1 00:00:01,680 --> 00:00:13,080 Speaker 1: Wol Zone Media. In March of twenty twenty five, an 2 00:00:13,119 --> 00:00:18,880 Speaker 1: episode of this show disappeared. It only existed at all 3 00:00:19,160 --> 00:00:23,240 Speaker 1: for a few weeks, and its absence was obvious because 4 00:00:23,280 --> 00:00:25,479 Speaker 1: it was the second half of a story whose beginning 5 00:00:26,079 --> 00:00:30,520 Speaker 1: is still there. A lot of you have asked what 6 00:00:30,720 --> 00:00:36,440 Speaker 1: happened to that episode, and I can't exactly tell you that, 7 00:00:37,320 --> 00:00:41,560 Speaker 1: not in any kind of satisfying detail, but I have 8 00:00:41,760 --> 00:00:48,600 Speaker 1: finally rewritten and re recorded it. When an episode of 9 00:00:48,600 --> 00:00:52,720 Speaker 1: a podcast disappears, with that explanation, it's only natural to 10 00:00:52,760 --> 00:00:56,760 Speaker 1: speculate about what happened behind the scenes. Maybe there was 11 00:00:56,800 --> 00:01:03,400 Speaker 1: some sort of scandal, plagiarism, information, sloppy research, factual errors, 12 00:01:04,000 --> 00:01:08,240 Speaker 1: maybe some kind of offensive slip of the tongue. It's 13 00:01:08,280 --> 00:01:13,120 Speaker 1: happened to other shows. Sometimes it gets addressed, and sometimes 14 00:01:13,120 --> 00:01:17,399 Speaker 1: it doesn't. Sometimes it's not really something that can be 15 00:01:17,480 --> 00:01:21,600 Speaker 1: aired out. If there's litigation of some kind, it's best 16 00:01:21,600 --> 00:01:26,240 Speaker 1: to say nothing at all. None of those things happened here. 17 00:01:27,080 --> 00:01:30,840 Speaker 1: That much I can promise you. I stand behind my 18 00:01:30,920 --> 00:01:35,240 Speaker 1: research one hundred and ten percent. I have sources for 19 00:01:35,319 --> 00:01:38,720 Speaker 1: my facts, and I try to be clear when I'm 20 00:01:38,760 --> 00:01:43,479 Speaker 1: only offering up conjecture based on those facts. I try 21 00:01:43,480 --> 00:01:48,240 Speaker 1: to be even clearer when I'm just bitballing. There was 22 00:01:48,320 --> 00:01:55,320 Speaker 1: no inaccuracy. That sounds cocky, but it's true. I've been 23 00:01:55,360 --> 00:01:59,360 Speaker 1: writing unflattering things about dangerous men for a long time now. 24 00:02:00,480 --> 00:02:05,040 Speaker 1: I'm thorough and I'm careful, and one of the lessons 25 00:02:05,080 --> 00:02:07,800 Speaker 1: I've learned over the years is that a lot of 26 00:02:07,840 --> 00:02:12,080 Speaker 1: people don't really like it when you write honestly about 27 00:02:12,080 --> 00:02:16,880 Speaker 1: the ugly things they've been doing and saying I'm used 28 00:02:16,919 --> 00:02:19,840 Speaker 1: to that. So when a man with a history of 29 00:02:19,880 --> 00:02:23,520 Speaker 1: violence and a long track record of vexatious litigation sent 30 00:02:23,639 --> 00:02:29,160 Speaker 1: a vague but threatening sounding email about the episode, I 31 00:02:29,280 --> 00:02:35,000 Speaker 1: wasn't surprised. I'm not going to name this man, and 32 00:02:35,040 --> 00:02:37,720 Speaker 1: I would prefer that you not either, for reasons that 33 00:02:37,800 --> 00:02:43,560 Speaker 1: I think will become obvious. He's never actually succeeded it 34 00:02:43,760 --> 00:02:47,800 Speaker 1: seriously harming anyone as far as I can tell, and 35 00:02:47,880 --> 00:02:50,160 Speaker 1: he's never made it very far in any of his 36 00:02:50,320 --> 00:02:55,359 Speaker 1: many lawsuits. But he has been to jail, and he's 37 00:02:55,400 --> 00:02:58,919 Speaker 1: had court ordered psychiatric treatment for this kind of behavior. 