Talk:Carlo Mattogno

Untitled
Mattognos theories get debunked here: http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/ 92.230.119.151 (talk) 15:22, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

I am looking to include a link to http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/search/label/Mattogno The blog is written hy Holocaust historians, sociologists, professors, and lawyers. The link specifically focuses on their criticisms and responses to Mattogno's less than honest treatment of the available historic evidence.Eric H, on the meds (talk) 22:03, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Being a blog, it cannot be used as a reference, and you would need to provide some compelling rationale for why it needs to be included as an external link over other choices. --Ckatz chat spy   07:06, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Misleading Article
I should like to comment on the article as it currently stands.

Now, my main concern is that considerable portions of the article consist of unsupported claims, claims supported through what I believe are unreliable sources, and misleading claims.

First, the article is drawn almost exclusively from the author’s biographical blurb, as featured on a CODOH-sponsored website, Holocaust Handbooks Series (http: // holocausthandbooks. com /): CODOH, the “Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust”, is something I would hardly describe as a reliable source.

As of today, the article states:

A) […] In his youth [Mattogno] carried out advanced linguistic studies in Latin, Greek and Hebrew.

This statement may well be true, of course, but it is not sourced (or rather, it quotes the CODOH website, which in turn does not source this statement). On the other hand, Wikipedia’s French article on Mattogno states that:

L’éventuelle formation académique de Carlo Mattogno n’est connue qu’à travers les sites négationnistes selon lesquels il aurait tout à la fois « étudié le latin, le grec, la philosophie, l’orientalisme et la religion », sans qu’il soit possible de déterminer quels seraient ses diplômes et ses qualifications.

[Whatever academic training Carlo Mattogno has had is only known through negationist sites, according to which he “studied Latin, Greek, Philosophy, Orientalism and Religion”, without it being possible to determine what his diplomas or qualifications might be.]

Reference for the French statement is given as:

« Mattogno, Carlo », notice écrite par Juliane Wetzel dans Wolfgang Benz, Werner Bergmann, Brigitte Mihok,, Handbuch des Antisemitismus: Judenfeindschaft in Geschichte und Gegenwart, Walter de Gruyter,‎ 2009, 934 p. (ISBN 9783598441592), p. 528-530.

The Italian version of the article also mentions that, according to the biographies presented on certain negationist sites [“Secondo le biografie presenti in alcuni siti negazionisti”], he studied Latin, Greek, and Hebrew but, again, stresses that there are no elements that document his actually having taken any such classes [“non esistono elementi che provino l’effettiva partecipazione di Mattogno ad alcun percorso di studi in tal senso”].

The German article simply ignores the matter entirely.

B) I have no comments regarding his numerous publications or his institutional affiliations.

C) The last paragraph, which deserves to be quoted in full, reads as follows:

''Mainstream holocaust historians have regarded Mattogno’s work as valuable. The Institut für Zeitgeschichte (Institute of Contemporary History) in Munich quotes his 2005 book on the Central Construction Office at Auschwitz, ‘The Central Construction Office of the Waffen-SS and Police Auschwitz—Organization, Responsibilities, Activities’.,[8] whilst historian Ernst Nolte was impressed by Mattogno’s work, due to which he conceded that, with respect to ”their mastery of the source material and especially in their critique of the sources,” the revisionist studies on the topic ”probably surpass those of the established historians in Germany”.[9] Jean-Claude Pressac, who invited Mattogno into his home and regarded him as a scholar,[10] has stated of Mattogo that he is ”the best revisionist researcher”.[11]''

This paragraph really needs to be taken apart almost sentence by sentence:

1) Mainstream holocaust historians have regarded Mattogno’s work as valuable.

This quote is no more supported by hard evidence than its equivalent in the CODOH biography, which reads “''Even orthodox Holocaust scholars, who usually shy away from quoting revisionist publications like the devil avoids holy water, consider some of Mattogno’s research valuable.”

