paper is famed historian Harry Elmer Barnes (1889-1968). Barnes was "the most direct link between the two generations of American revisionists and the Holocaust deniers." His various books were widely used through the 1960s at American universities, such as Harvard and Colombia. He wrote some forty books which were used until his views were seen as inflammatory and unsubstantiated. Barnes also lectured extensively at universities, both in regards to World War I and World War II. He spoke openly about his thoughts on America’s intervention during World War I and how he thought of it as being "needless". Some of Barnes’ colleagues were also his closest friends such as H.L. Mencken, Charles Beard, Norman Thomas, and Oswald Garrison. Harry Elmer Barnes is often referred to as the founding father of revisionist thinking and was one of the individuals who was not ashamed to bring his thoughts about what "really" happened during both World Wars to the forefront. Barnes was definitely one of the first to really speak and theorize about Holocaust revisionism. So well respected was he amongst fellow revisionists, that the first Revisionist Conference in 1979 was dedicated to him. During World War I Barnes was a great supporter of the Allied cause. He took to submitting propaganda to the National Service Board for Historical Service, however none of his work was ever accepted because it was "too violent to be acceptable". Barnes’ views were always a little too extreme for mainstream society. After the war Barnes’ thoughts shifted radically from the Allies to the isolationist, pro-German side. He remained on the fringes of American society until his death. Possibly due to his rejection from the Allied war effort, he seems to have sympathized greatly and have found that they are put to blame more often than not. Barnes had alienated himself from historians and some revisionists alike because of his ad hominem attacks. Barnes is quick to attack anyone who disagrees with whatever he has said or what one of his colleagues has stated. These people are either lying or are just not objective.

In 1926 Harry Elmer Barnes visited Germany to present a series of lectures aimed at defending Germany and freeing them of any guilt that they may have had for World War II. Barnes met with the exiled kaiser and placed the blame on France and Russia while the kaiser blamed the Jews and the Freemasons who were trying to destroy the Christian states. "Even before World War II had ended he was challenging the official version of its history". This is where the second part of my paper comes in. Barnes tried his hardest to ruin Roosevelt’s credibility and his reputation. He attacked nearly all of Roosevelt’s policies and tried to make him look like a liar. Barnes considered Roosevelt’s policies as being "the greatest public crime in human history". According to him Roosevelt should have accepted full responsibility for Pearl Harbor and all of the subsequent happenings. Supposedly the truth was being kept hidden by court historians who were trying to protect Roosevelt’s image.

The third aspect of Harry Elmer Barnes that I would like to discuss is his denial-like prose when referring to issues during World War II. Issues meaning the extermination of six-million Jews, the gas chambers, and other wartime crimes. These feelings seem to be deeply embedded in his article "The Public Stake in Revisionism". In which he throws the words ‘alleged’, ‘supposed’, and ‘whatever’.

In this paper I will be using the information presented in Deborah Lipstadt’s Denying the Holocaust, Barnes’ "The Public Stake in Revisionism", "Who Started the First World War?" by Barnes, "How Franklin Roosevelt Lied America Into War" by William Henry Chamberlin which was included in Harry Elmer Barnes’ Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, and other exerpts from Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace.

When it comes to Harry Elmer Barnes and his revisionist thoughts he is zealous in his feelings towards this genre of history. In his The Public Stake in Revisionism Barnes places the blame of the possible ending of the human race upon the tragedies of the Second World War. He sees all of the advancements that came out of that time as being detrumental to the survival of the human race. In this paper he also praises his own anthology, Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, as being the quintisential ‘gap filler’ in all the revisionst thinking. If there are holes in someone else’s work, look it up in his book and it will hopefully fill it for you ( I don’t know what it will be filled with). Barnes argues that revisionist literature should continue to be published so that a record could be established to keep track of the revisionists line of thinking. He also sees revisionist literature as being helpful because it stirs up people’s emotions and gets them thinking about subjects that have been already closed for them, he wants people to expand their minds when it comes to the issues of the Second World War. Without the current revisionists and the new ones being created this movement would cease to exist. Barnes blames the communications industries of the day for trying to "smotherout" revisionist thoughts before they get into mainstream society. Barnes, in more of his endless blaming, says that the war machine or system for the problems that have arisen from it. Barnes sees revisionism as the people’s opportunity to change history. I think what Barnes is leaving out is that one must have fact to back up whatever one wants to change. Barnes relies heavily upon conversations in passing and very little citing as to where information came from.