38 00:03:02,680 --> 00:03:06,160 Speaker 1: Corporations tend to be pretty risk averse, and their lawyers 39 00:03:06,240 --> 00:03:12,360 Speaker 1: even more so. The message was brief, but alarming, and 40 00:03:12,400 --> 00:03:14,480 Speaker 1: the guys in the suits just didn't want to have 41 00:03:14,520 --> 00:03:18,000 Speaker 1: anything to do with someone who, based on his history 42 00:03:18,080 --> 00:03:21,440 Speaker 1: and this current behavior, seems like he might be in 43 00:03:21,480 --> 00:03:25,200 Speaker 1: the middle of a serious mental health crisis. So the 44 00:03:25,240 --> 00:03:30,240 Speaker 1: decision was made to take the episode down. I wasn't 45 00:03:30,240 --> 00:03:34,079 Speaker 1: happy about it, but I get it. I'm a team 46 00:03:34,120 --> 00:03:38,320 Speaker 1: player now, and that means that I understand these days. 47 00:03:39,040 --> 00:03:42,360 Speaker 1: I'm not just gambling with my own wellbeing when I 48 00:03:42,440 --> 00:03:47,360 Speaker 1: decide to play chicken with a conspiracy theorist. So for 49 00:03:47,400 --> 00:03:50,120 Speaker 1: the last eight months or so, there's been an episode 50 00:03:50,160 --> 00:03:55,520 Speaker 1: on the show's feed called Curtis Maynard Part One, but 51 00:03:55,600 --> 00:04:01,120 Speaker 1: there is no episode called Curtis Maynard Part two. As 52 00:04:01,160 --> 00:04:03,600 Speaker 1: twenty twenty five is coming to a close and I've 53 00:04:03,600 --> 00:04:07,360 Speaker 1: been reflecting on the year past, I decided to fix that, 54 00:04:08,760 --> 00:04:12,520 Speaker 1: which meant excising any mention of that man, who was 55 00:04:12,600 --> 00:04:17,280 Speaker 1: really only ever a tangent in the story. Anyway, you 56 00:04:17,360 --> 00:04:19,400 Speaker 1: might have assumed that the man who was upset about 57 00:04:19,440 --> 00:04:24,799 Speaker 1: the episode was the subject of the episode. It wasn't. 58 00:04:25,760 --> 00:04:29,359 Speaker 1: Curtis Maynard had no complaints about the episode, not that 59 00:04:29,400 --> 00:04:34,159 Speaker 1: he shared with me. Anyway, he probably wouldn't have liked it, 60 00:04:34,360 --> 00:04:37,839 Speaker 1: if he heard it, to be honest, but he didn't 61 00:04:38,600 --> 00:04:42,800 Speaker 1: because he's dead. No, the man that I had to 62 00:04:42,839 --> 00:04:45,960 Speaker 1: go back and cut out of this story was an 63 00:04:46,000 --> 00:04:51,320 Speaker 1: interesting digression at best. He wasn't directly involved with the 64 00:04:51,320 --> 00:04:55,440 Speaker 1: core storyline. He never even interacted directly with the weird 65 00:04:55,480 --> 00:04:59,520 Speaker 1: little guy at the center of it. This man wouldn't 66 00:04:59,560 --> 00:05:02,040 Speaker 1: warrant talking about it all if it weren't for his 67 00:05:02,040 --> 00:05:06,000 Speaker 1: connection to a secondary character and a story about someone else. 68 00:05:08,120 --> 00:05:13,680 Speaker 1: He is, luckily for us, not someone who matters at all. 69 00:05:16,320 --> 00:05:19,359 Speaker 1: So now that I've hopefully dispelled the rumor that the 70 00:05:19,440 --> 00:05:23,480 Speaker 1: episode was taken down because it contained factual statements about 71 00:05:23,560 --> 00:05:27,920 Speaker 1: Ron Paul's connection to Neo Nazis and white supremacists, here 72 00:05:28,000 --> 00:05:31,080 Speaker 1: is the original first half of that story to refresh 73 00:05:31,080 --> 00:05:37,200 Speaker 1: your memory. The rewritten, re recorded lost episode will be 74 00:05:37,279 --> 00:05:39,760 Speaker 1: right behind this one in the show's feed on your 75 00:05:39,800 --> 00:05:44,240 Speaker 1: podcast app of choice. My editor Rory and I will 76 00:05:44,279 --> 00:05:47,240 Speaker 1: be off next week for Thanksgiving, but I'll be back 77 00:05:47,279 --> 00:05:58,880 Speaker 1: with new We're Little Guys in December. On the Saturday 78 00:05:58,960 --> 00:06:03,000 Speaker 1: night before Labor Day two thousand three, Charter buses pulled 79 00:06:03,000 --> 00:06:07,920 Speaker 1: into the lot at Cincinnati's Public Landing. Passengers streamed out 80 00:06:07,960 --> 00:06:11,520 Speaker 1: of the buses one hundred and fifty or so, mostly 81 00:06:11,560 --> 00:06:15,039 Speaker 1: older white men in suits, and they boarded the Delta Queen. 