Harry Elmer Barnes (15 June 1889 – 25 August 1968) was a prominent American
historianAn historian is an individual who studies and writes about history, and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all events in time...
in the 20th century. Associated for virtually his entire career with
Columbia UniversityColumbia University in the City of New York is a private university in the United States and a member of the Ivy League. Columbia's main campus lies in the Morningside Heights neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan, in New York City...
, Barnes at one time was held in high academic esteem but later lost his credibility with legitimate historians by entering into the practice of
historical revisionismHistorical revisionism is either the legitimate scholastic re-examination of existing knowledge about an historical event, or the illegitimate distortion of the historical record such that certain events appear in a more or less favourable light. For the former, i.e. the academic pursuit, see...
, and specifically
Holocaust denialHolocaust denial is the claim that the genocide of Jews during World War II—usually referred to as the Holocaust—did not occur at all, or that it did not happen in the manner or to the extent historically recognized....
.
Early career
In 1925 He edited
A Manual of Universal History, a revision of William H. Tillinghast's
A Handbook of Universal History. This work's organizational structure was the outline used in
William L. LangerWilliam Leonard Langer was the chair of the history department at Harvard University and the World War II volunteer head of the Research and Analysis branch of the Office of Strategic Services.-Biography:...
's
An Encyclopedia of World History.
During World War I, Barnes had been a strong supporter of the war effort with the anti-German propaganda he had written being rejected by the National Board for Historical Service describing Barnes’s writing as “too violent to be acceptable” After the war, Barnes views towards Germany underwent a volte-face with Barnes becoming as
GermanophileA Germanophile is a person who is fond of German culture, and Germany in general, exhibiting as it were German nationalism in spite of not being an ethnic German. The term was especially in use in the 19th to 20th centuries after the creation of the German nation state and the rise of the German...
as he previously had been
GermanophobicAnti-German sentiment is defined as a fear or hatred of Germany, its people, and the German language.-Russia:In the 1860s Russia experienced an outbreak of Germanophobia, mainly restricted to a small group of writers in St. Petersburg who had united around a right wing newspaper...
In the 1920s, Barnes was noted as a vehement advocate that Germany borne no responsibility for the outbreak of war in 1914, and had instead been the victim of Allied aggression
Barnes’s research on the origins of World War I in the 1920s was generously funded by the German Foreign Ministry, which wished to prove that Germany had not started World War I as a way of undermining the
Treaty of VersaillesThe Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of...
In his articles on the causes of World War I in
The Nation,
Current History,
Christian Century and above all in his 1927 book
The Genesis of the World War Barnes portrayed
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
and
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
as the aggressors of the July Crisis of 1914, and
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
and
Austria-HungaryAustria–Hungary, also known as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the k.u.k. Monarchy, or Dual State, was a monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in Central Europe...
as the victims of a Franco-Russian plot After 1924, Barnes had a close relationship with the former
völkischThe völkisch movement is the German interpretation of the populist movement, with a romantic focus on folklore and the "organic". The term völkisch, meaning "ethnic", derives from the German word Volk , corresponding to "people", with connotations in German of "people-powered", "folksy" and...