The Institut für Zeitgeschichte (Institute of Contemporary History) in Munich quotes his 2005 book on the Central Construction Office at Auschwitz, ‘The Central Construction Office of the Waffen-SS and Police Auschwitz—Organization, Responsibilities, Activities’.[8]''

For the sake of comparison, the CODOH site states that, “For instance, the German offical Institut für Zeitgeschichte (Institute of Contemporary History) in Munich quotes Mattogno’s book on the Central Construction Office in one of its tomes (N. Frei et al., Standort- und Kommandanturbefehle des Konzentrationslagers Auschwitz 1940-1945).”

Disregarding the fact that this is a highly unsatisfactory reference (as it is rather incomplete), it should be painfully obvious that the mere fact of quoting a book is meaningless in this context. Off the top of my head, among the recent authors I have read, Evans, Kershaw Lipstadt, and Lukacs all quote David Irving in their respective books, but by no stretch of one’s imagination could any of these quotes be deemed an endorsement of either Irving or his theories.

In point of fact, the Italian article on Mattogno states that:

L’Institut für Zeitgeschichte (Istituto di storia contemporanea) di Monaco in un saggio sulle fonti relative ad Auschwitz ha inserito nella propria bibliografia lo studio di Mattogno sulla Zentralbauleitung (l’Ufficio Centrale delle Costruzioni) del campo, avendolo citato in una nota a piè di pagina nell’introduzione del libro: questa singola citazione è spesso riportata dai siti negazionisti come “prova” della veridicità delle tesi di Mattogno.

In other words, Mattogno’s book was included in a footnote in the Introduction to the Institut’s essay on bibliographical sources relating to Auschwitz. The article then goes on to say that “this single quote is often reported by the Holocaust denial sites as “proof” of the veracity of the thesis of Mattogno”.

2) Moving on to Nolte:

[…] historian Ernst Nolte was impressed by Mattogno’s work, due to which he conceded that, with respect to ”their mastery of the source material and especially in their critique of the sources,” the revisionist studies on the topic ”probably surpass those of the established historians in Germany”.[9]

Again, half a truth is still a lie: yes, Nolte apparently praised Mattogno:

''Lo storico tedesco Ernst Nolte in una sua opera ha definito Mattogno “scienziato serio” anche perché a suo avviso: « non nega del resto la realtà di assassinii di massa degli ebrei o degli zingari; mette in dubbio esclusivamente la sua causalità a opera di una decisione del vertice dello Stato, quindi di Hitler, e nega la possibilità tecnica delle uccisioni nelle camere a gas »''

[German historian Ernst Nolte, in one of his books, called Mattogno a “serious scientist” because, in his view: “He does not deny the reality of the rest of the mass murder of Jews or Gypsies; he doubts only that it was the result of a decision from the top leadership of the state, which was then Hitler, and denies the technical possibility of killings in gas chambers”]

First, that apparently does not extend to all revisionist studies but only to Mattogno’s. But, again, according to the Italian version of the article:

''Anche questa affermazione è utilizzata dai negazionisti per rafforzare l’idea della serietà degli studi di Mattogno[14]. È da notare che in un altro punto dello stesso testo, Nolte però afferma che: « La tesi secondo la quale non sarebbero mai state prese misure di sterminio contro ebrei, zingari, malati mentali e slavi deve essere giudicata allo stesso modo dell’affermazione che Napoleone non sarebbe mai esistito, e dovrebbe passare quindi inosservata come la tipica espressione di un meschino lunatic fringe[15] »''

[This statement is used by Holocaust deniers to reinforce the idea of the seriousness of Mattogno’s studies [14]. However, it should be noted that in another part of the same text, Nolte says: “The argument that measures were never taken to exterminate the Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, and mentally ill, must be judged in the same manner as the claim that Napoleon never existed, and should therefore be ignored as the typical expression of a petty lunatic fringe[15]”]

3) Finally:

Jean-Claude Pressac, who invited Mattogno into his home and regarded him as a scholar,[10] has stated of Mattogo that he is ”the best revisionist researcher”.[11]

This one is interesting indeed: to begin with, here again, the source for the first part of this statement is, and I will put this as courteously as I can, of doubtful reliability, being a broadcast by Ernst Zündel, author of “The Hitler We Loved and Why”. Now, unless my command of Italian is much worse than that of Russ Granata, the “interpreter” for the interview, Mattogno never actually mentions the word “scholar” in reference to Pressac’s assessment of him.