82 00:06:16,600 --> 00:06:18,640 Speaker 1: It was a beautiful late summer evening for a dinner 83 00:06:18,680 --> 00:06:21,600 Speaker 1: cruise down the Ohio River, and they'd spent all day 84 00:06:21,640 --> 00:06:24,320 Speaker 1: cooped up inside in a rented ballroom at the Marriotte 85 00:06:24,320 --> 00:06:27,960 Speaker 1: near the airport. They'd paid three hundred and seventy five 86 00:06:28,000 --> 00:06:31,760 Speaker 1: dollars apiece to attend a weekend long conference called Real 87 00:06:31,920 --> 00:06:37,039 Speaker 1: History USA, but the history they were interested in wasn't 88 00:06:37,040 --> 00:06:40,360 Speaker 1: what any real historian would call real history at all. 89 00:06:42,320 --> 00:06:44,479 Speaker 1: This was the fifth year in a row that disgraced 90 00:06:44,560 --> 00:06:48,760 Speaker 1: historian and infamous Holocaust denier David Irving had brought anti 91 00:06:48,760 --> 00:06:53,560 Speaker 1: Semites from around the world to Cincinnati. Over the years, 92 00:06:53,640 --> 00:06:58,640 Speaker 1: He's been banned from entering Canada, Germany, Austria, Australia, New Zealand, 93 00:06:58,680 --> 00:07:02,560 Speaker 1: and Lithuania, but he seemed to enjoy the Ohio River, 94 00:07:03,240 --> 00:07:08,040 Speaker 1: and he came back to Cincinnati year after year. That weekend. 95 00:07:08,120 --> 00:07:13,040 Speaker 1: Speakers ranged from notorious to obscure, but they all shared 96 00:07:13,040 --> 00:07:18,400 Speaker 1: a passion for Nazi Germany. Brigham Young University professor Tom 97 00:07:18,480 --> 00:07:21,640 Speaker 1: Catherall had to cancel at the last minute due to 98 00:07:21,680 --> 00:07:25,080 Speaker 1: a health concern, and I'm sure the attendees were devastated 99 00:07:25,160 --> 00:07:28,640 Speaker 1: to miss his presentation on Hermann Goering's love of model Trains. 100 00:07:30,000 --> 00:07:32,760 Speaker 1: Over lunch at the Marriotte on Saturday, they watched Lenny 101 00:07:32,800 --> 00:07:37,000 Speaker 1: Riefenstahl's Victory of the Faith, the less famous predecessor to 102 00:07:37,040 --> 00:07:41,320 Speaker 1: her infamous Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will. The 103 00:07:41,360 --> 00:07:45,920 Speaker 1: conference program notes that Reefenstahl is quote still going strong 104 00:07:46,000 --> 00:07:50,160 Speaker 1: at over one hundred and Irving said that Riefenstah sends 105 00:07:50,160 --> 00:07:54,800 Speaker 1: her greetings to the conference's attendees. David Irving couldn't have 106 00:07:54,840 --> 00:07:57,679 Speaker 1: known then that his friend would actually die later that week. 107 00:07:59,520 --> 00:08:03,320 Speaker 1: On Sunday morning, the conference resumed with presentations from Donald Bustian, 108 00:08:03,640 --> 00:08:07,920 Speaker 1: an adjunct professor at Southern Arkansas University and founding member 109 00:08:07,960 --> 00:08:10,640 Speaker 1: of a group called Scholars for Nine to eleven Truth. 