- Note - Professor Finkelstein has emerged as a truly unusual
phenomena. His views do not necessarily represent those of this site, its
sponsors, or its staff. His book tour in Germany will be closely scrutinized
by Germany, and the world, as the following interview and commentary from
DIE WELT makes clear.
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- This is a translation of an interview with Norman Finkelstein
carried in Die Welt, February 6, 2000.
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- "The holocaust is an ideological club, used to hold
Germany in a vice like grip"
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- "In the early nineties these organisations discovered
an opportunity to shake down European Governments and now they have run
amok. They are pursuing blackmail and therefore they should be indicted
and tried as criminals before the courts."
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- FEUILLETON DIE WELT page 29
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- A Man Sees Red: Norman Finkelstein on the "Holocaust-Industry"
and the culture of remembrance in Germany and America.
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- The American political scientist Norman Finkelstein is
starting a tour throughout Germany in order to introduce his controversial
new book "The Holocaust Industry". The thin volume consists of
polemics against Jewish organisations, who, according to Finkelstein, blackmail
European governments with faked data for compensation. On the eve of his
"European Book Tour" Alan Posener (Die Welt) interviewed Norman
Finkeltstein...
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- Prof. Norman Finkelstein on the '6-million' story:
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- "Not only does the '6 Million' figure become more
untenable but the numbers of the Holocaust industry are rapidly approaching
those of Holocaust deniers." ...
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- "Indeed, the field of Holocaust studies is replete
with nonsense, if not sheer fraud." ...
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- Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg cast a plague on both sides, sneering
that "it's not about justice, it's a fight for money." ...
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- "In recent years, the Holocaust industry has become
an outright extortion racket." ...
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- In what has become a mantra of the Holocaust restitution
racket, this constituted "the greatest robbery in the history of mankind."
... "If everyone who claims to be a survivor actually is one,"
my mother used to exclaim, "who did Hitler kill?"&laqno; (Norman
Finkelstein, The Holocaust Industry, Verso, London 2000, pages, 127, 55,
87, 89, 94, 81)
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- DIE WELT: How do you feel prior your journey through
Germany?
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- Norman Finkelstein: Apprehensively. It is a very important
step for me personally. I want to do everything right, but one cannot dictate
coming events. I must trust my intelligence and rely on my political instinct.
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- DIE WELT: You call the holocaust an ideology.
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- Finkelstein: To be more precise, an ideological construction,
that originally served the interests of the Jewish elite in America and
has now degenerated into a money making instrument. It has become a extortion
racket.
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- DIE WELT: Are you criticising German organisations as
well?
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- Finkelstein: I have no contacts to German organisations.
I am dealing with the headquarters of the Holocaust Industry, which means
the USA, with the World Jewish Congress (WJC) or the Jewish Claims Conference
(JCC). I asked Saul Kagan from the JCC to sue me, I asked Edgar Bronfman
from WJC to sue me, but they wouldn't do it. But one can estimate their
strength by the fact that there is literally no debate in America about
my book. However, according to Amazon.com it is the number one in South-America,
number four in Central-America, number one in Austria, number three in
Switzerland and number five in Jordan on the best-selling lists. It is
presently translated into eleven languages.
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- DIE WELT: Well, being successful in countries like Jordan
or Austria doesn't necessarily mean that your book is good.
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- Finkelstein: I am not saying that the comments made were
positive everywhere. Especially in Germany and - until recently - in Great
Britain the press was very critical. But in America there was no willingness
to debate my thesis at all. My book has just been blanked out.
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- DIE WELT: It appears a bit strange to attack "the
holocaust industry" in Germany, whilst large parts of the German industry
is even to date not prepared to contribute to the compensation fund for
forced labours during the NS-period.
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- Finkelstein: I am strongly for compensation, everything
else would be absurd. I am happy that my father received until the end
of his life a reasonably generous pension from the German government. But
I am as much opposed to any agreement with those self-appointed representatives
of the Jews. First of all, because the figures of survivors, presented
by organisations like the JCC, are falsified and secondly the JCC does
not pass on the money to the victims, but puts it in its own pockets. This
is double fraud. In the early nineties these organisations discovered an
opportunity to shake down European Governments and now they run amok. They
are pursuing blackmail and therefore they should be indicted and tried
as criminals before the courts.
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- DIE WELT: Again: The assault on the "holocaust industry"
has a different sound in Germany than elsewhere.
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- Finkelstein: A free and unrestricted discussion is important.
I am not an expert on internal German conditions. But the desire for political
correctness has determined the reception of my book there as well. I sympathise
with the good intentions of the Germans. But good intentions have bad consequences.
Certain individuals and organisations have exploited the good will of the
Germans for their own evil purposes. For instance, it borders with holocaust
denial what Karl Brozik, Chief of the JCC said about the number of survivors.
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- DIE WELT: You also distinguished yourself as a critic
of the American culture of remembrance, which you consider a part of the
ideological holocaust construction. What is your position towards the holocaust
memorial planned for Berlin?
