Resistance

GERMAR RUDOLF, RESISTANCE IS OBLIGATORYIf for instance the opponent of revisionists and editor of the Germannewsmagazine Spiegel Fritjof Meyer states about the revisionists thatone has to “beat the Fascists wherever one meets them,” 302 then noteven an attempt at justification with reference to the principle “tu quoque”would save a similar revisionist call for violence against establishedhistorians from being considered as illegitimate and grossly unscientific.The expert witness does not show that such violations of thecivil rights or third persons occur in the book at issue. He merely considersthe reproduction of an illustration from the German fairy tale of“Burning Little Pauline” to be “unseemly and a violation of scientificmaxims” (p. 25) without explaining, though, why that is so, because areproduction of a well-known, 150-year old illustration does not per seviolate anyone’s civil rights. Quite to the contrary, because the illustrationserves to explain why so many witnesses have declared, contrary tothe facts, that human bodies burn by themselves and that blood is agood fuel. Entire generations of Europeans have been socialized atchild’s age by reading fairy tales such as the one of “Burning LittlePauline,” as a result of which it cannot be rejected out of hand that thisstory is the basis of these wrong witness accounts. This exampledemonstrates, to which degree the expert witness is incapable of rationallyevaluating an issue due to his own socialization toward showing“reverence” (p. 12) for certain historical allegations.The expert witness’s remark that in a different context he has seen“several caricatures, which attest to bad taste” (Addendum, p. 1, regardingthe journal Vierteljahreshefte für freie Geschichtsforschung) pointin a similar direction. As is well known, there is no accounting for taste;but taste is in any case no criterion of the nature of science.The expert witness labels references by the author Arnulf Neumaierto passages of the Old Testament as “anti-Semitic” (p. 24). In its popularmeaning, this adjective denotes individuals who reject Jews as amatter of principle for ethnic or racial reasons. As a subcategory of thecharge of racism, the charge of anti-Semitism nowadays has an extremelysocially ostracizing effect and is indeed at times destructive toone’s existence. If unjustified, this accusation can be regarded as anillegitimate assault on the civil rights of others.From Neumaier’s remarks – as criticized by the expert witness – anegative appreciation of certain aspects of the Old Testament may result302 Open Letter of 12 Feb. 2004, see G. Rudolf, Lectures, op. cit. (note 55), p. 167.300