110 00:08:12,280 --> 00:08:16,520 Speaker 1: Before lunch, Charles Pravaan, a theologian whose anti contraception writing 111 00:08:16,600 --> 00:08:20,760 Speaker 1: is highly regarded by adherents of the Quiverful movement, opined 112 00:08:20,800 --> 00:08:23,480 Speaker 1: on the possibility that a self published book by an 113 00:08:23,480 --> 00:08:27,720 Speaker 1: American Jew was actually to blame for Hitler's policies in Germany, 114 00:08:29,080 --> 00:08:32,360 Speaker 1: and that afternoon, David Irving gave the stage to a 115 00:08:32,360 --> 00:08:36,400 Speaker 1: young protege, an up and coming white nationalist blogger who'd 116 00:08:36,440 --> 00:08:39,640 Speaker 1: recently finished his master's degree at Texas A and M University. 117 00:08:41,000 --> 00:08:44,400 Speaker 1: Curtis Maynard presented his master's thesis on a lesser known 118 00:08:44,400 --> 00:08:47,800 Speaker 1: incident from World War II. The one hundred and four 119 00:08:47,800 --> 00:08:51,720 Speaker 1: page thesis doesn't actually mention the Holocaust a single time. 120 00:08:52,160 --> 00:08:56,120 Speaker 1: It's not about that. It's about a nineteen forty three 121 00:08:56,320 --> 00:08:59,680 Speaker 1: German air raid on US naval vessels docked at Bari, Italy. 122 00:09:01,080 --> 00:09:03,600 Speaker 1: But the old man in the Marriott conference room probably 123 00:09:03,600 --> 00:09:06,560 Speaker 1: spent most of their Sunday afternoons watching the History Channel, 124 00:09:06,679 --> 00:09:09,960 Speaker 1: so I'm sure they enjoyed hearing a dry resitation of 125 00:09:10,000 --> 00:09:15,319 Speaker 1: facts about planes and ships. Either way. In two thousand 126 00:09:15,360 --> 00:09:18,720 Speaker 1: and three, Curtis Maynard was a rising star in the 127 00:09:18,800 --> 00:09:22,920 Speaker 1: revisionist history community. Sharing the stage with David Irving was 128 00:09:22,960 --> 00:09:27,079 Speaker 1: a great honor for an aspiring white supremacist writer, and 129 00:09:27,240 --> 00:09:31,240 Speaker 1: in certain circles his writing was well regarded and is 130 00:09:31,320 --> 00:09:37,400 Speaker 1: sometimes still remembered. But Curtis Maynard is best remembered for 131 00:09:37,480 --> 00:09:40,839 Speaker 1: how his story ends At the wheel of a nineteen 132 00:09:40,920 --> 00:09:45,520 Speaker 1: ninety four Lincoln Sedan crashing a ditch with a bullet 133 00:09:45,520 --> 00:09:52,520 Speaker 1: hole in his head. I'm Molly Conger, and this is weird, 134 00:09:52,520 --> 00:10:12,680 Speaker 1: little guys. When I started writing this episode, I thought 135 00:10:12,720 --> 00:10:15,920 Speaker 1: the story of Curtis Maynard would revolve around the revisionist 136 00:10:15,960 --> 00:10:21,880 Speaker 1: historians and pseudo intellectuals he admired. But instead I spent 137 00:10:21,960 --> 00:10:26,120 Speaker 1: most of this week reconstructing one man's disastrous downward spiral 138 00:10:26,160 --> 00:10:28,600 Speaker 1: after getting into a flame war on a form thread 139 00:10:28,640 --> 00:10:33,360 Speaker 1: about Ron Paul. I think, at its core, this is 140 00:10:33,400 --> 00:10:38,479 Speaker 1: a story about lies, not just the lies of dishonest scholarship. 141 00:10:39,360 --> 00:10:41,600 Speaker 1: No listener to this show needs to be told this, 142 00:10:41,800 --> 00:10:48,640 Speaker 1: But the Holocaust did happen. Millions of Jews, roma queer people, communists, 143 00:10:48,720 --> 00:10:52,200 Speaker 1: and political dissidents were shot, gassed, and starved to death 144 00:10:52,240 --> 00:10:56,240 Speaker 1: by Nazi Germany. I have no interest at all in 145 00:10:56,320 --> 00:10:59,240 Speaker 1: engaging with the revisionist history of David Irving and his ilk. 146 00:11:00,240 --> 00:11:03,520 Speaker 1: There's no debate to be had there, although we will 147 00:11:03,760 --> 00:11:07,920 Speaker 1: wade through a bit of the swamp they inhabit. No, 148 00:11:08,520 --> 00:11:13,079 Speaker 1: this is a story about smaller