activist Major Alfred von Wegerer’s Centre for the Study of the Causes of the War, a pseudo-historical think-tank based in Berlin secretly funded by the German government, whose sole purpose was to prove Germany was the victim of aggression in 1914, and hence the alleged moral invalidity of the Versailles treaty The Centre provided Barnes with research material, made funds available to him, translated his writings into other languages, and funded his trip to Germany in 1926 During Barnes's 1926 trip to Germany he received a most friendly welcome for his efforts as Barnes described it in “seeking to clear Germany of the dishonour and fraud of the war-guilt clause of the Treaty of Versailles” During his European trip, Barnes met with the former Emperor, Wilhelm II at his estate in the Netherlands who told Barnes that he “was happy to know that I did not blame him for starting the war in 1914”, but that “He disagreed with my view that Russia and France were chiefly responsible. He held that the villains of 1914 were the international Jews and Free Masons, who, he alleged, desired to destroy national states and the Christian religion” Wilhelm's anti-Semitic remarks to Barnes about
World War IWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
as a result of a alleged Jewish conspiracy were to have a major influence on Barnes's understanding of international relations. To assist Barnes with his writings against the so-called
Kriegschuldlüge ("war guilt lie"), the Germans put Barnes into contact with a disreputable former Serbian diplomat living in Berlin named Milos Boghitschewitsch, who in exchange for German gold provided false testimony about the actions of the Serbian government in 1914 The German government so liked Barnes’s writings on the causes of World War I that it provided free copies of his articles to hand out at German embassies around the world Through most German historians in the 1920s regarded Barnes merely as a propagandist whose work was mainly meant to appeal to a mass as opposed to an academic audience, the right-wing German historian Hans Herzfeld called Barnes’s work “a document in the struggle for the war guilt thesis whose noble spirit cannot be appreciated enough” The German-Canadian historian Holger Herwig has commented that Barnes's work on the origins of World War I together with others of a similar bend did immense scholarly damage as generations of university students accepted Barnes' "apologias" for Germany as the truth
Barnes's very public attacks on the idea of
World War IWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
as a just war, and his thesis that the United States should not have fought in the war won him the admiration and friendship in the 1920s of many people in the United States such
Oswald Garrison VillardOswald Garrison Villard was an American journalist. He provided a rare direct link between the classical liberal anti-imperialism of the late 19th century and the conservative "Old Right" of the 1930s and 1940s....
, the Socialist leader
Norman ThomasNorman Mattoon Thomas was a leading American socialist, pacifist, and six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America.-Early years:...
; the critic
H. L. MenckenHenry Louis "H. L." Mencken , was an American journalist, essayist, magazine editor, satirist, acerbic critic of American life and culture, and a student of American English...
; and the historian Charles Beard. Long regarded as a leader of the
progressiveProgressivism is a political and social term for ideologies and movements favoring or advocating changes or reform, usually in a statist or egalitarian direction for economic policies and liberal direction for social policies...
intelligentsia, Barnes joined many of its intellectual leaders such as Charles Beard in opposing from the left the
New DealThe New Deal was the name that United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave to his complex package of economic programs 1933-36 with the goals of what historians call the 3 Rs, of giving Relief to the unemployed and badly hurt farmers, Reform of business and financial practices, and promoting...
and, at the price of their reputations, American entry into
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. In the years following the war, he argued that
Adolf HitlerAdolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , popularly known as the Nazi Party...
did not want to go to war with the United States and that
President RooseveltFranklin Delano Roosevelt , the only U.S. President elected to more than two terms, was a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
had deliberately provoked the
attack on Pearl HarborThe attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Japanese navy against the United States' naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of Sunday, December 7, 1941 , later resulting in the United...
. He also contested many aspects of the Holocaust, claiming death figures were far lower , arguing that all sides were guilty of equally awful atrocities.
Nazi sympathizer
In the late 1930s, Barnes emerged as a leading isolationist and German apologist who defended German foreign policy as a legitimate effort to overthrow the
Treaty of VersaillesThe Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of...
, which Barnes regarded as monstrously unfair to Germany After World War II, Barnes continued to expound his pre-war views of European diplomacy. In 1939, Barnes published an article that claimed that the British diplomat
Robert VansittartRobert Gilbert Vansittart, 1st Baron Vansittart, GCB, GCMG, PC was a senior British diplomat in the period before and during World War II. He was also the second cousin of Thomas Edward Lawrence -Diplomatic career:He was educated at Eton College...
with scheming to commit aggression against Germany in the late 1930s As a result, Vansittart sued Barnes for libel In a letter to his friend
Oswald VillardOswald Garrison Villard was an American journalist. He provided a rare direct link between the classical liberal anti-imperialism of the late 19th century and the conservative "Old Right" of the 1930s and 1940s....
