When did Holocaust denial arrive in America?

Paul Rassinier

It was not until the 1950s and 1960s that the Holocaust denial arrived in America, led by strong antisemitic and extremist groups. These early revisionists obtained their ideas from Rassinier’s opinion that the Holocaust was “created by Jewish leaders in order to control the world’s finances and increase support for Israel." American denier’s beliefs began to evolve, and in 1952 antisemite W. D. Herrstrom wrote Bible News Flashes all about how the five million illegal aliens in the United States were really the Jews that “supposedly” died in the Holocaust. “No use looking in Shickelgruber’s [Hitler’s] ovens for them. Walk down the streets of any American city. There they are,” said Herrstrom. This idea began as a small denial topic which confused many people who read Herrstrom’s book, but later evolved into a “mainstream” topic as author of Denying the Holocaust, Deborah E. Lipstadt would call it. Isolationist Harry Elmer Barnes is yet another American revisionist of the Holocaust. He began his revisionism during World War I, defending the Allies and blaming Germany for the start of the war. However, he had an unpredictable change in opinion and turned against the Allies right after WWI ended and sided with Germany for the remainder of his life.