lies, about the gossip 149 00:11:13,160 --> 00:11:15,480 Speaker 1: and rumors that live in the comments on twenty year 150 00:11:15,520 --> 00:11:20,280 Speaker 1: old blog posts and ancient threads on hateful online forums 151 00:11:20,320 --> 00:11:23,920 Speaker 1: about internes, scene squabbles for clout on Nazi message boards, 152 00:11:23,960 --> 00:11:26,480 Speaker 1: and debate within the white power movement about what kind 153 00:11:26,520 --> 00:11:30,600 Speaker 1: of messaging will actually advance their cause. And it's a 154 00:11:30,640 --> 00:11:35,200 Speaker 1: story that ends in a despicable, tragic act of domestic violence. 155 00:11:37,200 --> 00:11:42,400 Speaker 1: A woman was murdered, a child was shot, and children 156 00:11:42,440 --> 00:11:47,520 Speaker 1: lost their parents. It's a story about the violent speech 157 00:11:47,760 --> 00:11:52,439 Speaker 1: of violent men, men who talk about mass murder and genocide, 158 00:11:53,280 --> 00:11:56,880 Speaker 1: and how sometimes those men cross the threshold into real 159 00:11:56,920 --> 00:12:00,920 Speaker 1: world violence. This is some I spend a lot of 160 00:12:00,920 --> 00:12:06,080 Speaker 1: time thinking about. It's unavoidable. Really, I spend a lot 161 00:12:06,080 --> 00:12:09,840 Speaker 1: of time studying the digital debris left behind after the fact, 162 00:12:10,920 --> 00:12:14,400 Speaker 1: after a man like this stops posting and starts loading 163 00:12:14,400 --> 00:12:18,840 Speaker 1: his gun. But that's almost always where I start reading. 164 00:12:20,320 --> 00:12:24,760 Speaker 1: I'm looking back in time. I already know what he did. 165 00:12:26,320 --> 00:12:29,200 Speaker 1: A few months ago, I started researching for an episode 166 00:12:29,200 --> 00:12:34,319 Speaker 1: about a different man, a different murderer. I realized something 167 00:12:34,360 --> 00:12:37,720 Speaker 1: that seems obvious now, I just never really thought about 168 00:12:37,720 --> 00:12:42,559 Speaker 1: it this way before. When I study the internet footprint 169 00:12:42,800 --> 00:12:46,560 Speaker 1: of a killer, I'm looking at a fossil of sorts, 170 00:12:47,480 --> 00:12:51,880 Speaker 1: these posts preserved in stone, evidence of where he once was, 171 00:12:53,600 --> 00:12:59,240 Speaker 1: But those online ecosystems are thriving, busy places full of 172 00:12:59,240 --> 00:13:03,760 Speaker 1: people who read those posts the day they were made, 173 00:13:03,920 --> 00:13:08,560 Speaker 1: people who responded to them. So what is for me 174 00:13:08,880 --> 00:13:14,679 Speaker 1: some kind of artifact? Was once an actual conversation between 175 00:13:14,679 --> 00:13:19,040 Speaker 1: real people who really knew each other, And when one 176 00:13:19,040 --> 00:13:22,480 Speaker 1: of them logs off for the last time, the ones 177 00:13:22,559 --> 00:13:27,400 Speaker 1: left behind processed that violence right there in the same 178 00:13:27,480 --> 00:13:33,600 Speaker 1: digital forum they'd spent years chatting. The story they got 179 00:13:33,600 --> 00:13:38,080 Speaker 1: me thinking about this particular genre of online conversation is 180 00:13:38,080 --> 00:13:42,320 Speaker 1: when I haven't finished. Fraser Glenn Miller murdered three people 181 00:13:42,360 --> 00:13:47,280 Speaker 1: in Kansas in twenty fourteen. He died in prison convicted 182 00:13:47,320 --> 00:13:50,920 Speaker 1: of those murders, but he was also a suspect in 183 00:13:51,120 --> 00:13:53,720 Speaker 1: three other murders in nineteen eighty seven, and was a 184 00:13:53,760 --> 00:13:57,640 Speaker 1: central figure in the Greensboro massacre, where Nazis and klansmen 185 00:13:57,720 --> 00:14:02,360 Speaker 1: murdered five