, Barnes called Vansittart's libel suit a "plot of the Jews and the Anti-Defamation League to intimidate any American historians who propose to tell the truth about the causes of the war" Barnes called
Louis NizerLouis Nizer was a noted Jewish-American trial lawyer and senior partner of the law firm Phillips Nizer Benjamin Krim & Ballon...
, Vansittart's lawyer an "Anti-Defamation League stooge" who Barnes alleged had "needled Vansittart into action" Barnes wrote:
"If I could raise money enough for a real defense we could make this an international cause celebre, but I cannot fight the thirty million dollars now in the coffers of the Anti-Defamation League to be used for character assassination on empty pockets. If we let them get away with this, we are licked from the start"
The American historian
Deborah LipstadtDeborah Esther Lipstadt is an American historian and author of the book Denying the Holocaust. She is the Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies at Emory University. She received her BA from City College of New York and her MA and PhD from Brandeis University.Lipstadt was a...
has pointed out that the
Anti-Defamation LeagueThe Anti-Defamation League is an international non-governmental organization based in the United States of America. Describing itself as "the nation's premier civil rights/human relations agency", the ADL states that it "fights anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry, defends democratic ideals and...
had nothing to do with Vansittart or his libel suit against Barnes, and has argued that Barnes's claims otherwise were a sign of his
anti-SemitismAntisemitism is prejudice against or hostility towards Jews, often rooted in hatred of their ethnic background, culture, or religion....
In 1940, the
New York World-TelegramThe New York World-Telegram, later known as the New York World-Telegram and Sun, was a New York City newspaper from 1931 to 1966....
newspaper dropped Barnes's weekly column, which led Barnes to claim that this was a result of a conspiracy involving
MI6The Secret Intelligence Service , colloquially known as MI6 is the United Kingdom's external intelligence agency, part of the country's intelligence community. Under the direction of the Joint Intelligence Committee , it works alongside the Security Service , Government Communications Headquarters...
, the House of Morgan, and all of the Jewish department store owners in
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
, whom Barnes had alleged threatened the publisher of the
New York World-Telegram with the "loss of all advertising if he kept me on any longer"
In a 1947 pamphlet,
The Struggle Against The Historical Blackout, Barnes claimed a massive “blackout” had committed with regards to the history of the outbreak of war in 1939 with “court historians” alleged to have suppressed that Hitler was the most “reasonable” leader in the world in 1939, and that France's Premier
Édouard DaladierÉdouard Daladier was a French Radical politician, and Prime Minister of France at the start of the Second World War.-Career:...
wanted to commit aggression against Germany aided and abetted by a scheming and dishonest British Prime Minister
Neville ChamberlainArthur Neville Chamberlain was a British Conservative politician and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1937 to 1940...
and the U. S President
Franklin D. RooseveltFranklin Delano Roosevelt , the only U.S. President elected to more than two terms, was a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
In the same pamphlet, Barnes claimed that as part of the alleged smear campaign that had been committed against Germany, Allied governments had falsely charged Germany with responsibility for crimes that she did not commit In a letter to his friend
Oswald VillardOswald Garrison Villard was an American journalist. He provided a rare direct link between the classical liberal anti-imperialism of the late 19th century and the conservative "Old Right" of the 1930s and 1940s....
in 1948, Barnes stated that it was
Winston ChurchillSir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill KG, OM, CH, TD, FRS, PC was a British politician known chiefly for his leadership of the United Kingdom during World War II. He served as Prime Minister from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. A noted statesman and orator, Churchill was also an officer...
