What do you think of historical revisionism?

Question

I recently had breakfast with a German who was born in Dresden and survived the fire-bombing. He related to me the horrors of those two days but confessed that no one knows what the actual number of dead was from the fire-bombing of Dresden. It may be that only God knows the real number of dead, and the numbers still vary wildly from the 18,000 to 25,000 up to the much higher 250,000 to 500,000. He was there and thinks the figure was around 40,000 to 50,000 dead.

He informed me that when the US set up the POW camps in the region was when the real distrust of the Americans started. It was apparent that they were starving to death or allowing the POW's to freeze to death after the war ended.

Which is the truth? That is still hard to ascertain.

The true casualty figure of Dresden still appears to be an unresolved matter but historical accuracy and the truth should always be the objective of any scholarly inquiry.

It does not matter if the subject is the true death-toll at Dresden, or the German POW's that died due to sheer and willful neglect by Americans, or the true death toll at the concentration camps that many Jews do not want investigated at all. The objective should always be the Truth, even when there are some that have reason to fear the Truth.
No one should object to scholarly inquiry into the facts regarding the "6 million Jews" or the number of dead at Dresden if the truth is the end objective of the inquiry. However, many do object to such inquiry and many have an agenda that they do not want to have revealed.

I have never been a fan of "made up history" and have always preferred to know the bottom line truth, even when it is quite ugly and horrible.

I have never doubted that wrongs were committed during World War II by all sides, but getting the truth on the record seems to be an aversion that many people have. For example, the official plaque at Auschwitz was revised from 4 million to 1.5 million and even the official Auschwitz website currently states: "more than 1,100,000 men, women, and children lost their lives here."
http://en.auschwitz.org.pl/m/

Irrespective of how many died at Dresden, or how many died at the concentration camps, the entire war should have never happened. Additionally, some 49 to 56 million people perished in World War II, so the event was not all about the Jews, or the Germans, or Brits or Americans.

There were atrocities levied against the Chinese by the Japanese that no one wants to talk about or apologize for even to this day.

WHY?

Victors often write the history as they see fit, but as is always the case there are two sides to every story. One often steeped in desires, or hysterical emotions, or an agenda, and the other on hard truthful facts. I prefer the hard truthful facts.

The Truth matters; it always has and it always will. Historical Revisionism should always adhere to and focus on the Truth.

But that's only my opinion.

What's yours?

Answer 1

I think you just gave me a bit of much wanted faith in humanity. I enjoyed reading what you had to say and couldn't find fault in any of it. as you say Terrible things were done on all sides,and people seem to forget that the whole of Europe was actively trying to remove Jews out of their respective country's...INCLUDING FRANCE AND BRITAIN. Its funny how that little bit of history has been all but erased. Spain was, at the time, was also busily engaged in genocide to the tune of an estimated three quarters of a million of its own people. Some say much more. They were dark days indeed, and the blame should be shouldered equally through out Europe. Germany has been shouldered with it all for too long.

Answer 2

I'm not so sure your rambling made much sense (or, at least, I had to read it over to truly find the division between the background information and the subject matter), but as for the question, it's a matter of bias.



There is no real way to evaluate the past, only, at the highest form, a set of "best practices" that we try to conform to so as to know the most about our history as we can in as accurate a form as we can.



Ultimately, some people take advantage of that, and I do agree with you there, that taking advantage of history for an agenda is ridiculously inane and bothersome.

Again, though, how do you evaluate a truth to be true?

Sometimes you have to rely on some pretty unreliable sources.

Answer 3

Well I think what you are doing is historical revisionism. Now, you base this on a conversation with a German who "lived" during that period or has views about that and wants you to convince us that the US ran concentration camps that starved German POWs. But German history indicates that Germans were given significant control over their own government entities nearly from the beginning. Could it be you are having a conversation with someone who lived in East Germany and was a bureaucrat who does not like America any more than you do? Do you really think based on the number of truly left wing reporters and historians that such a thing could be covered up? I am fascinated by how the taste of a conspiracy just excites a certain intelligence level and requires rejection of reality and the embracing of wild ideas. Are there pictures of these US run camps? Did the US take everyone's cameras too? Of the thousands of US soldiers who served in postwar Germany, not one noticed US run concentration camps for German POWs. I think the point you were trying to sell us is that the US has revised German history to suit us. How would we do that and maintain that in some other country for 60 years? If Bill Clinton could not get a bj under a desk with only one other person in the room and keep it quiet, how does some evil group maintain this revisionist conspiracy that would require that literally hundreds of thousands to maintain the false information for 60 years? And no reporter noticed it? And the Soviets did not expose it for the 50 years that they held over half of Germany. You sir, are an idiot.

Answer 4

It sucks...because pain seems to be viewed as relative in hindsight but I think Einstein would beg to differ regarding the relativity as well as the preconditions that led to many countries view of why they started wars during the period. A government should always take responsibility for its actions and the actions of it's people so history is never forgotten or forgiven but people are allowed to go forward and change.

Answer 5

Dresden Bombing was to tear the heat out of the Germans and it worked. You could say it had no Military value but it did. The Germans were the first to directly target civilian populations.

If we fought all Wars like WW2 only with modern War technology we would have been in Iraq and Afghanistan for 3 days only. Tear the Heart out of the enemy like Germany and Japan and they will surrender. You could say that wouldn't work in modern terrorist War but it would work just fine. If we didn't kill the terrorist the remaining population would.



I too have talked to a German CPT. One thing I have noticed about every German I have talked to is none fought the Americans...Kinda weird. Yes history is written by the Victors but from talking to Germans and Americans in the War there is only one sane conclusion..The Germans sucked and declared war on the wrong people.

Answer 6

Hi there

Throughout history "the truth" is written by the victors.

Everyone suffers in warfare. People become brutalised by the horrors they witness all around them.

So today,in Afghanistan, Iraq and other war zones ordinary people continue to be brutalised and become brutal themselves.

Rather than look to history shouldn't we be looking at what is happening today and learn from past events.

Best wishes.

Answer 7

This is a good question, but a difficult one to answer.



The truth is the most important thing when we talk of historical events.

ANYONE who says we should not investigate ANYTHING from history is trying to hide something.



What you say about the 6000000 is interesting.

It was 6000000 when the figures first were published.

These figure have now been reduced, as you say, have a look at the official Auschwitz website as you say, they have reduced the number.



Yet we still have the 6000000 figure.



How can that be?



Good question.



Peace.

Answer 8

"the entire war should never have happened" not true... Hitler had to be stopped. I'm Polish and don't you dare tell me the Nazi occupation of Poland was anything other than totally unacceptable. Dresden was not a war crime, nor was the atomic bomb dropped on Japan. Such things were necessary in wartime.

I see some pacifist leftie has given me a thumbs down. See if I care.

Answer 9

There is only one truth and any dumbass who believes it would be better to change or alter any part of that is an ignorant asshole. Stalin went back and change events and places around, Kim Jung Eil changes event to so anyone would think of doing such a thing is no better than blood sucking communists, tell the history the way it was...GO AMERICA

Answer 10

The truth always matters and should always be pursued, but innocence and morality are always casualties of war.

Answer 11

The liberals love it. They love to be able to write "history" that is much more fair to minorities. Too much credit goes to white people in real history, so the liberals want to change that.

Answer 12

stupid kikes stuck in the 40's