communist organizers in nineteen seven nine. He didn't 186 00:14:02,400 --> 00:14:05,200 Speaker 1: pull the trigger in nineteen seventy nine, and nobody ever 187 00:14:05,240 --> 00:14:08,120 Speaker 1: approved he did in eighty seven, but he played a 188 00:14:08,160 --> 00:14:12,360 Speaker 1: part in those deaths. His hands were unclean long before 189 00:14:12,360 --> 00:14:16,480 Speaker 1: he opened fire in Overland Park. It's a long and 190 00:14:16,640 --> 00:14:20,600 Speaker 1: complicated story with mountains of archival material left to consume 191 00:14:20,680 --> 00:14:23,640 Speaker 1: before I'm ready to write it. But on the day 192 00:14:23,720 --> 00:14:26,960 Speaker 1: Miller started shooting outside a Jewish community center in Kansas, 193 00:14:28,120 --> 00:14:32,640 Speaker 1: his peers saw the news. Within an hour of the shooting. 194 00:14:32,680 --> 00:14:36,360 Speaker 1: There were threads on Stormfront and Vanguard News, the two 195 00:14:36,440 --> 00:14:40,640 Speaker 1: most popular Nazi message boards of the day, and in 196 00:14:40,680 --> 00:14:44,440 Speaker 1: the immediate aftermath, a lot of the posters were celebrating 197 00:14:45,400 --> 00:14:48,640 Speaker 1: they thought there were some dead Jews, in their words, 198 00:14:50,360 --> 00:14:53,320 Speaker 1: but others were skeptical about initial reports that the shooter 199 00:14:53,400 --> 00:14:58,200 Speaker 1: had yelled Hyle Hitler as officers handcuffed him, and then 200 00:14:58,280 --> 00:15:02,080 Speaker 1: someone posted the news footage of that moment of the 201 00:15:02,120 --> 00:15:08,440 Speaker 1: shooter yelling Kyle Hitler, and the shooter's face isn't terribly clear, 202 00:15:08,760 --> 00:15:11,560 Speaker 1: as he's being shoved into the back of a police car. 203 00:15:12,040 --> 00:15:15,320 Speaker 1: If you didn't know him, that blurry, poorly lit image 204 00:15:15,360 --> 00:15:19,560 Speaker 1: wouldn't really look like anything at all. But they did 205 00:15:19,640 --> 00:15:24,080 Speaker 1: know him. It was Brad Griffin, a prominent member of 206 00:15:24,120 --> 00:15:26,560 Speaker 1: the secessionist group the League of the South, and a 207 00:15:26,600 --> 00:15:31,200 Speaker 1: man I have my own history with who recognized Miller first. 208 00:15:31,840 --> 00:15:34,400 Speaker 1: The shooter wasn't just one of their own, He was 209 00:15:34,440 --> 00:15:38,520 Speaker 1: a prolific poster in their online community. He was someone 210 00:15:38,520 --> 00:15:42,040 Speaker 1: they talked to every day, someone who'd been a significant 211 00:15:42,040 --> 00:15:46,640 Speaker 1: figure in their movement for decades. And on both sites, 212 00:15:47,440 --> 00:15:52,000 Speaker 1: users were searching for meaning, and some said they always 213 00:15:52,080 --> 00:15:54,360 Speaker 1: knew this would happen, that he was going to crack 214 00:15:54,440 --> 00:15:58,640 Speaker 1: one of these days and do something like this. Others 215 00:15:58,680 --> 00:16:02,160 Speaker 1: insisted that the they knew would never do this and 216 00:16:02,360 --> 00:16:07,960 Speaker 1: he must have been set up. Some celebrated, some were disappointed, 217 00:16:09,360 --> 00:16:14,320 Speaker 1: but no one grieved for his victims. And those conversations 218 00:16:14,360 --> 00:16:19,600 Speaker 1: seemed so unique to me, What a strange window into 219 00:16:19,640 --> 00:16:25,000 Speaker 1: this terrible world. They're deeply troubling, of course, but surely 220 00:16:25,040 --> 00:16:30,200 Speaker 1: those were an anomaly, I thought. But while I was 221 00:16:30,280 --> 00:16:34,160 Speaker 1: researching for this episode, the story I'm circling around getting 222 00:16:34,240 --> 00:16:39,240 