and
Franklin D. RooseveltFranklin Delano Roosevelt , the only U.S. President elected to more than two terms, was a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
“backed by certain pressure groups” who caused the outbreak of war in 1939 Later in 1948, Barnes wrote up a statement that announced France was repeatedly committed aggression against Germany, and that “Offhand I cannot recall a really unprovoked German invasion of France in modern times” Barnes’s statement contained a list of every French invasion of Germany starting in 1552 and ended with: “1918 French invade Germany with American aid. 1944-45 French again ride into Germany on the backs of the Americans”
Deborah LipstadtDeborah Esther Lipstadt is an American historian and author of the book Denying the Holocaust. She is the Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies at Emory University. She received her BA from City College of New York and her MA and PhD from Brandeis University.Lipstadt was a...
has commented that in the last two cases, Barnes appeared unaware that Germany that started both world wars. In a letter to his friend Charles Tansill in 1950, Barnes described German foreign policy in 1939 as the “most reasonable of them all” Barnes wrote it was Britain that “almost solely responsible for the outbreak of war on both the Eastern and Western fronts” In Barnes’s view, Germany did not “precipitously launch” an invasion of
PolandPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe . Poland is bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
in 1939, but was instead “forced” into war by British “acts of economic strangulation”
Holocaust denial
In 1955, Barnes first met
David HogganDavid Leslie Hoggan was an American Holocaust Denier and negationist historical writer, author of The Forced War: When Peaceful Revision Failed and other works in the German and English languages.-Early life:...
, and was played a key role in helping Hoggan turned his 1948 PhD dissertation
The Breakdown of German-Polish Relations in 1939: The Conflict Between the German New Order and the Polish Idea of Central Eastern Europe into his 1961 book,
Der erzwungene Kreig (
The Forced War), in which Hoggan blamed Britain and Poland for
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
In his 1962 pamphlet,
Revisionism and Brainwashing, Barnes claimed that there a “lack of any serious opposition or concerted challenge to the atrocity stories and other modes of defamation of German national character and conduct” Barnes went to write that in his view there was “a failure to point out the atrocities of the Allies were more brutal, painful, mortal and numerous than the most extreme allegations made against the Germans” Starting at this time, Barnes started to cite the French Holocaust denier
Paul RassinierPaul Rassinier was a French pacifist, political activist, and author. He was also an anti-Nazi French Resistance fighter, and a prisoner of the German concentration camps at Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora...
, whom Barnes called a “distinguished French historian” whom Barnes claimed had exposed the “exaggerations of the atrocity stories” In an article entitled “Zionist Fraud” published in the
American Mercury, Barnes wrote that:
“The courageous author [Rassinier] lays the chief blame for misrepresentation on those whom we must call the swindlers of the crematoria, the Israeli politicians who derive billions of marks from nonexistent, mythical and imaginary cadavers, whose numbers have been reckoned in an unusually distorted and dishonest manner”
Using Rassinier as a his source, Barnes claimed that Germany was the victim of aggression in both 1914 and 1939, and
the HolocaustThe Holocaust , also known as The Shoah is the term generally used to describe the genocide of approximately six million European Jews during World War II, a program of systematic state-sponsored extermination by Nazi Germany,...
was just propaganda to justify a war of aggression against Germany Barnes took the view that World War II had ended in disaster for the West with Germany divided and the United States locked into the
Cold WarThe Cold War was the continuing state of political conflict, military tension, and economic competition existing after World War II , primarily between the USSR and its satellite states, and the powers of the Western world, including the United States...
