Left-Extremist Endeavours

Upgrading of National-
Socialism
wart KLUGE with the headline "3 September 1939 - Who was responsible?"
90) . He claimed that already the victorious powers of
World War I had not only foreseen another war against Germany,
but in many respects had even hoped for it. The tinder for
kindling the next world war had been laid by the Allies alone, and
not by Germany. Consequently, England and France to a large
extent shared responsibility for the outbreak of that war. This,
too, is a one-sided description of actual and alleged actions of
what subsequently were Nazi Germany’s enemies in the war -
without even the slightest mention of Hitler’s aggressive foreign
politics as the true factor leading to the outbreak of World War II.
In addition to such publications contributing to the denial of the
political responsibility of the Hitler regime regarding the outbreak
of that war, revisionist publications recurrently try to upgrade the
events and institutions of the Nazi era. A case in point is the book
"Auf Teufel komm raus. Unwahrheiten und Lügen über die
nationalistische Jugendbewegung" ["Untruths and Lies about the
Nationalist Youth Movement"], which was published by the rightextremist
"Kurt Vowinckel Verlag" and written by Günter KAUF-
MANN who in that book presents himself as the last living official in
charge of the "Reichsjugendführung" and former director of the
"Reichsinstitut für nationalsozialistische Jugendarbeit" 91) . The
author claims that, thanks to the National-Socialist youth
movement, young people had been educated to exercise sound
judgement and, in the "Hitler-Jugend" (HJ - "Hitler Youth Movement"),
had not been drilled to adapt to the system. Esprit de
corps and comradeship are invoked as positive values, while
their incorporation and exploitation by a totalitarian system are
denied or disregarded. In addition, the author propagandizes
other revisionist claims, for instance that world Jewry had declared
war on Nazi Germany.
Denial of the Holocaust Revisionism in the narrower sense is understood to mean denial
of the mass extermination of Jews in the gas chambers of the
concentration camps ("Holocaust denial"). This is a punishable
act in Germany (Sections 130 [incitement of the people], 185 [insult]
and 189 [slandering the memory of the dead] of the Penal Code)
and therefore is propagandized mainly from abroad. An important
actor in this field is the right-extremist organization "Vrij
Historisch Onderzoek" (V.H.O. - "Institute for Free Historical
Research") with headquarters in Belgium, which distributes all
current publications by adherents of the "Holocaust denial",
which have been confiscated and put on the index in Germany.
In addition, the Institute in 1999 disseminated a pamphlet entitled
"Holocaust & Revisionism. 33 Questions and Answers on the
Subject of the Holocaust". In a condensed form it presents the
major revisionist statements on this subject and advertizes rele-
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