What exactly do holocaust deniers even believe happened, if not the holocaust?
They're conspiracy theorists, right? Like a prejudiced version of moon landing deniers, 9/11 truthers, and flat earthers?
Holocaust deniers generally fall into two categories:
- Those who straight up deny the Holocaust happened, they argue that there weren't that many Jews in Europe to begin with before WWII, that at most ~250,000 Jews died as civilian casualties in World War II, and that there was no effort by the Nazis to do anything to Jews in particular.
- Those who recognize that the Holocaust happened but generally try to downplay its severity at every turn... E.g., it wasn't 6million Jews, it was 2million Jews; The Nazis weren't targeting Jews for being Jewish, they were targeting all non-Germans in Germany/Austria/Europe; "The Holocaust may be bad, but the result of the Holocaust [what they see as the State of Israel] is worse!"
What's truly bizarre is the fairly common breed of neonazi who idolize Nazis for targeting Jews, yet deny that the Holocaust happened. It's... this bizarre contradiction. Like, they're wearing swastika armbands because the Nazis stood up for the Aryan race, but they don't recognize what the Nazis did for standing up for the Aryan race... Like... what?
And yeah, holocaust deniers are conspiracy theorists. Holocaust denial is one of the top conspiracy theories since World War II, and probably the most common/pervasive. Aside from other insidious conspiracies about Jews (e.g., Jews control the media, Jews control the press, Jews control the banks, Israel only exists because of Jewish money, etc), denying the holocaust is the most common conspiracy theory in the world.