, made the all worse in Barnes’s eyes, as his view Germany never wanted war Barnes claimed that in order to justify the “horrors and evils of the Second World War”, required that the Allies make the Nazis the “scapegoat” for their own misdeeds Barnes claimed there were two false claims made about World War II, namely that Germany started the war in 1939, and the Holocaust, which Barnes denied In Barnes’s opinion:
“Hitler setting off the war was also deemed responsible for the wholesale extermination of the Jews, for it was admitted that this did not begin until a considerable time after war broke out”
Barnes went to claim:
“The size of the German reparations to Israel has been based on the theory that vast numbers of Jews were exterminated at the express order of Hitler, some six million being the most usually accepted number”
In his article, "Revisionism: A Key to Peace", Barnes wrote::
“Even if one were to accept the most extreme and exaggerated indictment of Hitler and the National Socialists for their activities after 1939 made by anybody fit to remain outside a mental hospital, it is most alarmingly easy to demontrate that the atrocities of the Allies in the same period were more numerous as to victims and were carried out for the most part by methods more brutal and painful that alleged extermination in gas ovens" (emphaisis in the original)
In 1967 pamphlet, "The Public Stake in Revisionism", Barnes claimed that the alleged historial "blackout" with regards to World War II had now become a smotherout" as a result of the trial of
Adolf EichmannOtto Adolf Eichmann , sometimes referred to as "the architect of the Holocaust", was a Nazi and SS-Obersturmbannführer...
Writing about the Eichmann trial of 1961, Barnes claimed that the trial showed:
“an almost adolescent gullibility and excitability on the part of Americans relative to German wartime crimes, real or alleged"
. Barnes claimed that the charges against Eichmann rested on:
"fundamental but unproved assumptions that what Hitler and the National Socialists did in the years after Britain and the United States entered the war revealed that were...vile, debased, brutal and bloodthirsty gangsters" (emphasis in the original)
Barnes accused the American media of publishing "sensational articles" about "exaggerated National Socialist savagery" Barnes described the
expulsionBy the end of World War II, most of the German population fled or was expelled from areas outside the territory of post-war Germany and post-war Austria, including:...
of Germans from Eastern Europe as the "final solution" for the German people, and writing of the expulsion of the ethnic Germans from the
SudetenlandSudetenland is the German name used in English in the first half of the 20th century for the western regions of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans, specifically the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia associated with Bohemia.The name is derived from the...
region of
CzechoslovakiaCzechoslovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
in 1945-46 claimed that " at least four million of them perished in the process from butchery, starvation and disease" Barnes wrote in his view that the Anglo-American bombing offensive together with the expulsions of the ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe were far worse then anything the Nazis were alleged to have done In "The Public Stake in Revisionisim" , Barnes wrote that:
“The number of civilians exterminated by the Allies, before, during, and after the Second World War, equalled, if it did not far exceed thsoe liquidated by the Germans and the Allied liquidation program was often carried out by methods which were far more brutal and painful that whatever extermination actually took place in German gas ovens"
.Barnes claimed that certain unnamed historians were guilty of ensuring that Allied war crimes were never "cogently and frankly placed over against the doings,
real or alleged, at Auschwitz" Barnes admitted to the existence of concentration camps in Nazi Germany, but denied there were ever death camps Barnes charged that when "court historians" were forced by "revisionists" to admit there were no death camps that the evidence for gas chambers at the death camps was manufactured Barnes claimed that:
"What is deemed important today is not whether Hitler started war in 1939 or whether Roosevelt was responsible for Pearl Harbour, but the number of prisoners were were allegedly doen to death in the concentration camps operated by Germany during the war. These camps were first presented as those in Germany, such as Dachau, Belsen, Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen, and Dora, but it was demonstrated that there had been no systematic extermination in those camps. Attention was then moved on to Auschwitz, Treblinka, Belzec, Chelmno, Jonoska, Tarnow, Ravensbrück, Mauthausen, Breznia and Birkenau, which does not exhaust the list that appears to have been extended as needed" (Deborah Lipstadt notes here that Barnes was so clueless about the Holocaust that he did not know that Birkenau and Breznia were the same camp; Breznia being merely the Polish name for Birkenau)
. Barnes claimed that "court historians" to keep the public from getting "bored", manufactured stories about German crimes against hummanity that were "made more unceasing, exaggerated and inflammatory" In response to Barnes's claims, in 1962
Martin BroszatMartin Broszat was a German historian specializing in modern German social history whose work has been described by The Encyclopedia of Historians as indispenable for any serious study of the Third Reich. Broszat was born in Leipzig, Germany and studied history at the University of Leipzig and at...