Pressac does say, in the interview granted to Igounet (and quoted in the article), that Mattogno is the best researcher on the revisionist side [“le meilleur chercheur du côté révisionniste”], and goes on to describe how meticulous Mattogno is. But he concludes that section of the interview by saying:

''J’ai rencontré plusieurs fois Carlo Mattogno. Nos confrontations furent intéressantes et instructives. J’ai cessé tout dialogue avec lui dès que je me suis aperçu qu’au lieu de prendre acte des documents Topf que j’ai publiés, pièces inconstestables puisque rédigées par les ingénieurs de la firme, il se réfugiait derrière une argumentation de mauvaise foi pour les nier.''

[I met Carlo Mattogno on many occasions. Our confrontations were interesting and instructive. I put an end to any dialogue with him when I realized that instead of acknowledging the Topf documents I had published, which are unchallengeable documents, having been written by the firm’s engineers, he took refuge behind bad-faith arguments to deny them.] From Entretien avec Jean-Claude Pressac réalisé par Valérie Igounet, à La Ville-du-Bois, le jeudi 15 juin 1995, in Histoire du négationnisme en France, Paris, Le Seuil, 2000, pp 645-646.

Meanwhile, other academics who have challenged and refuted Mattogno’s theories, according to the Italian article, include John C. Zimmerman, Francesco Rotondi, Jonathan Harrison, Roberto Muehlenkamp, Jason Myers, Sergey Romanov, and Nicholas Terryla. His book, “Auschwitz: The First Gassing: Rumor and Reality”, was indexed by Germany’s Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons (Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefährdende Medien) on 08 February 2013.

In light of the above, I really believe this article should be rewritten or, at the very least, purged of all the… let us call it “claptrap” it currently contains. Perhaps a banner/tag/whatever warning potential readers of the article’s bias would not be out of place. And before I am told to “Be Bold” or whatever, let me state that I am not the person who should be writing (or rewriting) this kind of article.

Know your limitations, right?

PS: My apologies for the poor formatting. I experienced certain problems (trying to indent quotes, for example).

Le vrai Sabourin (talk) 04:19, 13 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I have rewritten the article according to the German Handbuch des Antisemtismus (2010). This is one of the few academic publications which provides at least some information on Mattogno. Holocausthandbooks.com promotes Holocaust deniers like Mattogno and is thus an unreliable source. I have also reworked the section listing Mattogno's "written works". That was closer to a book shop than to a bibliogtraphy and even included links to Germar Rudolf's book shop.--Assayer (talk) 16:43, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Don't know, if the original article was misleading, but for sure it is now. Official German publication on the subject, are far from being reliable sources. 105.4.0.175 (talk) 02:37, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

Selected works
I trimmed the long list which I felt was WP:UNDUE and kept those with ISBNs. The list should also be probably checked to see if any of the works are self-published. Please let me know if there are any concerns. K.e.coffman (talk) 01:56, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Amazon delisting
This edit diff seems to imply that there's some censorship program on the part of Amazon, instigated by a Jewish organisation. This does not adhere to the WP:NPOV policy and it has been removed. K.e.coffman (talk) 02:34, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

It does indeed state (not imply) that there's some censorship program on the part of Amazon, instigated by a Jewish organisation, and it proves this statement, or presents solid evidence of such, from the/a Jewish organization itself. How can such a proven statement not adhere to the WP:NPOV policy?

And by the way, please do us the kindness of attributing your actions to yourself, rather than employing the passive voice ("... it has been removed") I admit that such a device seems more-common among the British (you favor British spellings) than among, say, Americans such as myself, but I would claim the mantle of candor in making this request. Might agreeably reduce the imperious tone, as well. 172.7.129.89 (talk) 22:35, 7 April 2019 (UTC)