Germar Rudolf, Resistance Is Obligatory (2012; PDF-Datei

GERMAR RUDOLF, RESISTANCE IS OBLIGATORY
41, 111 ff.) or about the application of National Socialist laws during
federal German trials (Vorlesungen, pages 90 ff.).
However, it should also not be concealed that Rudolf attacks several
“established” historians and writers in his works. In this context it is
somewhat unfortunate that contemporary witnesses like Eugen Kogon
or historians like Wolfgang Benz are called “Holocaustists,” 293 a term
perhaps only introduced as a substitute for Holocaust proponent, but
which nonetheless has a pejorative overtone. Derogative or ironic qualification
can also be found, if this group of persons has violated laws of
logic or of the natural sciences in their allegations and writings. 5 These
occasional polemics, however, are nothing other than replies to the considerably
more aggressive attacks aimed at Rudolf and his co-authors
by German and foreign historians and writers. Apart from that, polemics
in publicly staged historical controversies are not unscientific by themselves,
6 as long as they do not transgress certain limits of verbal abuse.
Rudolf’s Vorlesungen exhibit a stylistic peculiarity: they are written
in dialog style from beginning to end. This may initially disconcert the
reader, but this isn’t unusual in the field of science. 7 Rudolf himself justifies
his approach in the introduction (p. 13) with the fact that these
Vorlesungen are based on real lectures and that this moreover has the
advantage that objections can be stated immediately which are almost
always raised in reaction to certain factual claims or conclusions. Such
a procedure also offers the opportunity to critically assess time and
again one’s own judgment by means of interjected arguments of the
opposite side.
According to my opinion, Germar Rudolf’s publications Grundlagen
zur Zeitgeschichte and Vorlesungen über den Holocaust do not violate
any postulates, methods, or foundations of the historical sciences. Occasional
objections against certain text passages do not call this overall
assessment in question, since almost every scientific work in the field of
the social sciences exhibits weaknesses, deficiencies or desiderata,
which will bring critics to the scene – this even more so for an issue
which can be described as today’s most intensely politically, ideologically
and legally charged topic.
Bochum, 9 January 2007, Dr. Olaf Rose
293 Correct: “Holocauster,“ p. 109, 245, 248, 257, 269, 274, 347, 468, 493 of Lectures; p. 491 of
Dissecting; p. 254, 257, 442, 479, 499 of Vorlesungen. The term has nowhere been used in the
context of Kogon or Benz, but always only in general.
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