wrote a letter arguing for the differences between concentration and death camps In his letter to the
Die ZeitDie Zeit is a German nationwide weekly newspaper that is highly respected for its quality journalism. With a circulation of 488,036 and an estimated readership of slightly above 2 million, it is the most widely read German weekly newspaper...
newspaper, Broszat wrote that he wanted to "hammer home, once more, the persistently ignored or denied difference between concentration and extermination camps". In his letter, Broszat claimed this was not an "admission" that there was no Holocaust, but rather an attempt to "set the record straight" about the differences between concentration and death camps. Broszat noted the differences between
concentration campsNazi Germany, under Adolf Hitler, maintained concentration camps throughout the territories it controlled. The first Nazi concentration camps were greatly expanded in Germany after the Reichstag fire in 1933, and were intended to hold political prisoners and opponents of the regime...
, which were places where the inmates were consistently mistreated, but were not the subject of annihilation, and death camps, which existed solely for the purpose of exterminating their inmates. Broszat denied there was a functioning gas chamber at the Dachau concentration camp (though he noted that one was built shortly before the end of the war as part of the effort to convert Dachau into a death camp, but was never used). Broszat commented that though there were many concentration camps in Germany, all of the German death camps for the genocide of the European Jews were located in Poland. Broszat argued that this confusion between in the public's mind between concentration and death camps, and the tendency to erroneously describle Dachau as a death camp was aiding the early Holocaust deniers like
Paul RassinierPaul Rassinier was a French pacifist, political activist, and author. He was also an anti-Nazi French Resistance fighter, and a prisoner of the German concentration camps at Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora...
,
David HogganDavid Leslie Hoggan was an American Holocaust Denier and negationist historical writer, author of The Forced War: When Peaceful Revision Failed and other works in the German and English languages.-Early life:...
, and Barnes who were making much of the fact that there was no functioning gas chamber at Dachau. In the same way, Barnes denied that the
EinsatzgruppenEinsatzgruppen were SS paramilitary groups that took part in the systematic killing of mostly civilians throughout occupied Eastern Europe during World War II.-Background:...
murdered millions of Jews in the occupied Soviet Union, and instead claimed that the
Einsatzgruppen were merely "battling guerilla warfare behind the lines"
Barnes often attacked
West GermanyWest Germany is a common English name for the period of the Federal Republic of Germany between its' formation in May 1949 to German reunification in October 1990, when the German Democratic Republic was dissolved and the five states on its territory joined the Federal Republic of Germany,...
for apologizing to the Jews for the Holocaust Barnes wrote that the West German government should challenge the "unfair" verdict and "false dogmas" of
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, which he claimed prevented "the restoration of Germany to its proper position of unity, power and respect among the nations of the world" Barnes drew unfavorable contrasts between the
Weimar RepublicThe Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government, named after Weimar, the place where the constitutional assembly took place. Its official name was still Deutsches Reich , however...
, which had in the 1920s vigorously fought the so-called
Kriegschuldlüge ("war guilt lie") that Germany started the First World War in 1914 with the "masochistic" behavior of the government of
Konrad AdenauerKonrad Hermann Josef Adenauer , 5 January 1876 – 19 April 1967) was a German statesman.Although his political career spanned sixty years, beginning as early as 1906, he is most noted for his role as the first Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1949–1963 and chairman of the...
in the 1950s Barnes accused Adenauer of having "brainwashed" and "indoctrinated the German people into believing an "indictment of German responsibility for the war" Barnes went to accuse Adenauer of "opposing the discovery and publication of the truth" Barnes professed to be "deeply puzzled" that the West German government was willing to accept responsibility for the Holocaust and its "downright disinclination to seek to refute the most outrageous charges of cruelty and barbarism levelled agaisnt Germany by conscienceless atrocity mongers and the continuation to this very day of not-so-little Nuremberg trials" In 1962, Barnes attacked the West German president
Heinrich LübkeKarl Heinrich Lübke was President of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1959 to 1969. Lübke had a very humble upbringing. He was the son of a shoemaker and farmer from the Sauerland and surveyor by training. He volunteered for service in World War I, reaching the rank of Lieutenant...
