WS raised the spectre of Pressac so an issue I thought about earlier should be raised. That is, the potential for strawmanning or misrepresenting the other
side's historiographies and literatures.
VT rejects the designation of 'official' historiography and suggests that the NT (as you are provisionally known, until you decide otherwise) try to avoid strawmanning it. 'Official' statements by state agencies like the Polish Main Commission or German courts may have had influence on mainstream historiography but are not identical with it.
If one is to be really strict, then 'official' positions would be the statements of Yad Vashem or USHMM and perhaps the camp museums in Poland. Be aware that the latter have changed quite drastically and you may not be able to find their current positions, however the Belzec Museum's director, Robert Kuwalek, has made his views on the death toll pretty clear and he endorses Hoefle.
'Orthodox' historiography might well encompass the museum historians at YV, USHMM and the camp museums, but it does not necessarily include all mainstream historians, professional or otherwise. 'Orthodoxy' is challenged from within the mainstream as the normal process of historical revision unfoldds. We do not consider academic institutes to be part of any 'official' historical establishment, whether that be the ZfA, IfZ, Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw or the , and we certainly don't consider university-employed historians to be part of any 'official' establishment.
There are many maverick historians, usually amateurs, whose views are not fully accepted in any meaningful academic consensus. These would certainly include Michael Tregenza, Robin O'Neill and Jean-Claude Pressac. People like Jean-Francois Steiner or Gitta Sereny are simply writers or journalists. Note that the views of Pressac, O'Neill and Tregenza have rarely met with total approbation from professional historians or amateurs who operate on a professional basis. Dieter Pohl and Peter Witte both critiqued O'Neill's exaggerated Belzec death toll in an academic journal. Pressac's reduced death tolls have been ignored by mainstream historians entirely.
One should also add that revisionist historiography is a relative mishmash and contains its own contradictions, so much the same process of critiquing conflicting views can be done in reverse.
VT would like to make it clear, in short, that it in no wise automatically accepts any statement by a mainstream historian and would be the first to criticise many of them for their errors, and will argue our own case on some issues. We hope our opponents might embrace the same spirit of self-criticism and review and perhaps might think to criticise some of their side's more egregious lunacies before we do.
VT rejects the designation of 'official' historiography and suggests that the NT (as you are provisionally known, until you decide otherwise) try to avoid strawmanning it. 'Official' statements by state agencies like the Polish Main Commission or German courts may have had influence on mainstream historiography but are not identical with it.
If one is to be really strict, then 'official' positions would be the statements of Yad Vashem or USHMM and perhaps the camp museums in Poland. Be aware that the latter have changed quite drastically and you may not be able to find their current positions, however the Belzec Museum's director, Robert Kuwalek, has made his views on the death toll pretty clear and he endorses Hoefle.
'Orthodox' historiography might well encompass the museum historians at YV, USHMM and the camp museums, but it does not necessarily include all mainstream historians, professional or otherwise. 'Orthodoxy' is challenged from within the mainstream as the normal process of historical revision unfoldds. We do not consider academic institutes to be part of any 'official' historical establishment, whether that be the ZfA, IfZ, Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw or the , and we certainly don't consider university-employed historians to be part of any 'official' establishment.
There are many maverick historians, usually amateurs, whose views are not fully accepted in any meaningful academic consensus. These would certainly include Michael Tregenza, Robin O'Neill and Jean-Claude Pressac. People like Jean-Francois Steiner or Gitta Sereny are simply writers or journalists. Note that the views of Pressac, O'Neill and Tregenza have rarely met with total approbation from professional historians or amateurs who operate on a professional basis. Dieter Pohl and Peter Witte both critiqued O'Neill's exaggerated Belzec death toll in an academic journal. Pressac's reduced death tolls have been ignored by mainstream historians entirely.
One should also add that revisionist historiography is a relative mishmash and contains its own contradictions, so much the same process of critiquing conflicting views can be done in reverse.
VT would like to make it clear, in short, that it in no wise automatically accepts any statement by a mainstream historian and would be the first to criticise many of them for their errors, and will argue our own case on some issues. We hope our opponents might embrace the same spirit of self-criticism and review and perhaps might think to criticise some of their side's more egregious lunacies before we do.
