The crux of Nolte 's thesis was presented when he wrote : " It is a notable shortcoming of the literature about National Socialism that it does not know or does not want to admit to what degree all the deeds — with the sole exception of the technical process of gassing — that the National Socialists later committed had already been described in a voluminous literature of the early 1920s : mass deportations and shootings , torture , death camps , extermination of entire groups using strictly objective selection criteria , and public demands for the annihilation of millions of guiltless people who were thought to be " enemies " . It is probable that many of these reports were exaggerated . It is certain that the “ White Terror ” also committed terrible deeds , even though its program contained no analogy to the “ extermination of the bourgeoisie ” . Nonetheless , the following question must seem permissible , even unavoidable : Did the National Socialists or Hitler perhaps commit an “ Asiatic ” deed merely because they and their ilk considered themselves to be the potential victims of an “ Asiatic ” deed ? Was n’t the ' Gulag Archipelago ' more original than Auschwitz ? Was the Bolshevik murder of an entire class not the logical and factual '' prius '' of the " racial murder " of National Socialism ? Can not Hitler 's most secret deeds be explained by the fact that he had '' not '' forgotten the rat cage ? Did Auschwitz in its root causes not originate in a past that would not pass ? " Nolte wrote the principle problem " for the coming generations ... must be liberation from collectivist thinking " , which Nolte claimed dominated scholarship on Nazi Germany . Nolte ended his essay with calling for a " more comprehensive debate " about the memory of Nazi Germany that would allow for " the past that will not go away " to finally go away " as is suitable for every past " . Nolte subsequently presented a 1940 book by American author Theodore N. Kaufman entitled '' Germany Must Perish ! '' . The text contends that all German men should be sterilized , evidencing , according to Nolte , the alleged " Jewish " desire to " annihilate " Germans prior to the Holocaust . An August 1941 appeal to the world by a group of Soviet Jews seeking support against Germany was also cited by Nolte as evidence of Jewish determination to thwart the '' Reich '' . Nolte argued that the Nazis felt forced to undertake the Holocaust by Hitler 's conclusion that the entire Jewish population of the world had declared war on Germany . From Nolte 's point of view , the Holocaust was an act of “ Asiatic barbarism ” forced on the Germans by the fear of what Joseph Stalin , whom Nolte believed to have significant Jewish support , might do to them . Nolte contends that the U.S. internment of Japanese Americans in the wake of the Pearl Harbor attack provides a parallel to the German " internment " of the Jewish population of Europe in concentration camps , in light of what Nolte alleges was the " Jewish " declaration of war on Germany in 1939 which Weizmann 's letter allegedly constitutes . Subsequently , Nolte expanded upon these views in his 1987 book '' Der europäische Bürgerkrieg , 1917 – 1945 '' ( '' The European Civil War , 1917 – 1945 '' ) in which he claimed that the entire 20th century was an age of genocide , totalitarianism , and tyranny , and that the Holocaust had been merely one chapter in the age of violence , terror and population displacement . Nolte claimed that this age had started with the genocide of the Armenians during World War I , and also included the Stalinist terror in the Soviet Union , the expulsion of ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe , Maoist terror in China as manifested in such events as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution , compulsory population exchanges between Greece and Turkey from 1922 to 1923 , American war crimes in the Vietnam War , the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia , and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan . In particular , Nolte argued that the expulsion of ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe in 1945 – 46 was " to be categorized ... under the concept of genocide " . As part of this argument , Nolte cited the 1979 book of the American historian Alfred-Maurice de Zayas , '' Die Wehrmacht Untersuchungsstelle '' , which argues that the Allies were just as guilty of war crimes as the Germans as the " happy evidence of the will to objectivity on the part of a foreigner " In Nolte 's opinion , Hitler was a " European citizen " who fought in defence of the values of the West against " Asiatic " Bolshevism , but due to his " total egocentrism " waged this struggle with unnecessary violence and brutality Since in Nolte 's view , the '' Shoah '' was not a unique crime , there is no reason to single out Germans for special criticism for the Holocaust . In addition , Nolte sees his work as the beginning of a much-needed revisionist treatment to end the " negative myth " of the Third Reich that dominates contemporary perceptions . Nolte took the view that the principle problem of German history was this “ negative myth ” of the Third Reich , which cast the Nazi era as the '' ne plus ultra '' of evil . Nolte wrote that after the American Civil War , the defeated South was cast as the symbol of total evil by the victorious North , but later “ revisionism ” became the dominant historical interpretation against the “ negative myth ” of the South , which led to a more balanced history of the Civil War with a greater understanding of the “ motives and way of life of the defeated Southern states ” , and led to the leaders of the Confederacy becoming great American heroes . Nolte urged that a similar “ revisionism ” destroy the “ negative myth ” of the Third Reich . Nolte argued that the Vietnam War , the Khmer Rouge genocide , the expulsion of " boat people " from Vietnam , the Islamic revolution in Iran , and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan meant the traditional picture of Nazi Germany as the ultimate in evil was no longer tenable , and proved the need for " revisionism " to put an end to the " negative myth " of the Third Reich . In Nolte 's view , the first efforts at revisionism of the Nazi period failed because A. J. P. Taylor 's 1961 book '' The Origins of the Second World War '' was only a part of the " anti-German literature of indictment " while David Hoggan in '' Der erzwugnene Krieg '' , by only seeking to examine why World War II broke out in 1939 , " cut himself off from the really decisive questions " . Then the next revisionist efforts Nolte cites were the Italian historian Domenico Settembrini 's favorable treatment of Fascism for saving Italy from Communism , and the British historian Timothy Mason 's studies in working class German history . The best of the revisionists according to Nolte is David Irving , with whom Nolte finds some fault , although " not all of Irving 's theses and points can be dismissed with such ease " . Nolte praises Irving as the first to understand that Weizmann 's letter to Chamberlain was a " Jewish declaration of war " on Germany that justified the " interning " of the Jews of Europe . Nolte went on to praise Irving for putting the Holocaust " in a more comprehensive perspective " by comparing it to the British fire-bombing of Hamburg in 1943 , which Nolte views as just much of an act of genocide as the " Final Solution " . The sort of revisionism needed to end the " negative myth " of the Third Reich is , in Nolte 's opinion , an examination of the impact of the Russian Revolution on Germany
Khmer Rouge genocide
Cambodian genocide
Historikerstreit