for asking for a speech in Israel for forgiveness for the German people for the Holocaust Barnes called the speech "almost incredible grovelling" and "subserviency" to the Jews Barnes often claimed that Jews had promoted the view, which he considered false that Jews had been the victims of anti-Semitism throughout the ages Barnes claimed that those questioned this view were unjustly labeled anti-Semitic According to Barnes, those behind the "smotherout" about Nazi Germany believed that "it was far worse to exterminate Jews, even at the ratio of two Gentiles to one Jew, than to liquiate Gentiles"
Authors such as
Deborah LipstadtDeborah Esther Lipstadt is an American historian and author of the book Denying the Holocaust. She is the Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies at Emory University. She received her BA from City College of New York and her MA and PhD from Brandeis University.Lipstadt was a...
have argued that Barnes was a key figure in pioneering modern
conspiracy theoryConspiracy theory is a term that originally was a neutral descriptor for any conspiracy claim. However, it has come almost exclusively to refer to any fringe theory which explains a historical or current event as the result of a secret plot by usually powerful Machiavellian conspirators.Conspiracy...
and
Holocaust denialHolocaust denial is the claim that the genocide of Jews during World War II—usually referred to as the Holocaust—did not occur at all, or that it did not happen in the manner or to the extent historically recognized....
, and have noted Barnes's close association with David L. Hoggan and his praise for Hoggan's 1961 book
Der Erzwungene Krieg as the definitive account of how
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
began.
Work
- A History of the Penal, Reformatory and Correctional Institutions of the State of New Jersey, MacCrellish, 1918.
- History, Its Rise and Development: A Survey of the Progress of Historical Writing From its Origins to the Present Day, Encyclopedia Americana Corp., 1919, first published in 1919 edition of Encyclopedia Americana; The Social History of the Western World, Appleton, 1921
- The Social History of the Western World, an Outline Syllabus, New York, D. Appleton, 1921.
- Sociology and Political Theory, a consideration of the sociological basis of politics, New York, Knopf, 1925, 1924.
- Co-written with Karl Worth Bigelow, and Jean Brunhes The History and Prospects of the Social Sciences, New York, A. A. Knopf, 1925
- Psychology and History, Century, 1925.
- The New History and the Social Studies, New York, The Century co., 1925
- Ploetz's Epitome of History, New York : Blue Ribbon, 1925
- The Repression of Crime; Studies in Historical Penology, Montclair, N.J., P. Smith, 1969, 1926
- History and Social Intelligence, New York : A. A. Knopf, 1926.
- The Evolution of Penology in Pennsylvania; a study in American social history, Montclair, N.J., Patterson Smith, 1968, 1927.
- Co-written with Melvin M. Knight & Felix Fluegel Economic History of Europe, Boston, New York : Houghton Mifflin, 1928.
- Living in the Twentieth Century; a Consideration of How We Go This Way, Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill 1928
- In Quest of Truth and Justice; Debunking The War Guilt Myth, Chicago, National Historical Society, 1928.
- The Genesis of the World War; an Introduction to the Problem of War Guilt, New York, Knopf, 1929.
- (With Elisabeth A. Dexter and Mabel Walker) The Making of a Nation, Knopf, 1929.
- World Politics in Modern Civilization: The Contributions of Nationalism, Capitalism, Imperialism and Militarism to Human Culture and International Anarchy, Knopf, 1930.
- The Story of Punishment: A Record of Man's Inhumanity to Man, Stratford, C., c.1930, 2nd edition, 1972.