Franklin D. Roosevelt and his entire administration apparently did everything wrong according to Harry Elmer Barnes. Barnes and his revisionist cronies place most of the blame on Roosevelt for the United States involvment in World War II. As I stated before, Barnes thought of Roosevelt’s foreign policy as being " the greatest public crime in human history". He also accused Roosevelt of lying the U.S. into the war and that he incited the Japanese and therefore brought on the attack at Pearl Harbor. Barnes and Chamberlin claim that much of his deceitfulness came about because of the 1940 election. Barnes and Chamberlin claim that Roosevelt knew full well that the U.S. was going to have to get involved in the war. Tensions were growing between the U.S. and Japan but to win the election Roosevelt had to tell the American public that their children were not going to be shipped off to another bloody war. This was a time when the parents of these children remembered World War I, the Great War, where many of their friends died as well as many strangers. Barnes and Chamberlin feel that he deceived the American public to win the election. Roosevelt’s actions leading up to the attack at Pearl Harbor would put him right in the realm of blame. Roosevelt refused any compromises with the Japanese government and wanted them to vacate Indochina and China and wanted the Chinese government to be restored so there would be no dependence upon another country by the Chinese. This severed all ties politically between Japan and the United States leaving all power in the hands of the military. With the Japanese letter of refusal came the attack on Pearl Harbor. The fact that the United States was issuing such a request was asking for trouble and therefore an air of knowledge as to what the next move would be by the Japanese. With this information Barnes and Chamberlin feel that they are justified in blaming Roosevelt for the attack and subsequent war participation. Barnes and Chamberlin claim that Roosevelt was almost paranoid about the possiblility of the western hemisphere coming under attack from Hitler’s forces and then the U.S. and Canada would be surrounded by enemies. "According to Barnes, Western liberals allowed their hatred of Hitler and Mussolini to blind them to France’s aggressiveness, Britain’s duplicity, and Roosevelt’s deception." "One is left therefore, with the inescapable conclusion that the promises to "keep America out of foreign wars" were a deliberate hoax on the American people, perpetrated for the purpose of insuring Roosevelt’s re-election and thereby enabling him to proceed with his plan of gradually edging the United States into war."

When Harry Elmer Barnes is discussed in much of the literature that I have he and his colleagues are quick to deny that they are Holocaust deniers. Barnes says in reference to the 1960 Eichmann trial that, "...this trial revealed and demonstrated an almost adolescent gullibility and excitability on the part of Americans relative to German wartime crimes, real or alleged, and the equally apparent passionate determination of every type of American communication agency to exploit the opportunity for financial profit by placing every shred of both fact and rubbish connected with them before American readers, hourly and daily, for months, if not years, on end." Barnes is quick to say however that Revisionists, even thought they refute most of the allegations against the Nazis always give their regrets to those who have suffered at the hands of Hitler and his government. He also goes on to say that Allied troops are guilty of killing just as many civilians as those that the Germans liquidated. The Allies were also more brutal in their killings, more so than "...whatever extermination actually took place in German gas ovens." Barnes also says that the numbers of Jews actually exterminated is incorrect because of how many Jews the Austrians killed supposedly equals the Germans and there were not as many Jews in Europe during this time.

