Left-Extremist Endeavours

Relativization of the
Holocaust
Israel, the U.S. or any other country."
(DNZ, no. 34/1999, pp. 3 seq.)
There repeatedly is fierce opposition to the planning and establishment
of Holocaust memorials which are seen as a symbol of
an allegedly one-sided approach to coming to terms with the
past. With headlines such as "The Insanity of the Holocaust Memorial"
31) , democratic politicians were accused of being obsessed
by a guilt complex 32) and of trying, with the erection of
such memorials, to burden the German people with a long-term
form of collective responsibility.
Documentation on the extent of the Holocaust was mixed by the
DVU with accusations of falsification and with facts which have
been refuted by historical research already for a long time but
nevertheless are (misre)presented as topical findings; the large
number of victims was questioned. In this way the articles in the
papers radically question the credibility of individual persons and
of historical reports and thus - notwithstanding protestations of
different intentions, and in a way dodging criminal liability - indirectly
deny the persecution of the Jews in its entirety. It is
claimed that critical opinions about the historical events in connection
with the mass murdering of Jews by the Germans and
about other Nazi crimes were criminalized. The following was
stated with reference to the number of victims of Nazi crimes:
"This was preceded by a nearly twenty-fold increase of the
number of Auschwitz victims, i.e. to 8 millions, which later was
halved to 4 millions, and then further reduced to 3, 2, one and
a half, and one million. The horrific number of ’470,000 to
550,000’ murdered Jews, given by the French - recognized -
Auschwitz expert Pressac, of the Klarsfeld-Stiftung [Klarsfeld
Foundation] which certainly is above suspicion, reflects the
current state of research."
(DNZ, no. 9/1999, p. 1)
Time and again it is alleged that "Nazi hunter" Simon Wiesenthal
had forged a photo showing Germans shot dead by Americans,
to present a picture of tortured and murdered concentration camp
prisoners 33) .
Denial of war guilt On the occasion of the 60 th anniversary of the outbreak of World
War II on 1 September, the DNZ and NZ from mid-August until
mid-September ran a six-part serial entitled "What led up to
World War II?". Their treatment of the subject implicitly gave the
impression that the outbreak of the war had been a settled matter
in the United Kingdom and the U.S. By contrast, they claimed,
Hitler had been ready to negotiate until the very last moment. By
reprinting public statements by the Hitler Government, the DVU
publicized the view of Nazi propaganda, depicting the Nazi
regime as a peace-desiring victim of war-mongering adversaries.
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