- Battling the Crime Wave : applying sense and science to the repression of crime, Boston, Mass. : Stratford, 1931.
- Can Man Be Civilized?, New York, Brentano's 1932.
- Prohibition Versus Civilization: Analyzing the Dry Psychosis, Viking, 1932.
- Money Changers vs. The New Deal; a Candid Analysis of the Inflation Controversy, New York, R. Long & R. R. Smith, 1934.
- The History of Western Civilization, New York : Harcourt, Brace and company 1935
- Famous New Deals of History, W.H. Wise & Co., New York, NY 1935.
- An Economic History of the Western World, New York, Harcourt, Brace, 1937
- Co-written with Bernard Myers, Walter B. Scott, Edward Hubler & Martin Bernstein An Intellectual and Cultural History of the Western World, New York : Random House, 1937, 1941, 1965.
- A History of Historical Writing, Norman : University of Oklahoma Press, 1938 revised edition New York : Dover Publications, 1963.
- (With Howard Beck and others) Social Thought From Lore to Science, two volumes, Heath, c.1938, 3rd edition published in three volumes, Dover, 1961.
- Social Institutions In an Era of World Upheaval, New York, Prentice-Hall, , 1942.
- Co-written with Negley K. Teeters New Horizons in Criminology; the American Crime Problem, New Tork, Prentice-Hall Inc, 1943; revised edition Englewood Cliffs, N.J : Prentice-Hall, 1961, 1959
- Pennsylvania Penology: 1944, Pennsylvania Municipal Publications Service, 1944.
- A Survey of Western Civilization, Crowell, 1947.
- Historical Sociology: Its Origins and Development; Theories of Social Evolution From Cave Life to Atomic bombing, New York : Philosophical Library, 1948
- Co-Edited with Howard Becker & Frances Bennett Becker Contemporary Social Theory, New York : Russell & Russell, 1971, 1948.
- An Introduction to the History of Sociology, Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1948.
- Co-written with Oreen M. Ruedi The American Way of Life; an introduction to the study of contemporary society, New York, Prentice-Hall, 1950.
- The Struggle Against the Historical Blackout, 1949, 9th edition, 1952. Author of booklets in his field.
- Society in Transition, New York, Greenwood Press, 1968
- Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace : a Critical Examination of the Foreign Policy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and its Aftermath, New York : Greenwood Press, 1969, 1953.
- Blasting the Historical Blackout in Britain : Professor A. J. P. Taylor's "The Origins of the Second World War" ; its Nature, Reliability, Shortcomings and Implications, 1963.
- (With Nathan F. Leopold, Jr. and others) The Future of Imprisonment in a Free Society, St. Leonard's House, 1965.
- Pearl Harbor after a Quarter of a Century, New York : Arno Press, 1972 ISBN 0-405-00413-3.
- Selected Revisionist Pamphlets, New York : Arno Press, 1972
- The Chickens of the Interventionist Liberals Have Come Home To Roost; the Bitter Fruits Of Globaloney, New York, Revisionist Press, 1973 ISBN 0-87700-194-4.
Reference
- Herwig, Holger “Clio Deceived Patriotic Self-Censorship in Germany after the Great War” pages 5–44 from International Security, Volume 12, Issue 2, Fall 1987.
- Goddard, Arthur (ed.) Harry Elmer Barnes, Learned Crusader: The New History In Action New York: Ralph Myles Publishing, 1968.
External links
- Pearl Harbor after a Quarter Century by Harry Elmer Barnes
- Obituary for Barnes by Murray Rothbard which appeared, along with the previous essay, in Left and Right, Volume 4, Number 1; 1968.
- Harry Elmer Barnes as Revisionist of the Cold War by Murray Rothbard, a reprint of an article which first appeared in Arthur Goddard, ed., Harry Elmer Barnes: Learned Crusader (Colorado Springs: Ralph Myles, Publisher, Inc., 1968).
- A Brief History of Holocaust Denial by Ben Austin