Now to get down to actual facts and history. The revisionists are basically a right wing group that picks every minute detail of history and whether there is evidence to go along with it refute whatever it is. If the facts do not match up with what they want to believe then they refute it. It something comes up, especially in regards to the Holocaust, as being incorrect or their is a correction made suddenly everyone has been lying and the entire Holocaust is accused of being made up. Harry Elmer Barnes was a good historian until he got mixed up with this aspect of history. He was vehement in many of his opinions and if someone disagreed with what he said he tore them to shreds. This is why revisionism worked so well for him he could go off on tirades and no one would know if they were really whrong or if he just did not want to be wrong.

In terms of Franklin Roosevelt, according to Deborah Lipstadt Roosevelt was not the first president to be torn to shreds in regards to his foreign policy. Apparently Barnes said many of the same things about Woodrow Wilson and laid upon his much of the blame for the United States participation in World War I. As with many presidents who have served during wartime or have been involved in election during wars. No president has ever known to wht level a war is going to escalate to. For example, the Vietnam War, no one ever thought we would be in Vietnam for so long. We were just supposed to go in and fix the problem but when we got to Vietnam we realized the problem was bigger than we were. Every president during the Vietnam was ridiculed for keeping the troops stationed there and not bringing them home. It was the same way for Wilson and Roosevelt. The U.S. has made going to war in other countries its mission in this world to try to secure democracy everywhere, whether it works or not. Roosevelt could not have known that World War II was going to escalate as high as it did.

When Barnes is discussing his feelings about whatever warcrimes took place during World War II he sounds his most callous. He refuses to say that they did take place and that Hitler and his regime were responsible because then he is wrong and Hitler and his political ideals were something that Barnes had faith in. The reason the Eichmann trials were so heavily publicized was to shock the Americans into realizing what happens in other countries and to show them what happens callousness when it is left to brood. To show the Americans that yes we did know what was going on in Poland and to Jews throughout Europe but we chose to turn our heads until it was too obvious. World War II is our greatest example of what can happen to prejudice if it is tolerated and that is why since the war and the trials prejudice such as that will not be tolerated. For Barnes to also offer apologies to those who suffered at the hands of Hitler and his henchmen is to just pay lip service to what happened in Europe, almost to laugh in the faces of those persecuted. If all of these exterminations are alleged and if the numbers are all so incorrect then how does anyone know how many civilians the Allied troops killed? It sounds as if Barnes is just trying to make the Allied supporters feel guilty for killing at all. That was a childlike statement to make, it is those statements that discredit whatever Barnes’ arguement is. Especially if he is claiming that the Allies may have killed more than the Germans when we do not know where to start with counting the numbers of casualties at the hands of the Germans.

Most of Barnes’ arguements are pretty holey because he is basing so much of his information on searches that other people have complied and refuting what they have to say, sometimes just based on his opinions. Most of his aritcles and books go off on tangents where he is off the topic or just saying how this one historian is always wrong. He does not help his arguements by attacking other historians who were supposed to be his colleagues. Harry Elmer Barnes probably died an lonely, unhappy, and paranoid old man. He alienated himself from his colleagues even within the revisionist realm. This may say something about their loyalty not only to one another but also to the work and research that they do. Revisionists seem to be loners in their own right because they are always arguing against what some other historian has to say. They do not seem like team player, or at least not people who you would want on you faculty, or even in the next office. Harry Elmer Barnes died his own person who gave life to a genre in history that should have never been explored let alone let out of the human person’s mind.

Lipstadt, Deborah. Denying the Holocaust. Plume Publishing. New York, NY. 1994.

Barnes, Harry Elmer,ed. Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace. Caxton Printers, Ltd. Caldwell, ID. 1953.

"Worldwide Growth and Impact of ‘Holocaust’ Revisionism" printed by the Institute for Historical Review. Costa Mesa, CA. 1987.

Barnes, Harry Elmer. "The Public Stake in Revisionism". Institute for Historical Review. Newport Beach, CA. 1997.