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- Finkelstein: I have mixed feelings. Actually I do not
favour architecture of a Stalinistic style. We don't need monumental buildings
as we do not need extravaganzas in Spielberg films. The bigger a building
the smaller the meaning. In that respect I agree with the former Minister
of Culture of Germany, Michael Naumann, who said some years ago, it would
be more appropriate to preserve the camps rather than building holocaust
memorials. Meanwhile he must have changed his opinion. In Japan they remember
the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima by releasing doves into the
sky and let lanterns float down the river. I find this very tasteful. However,
Americans have no right to tell the Germans how they should remember crimes
that were committed by a German government. Nobody has the right to dictate
to the Germans in this matter. Why doesn't America remember what it did
to its Indians and to the Blacks. Why do the Britons not remember what
they have done in India, the French what they have done in Algeria. The
holocaust is an ideological club, used to hold Germany in a vice like grip.
This routine is just a cheap opportunity for us to escape our moral responsibility.
And what compensation concerns, well, we should start paying the Blacks,
the South-Americans, the Vietnamese ...
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- DIE WELT: Just a moment. Do you really believe that Germany
allows itself to be dictated how to cast its remembrance?
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- Finkelstein: The Germans react sensitively on criticism
from America. The most influential papers in America have reported on the
debate regarding the Berlin holocaust memorial and about the Jewish museum
and therefore have influenced the debate. But if Germany really wants to
emulate its American idol it would have to built in the centre of Berlin
a museum for America's Indians, just as America has built a Holocaust-Museum
in Washington.
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- DIE WELT Commentary -
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- An implacable struggle is raging within Jewry between
orthodox groups, devoted to the holy scriptures of Judaism and the secular
Zionists. These orthodox strains consider the state of Israel religiously
and judicially illegal. As a matter of fact they describe Israel as a "totally
Satanic state". Since this state has been founded solely on the 6-million
holocaust story its Jewish enemies recognised the necessity of destroying
the foundation of this state. It is also true that Germany, the main financier
of Israel, the "Satanic state", would cease to exist in its present
form, if the holocaust story was exposed to the masses. Therefore, the
enemies of Israel, having realised this fact, must destabilise and even
dismantle Germany as well. That is what Finkelstein's book is intended
to achieve as a first phase of a vast offensive against the big lie.
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- Some people criticise Professor Finkelstein for not attacking
the holocaust-lie directly but that he only touches the fringes, the lies
around the story. This is actually not true as it would not be possible
to wage a factual, revisionist-style war on the holocaust industry through
the present media-system. The war had to be instigated in this manner because
by totally destroying the credibility of the holocaust heralds, exposing
them as criminals and describing their operations as a huge conspiracy,
makes it impossible for the perpetrators to maintain their power control.
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- However, emphasising the fact, that the "6-million-figure
is untenable", Professor Finkelstein strikes at the root of the holocaust-lie.
When he calls David Irving "a good historian", despite Irving's
claim that no gas chambers for killing Jews existed at Auschwitz, he demonstrates
his inclination to support this line of revisionist revelation. Here Finkelstein
signals that the gas-story will be next on the agenda destroying the holocaust
industry's homebase, Israel.
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- Professor Finkelstein could never have published this
book without the support of influential Jewish circles. What Finkelstein
writes and says would normally be punished with a minimum sentence of five
years in prison in holocaust Germany and up to twenty years in Austria.
The conclusion is that besides orthodox Jewish strains even Zionist groups
must have perceived the inevitable eruption of the holocaust truth and
therefore are now trying to hand over their stooges in anticipation of
the imminent rage of the duped German people.
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- To bring Zionist Germany to its knees it is necessary
to aggravate the anti-government mood in Germany by forcing their Berlin
vassals to intensify persecution against Germans who know about the lies
and the scam whilst Finkelstein publicly denounces the same falsehoods
under Jewish protection. This is likely to turn Germany into a boiling
pot of resentment and hate. The result can already be observed. For the
first time persecutive Germany censored a Jewish journalist, Tina Mendelsohn
.
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- German TV-station SWR said on Monday, February 5, 2001
it cancelled the broadcasting of a documentary on Finkelstein's book, apparently
out of fear that the programme could be seen as promoting anti-Jewish views.
Officials at Südwest-Rundfunk, a regional broadcaster station serving
south-western Germany, said, it pulled the documentary on author Norman
Finkelstein's theories off the air at short notice and asked the London-based
producer, Tina Mendelsohn, to make changes. The show had been scheduled
to be aired on Monday night (Feb. 5, 2001).
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- In its original version, the documentary features Finkelstein,
supporters and opponents of his views as well as a brief opening clip of
Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels. The station said the show could
''trigger unintended effects,'' indicating it was worried that it might
be seen as encouraging extreme-right views in Germany (thus proving that
the so-called extreme right are in the right).
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- SWR co-producer Martina Zöllner said the station
was asking for changes to the film and would show it at a later date, but
that details were still being discussed. An influential conservative newspaper,
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, likened the decision to Soviet-era censorship.
Finkelstein is due to promote the German translation of his book in Germany
this week. The German persecution machinery would arrest any German on
the spot for making the slightest comments which are openly promoted by
Professor Finkelstein. But in the case of Finkelstein they must refrain,
however difficult it is for them, from implementing their own criminal
laws, because Jewish power groups do not allow the persecution of their
man, Professor Finkelstein.
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- This double standard will turn Germany into a boiling
pot of outrage which is necessary to destroy the holocaust industry and
thus Israel. Zionist-Israel on the other hand can only escape from this
dilemma by creating an international war that will distract the focus of
the collapsing holocaust industry in Germany and Europe and revenge itself
against its non-Zionist enemies. Thus, the election of the "butcher"
Ariel Sharon was guaranteed. - Comment By The National Journal
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