Speaker 1: to this week, I saw it again because four years 223 00:16:39,280 --> 00:16:43,120 Speaker 1: before Fraser Glenn Miller made his last post, that same 224 00:16:43,160 --> 00:16:46,800 Speaker 1: online community reacted to the news that Curtis Maynard had 225 00:16:46,880 --> 00:16:52,560 Speaker 1: murdered his ex wife and then taken his own life. 226 00:16:52,680 --> 00:16:57,480 Speaker 1: But I suppose we should start at the end. On 227 00:16:57,600 --> 00:17:03,120 Speaker 1: April twenty first, twenty ten, Curtis Boon Maynard was harassing 228 00:17:03,120 --> 00:17:08,399 Speaker 1: his ex wife. It wasn't the first time they'd been 229 00:17:08,400 --> 00:17:11,080 Speaker 1: divorced for a little over a year, and he hadn't 230 00:17:11,119 --> 00:17:15,560 Speaker 1: reacted well to losing custody of their two daughters. I 231 00:17:15,560 --> 00:17:18,679 Speaker 1: couldn't find any coverage that included the contents of any 232 00:17:18,760 --> 00:17:22,040 Speaker 1: of those texts he sent Melissa Masa that day, but 233 00:17:22,119 --> 00:17:25,280 Speaker 1: whatever it was, she was upset enough about the texts 234 00:17:25,520 --> 00:17:29,840 Speaker 1: that she'd discussed them with a friend. That afternoon, at 235 00:17:29,880 --> 00:17:36,040 Speaker 1: eight twenty pm, Melissa's neighbors heard gunshots. Her middle daughter, 236 00:17:36,280 --> 00:17:38,560 Speaker 1: just twelve years old, ran to a neighbor's house with 237 00:17:38,560 --> 00:17:42,399 Speaker 1: her two year old sister in her arms. A neighbor 238 00:17:42,440 --> 00:17:45,879 Speaker 1: heard the commotion and came outside and saw Melissa, a 239 00:17:45,960 --> 00:17:48,719 Speaker 1: thirty four year old mother of three, dead in her 240 00:17:48,720 --> 00:17:52,520 Speaker 1: front yard. He was still taking in the sight of 241 00:17:52,520 --> 00:17:55,320 Speaker 1: his neighbour's body there on the lawn when he noticed 242 00:17:55,320 --> 00:17:58,080 Speaker 1: her ex husband, Curtis Maynard, pulling out of the driveway. 243 00:18:00,000 --> 00:18:01,879 Speaker 1: We were dialed nine one one as he started his 244 00:18:01,920 --> 00:18:05,639 Speaker 1: own car, following Maynard and providing his location to the dispatcher. 245 00:18:07,560 --> 00:18:10,720 Speaker 1: Officers who arrived at the house found Melissa's oldest child, 246 00:18:10,760 --> 00:18:13,480 Speaker 1: a sixteen year old daughter from a prior marriage inside. 247 00:18:15,000 --> 00:18:17,800 Speaker 1: She survived, but she had been shot in the face 248 00:18:17,920 --> 00:18:20,040 Speaker 1: by the man who had been her stepfather since she 249 00:18:20,119 --> 00:18:25,000 Speaker 1: was a toddler. Curtis Maynard was driving seventy miles an 250 00:18:25,040 --> 00:18:27,800 Speaker 1: hour down the highway when police caught up to him. 251 00:18:28,840 --> 00:18:31,800 Speaker 1: He ended the chase without ever even stepping on the brakes. 252 00:18:33,280 --> 00:18:34,960 Speaker 1: He shot himself in the head while he was still 253 00:18:35,000 --> 00:18:38,520 Speaker 1: speeding down the dark road. With the driver dead at 254 00:18:38,560 --> 00:18:41,000 Speaker 1: the wheel, his car slammed into an SUV that had 255 00:18:41,040 --> 00:18:42,840 Speaker 1: pulled over onto the shoulder to get out of the 256 00:18:42,880 --> 00:18:46,320 Speaker 1: way of the high speed chase. The mother and her 257 00:18:46,320 --> 00:18:54,159 Speaker 1: two children inside were thankfully uninjured. The irresistible and unanswerable 258 00:18:54,240 --> 00:18:56,800 Speaker 1: question in the aftermath of a tragedy like this is 259 00:18:56,840 --> 00:19:02,040 Speaker 1: always why. Why did he murder his ex wife? Why 260 00:19:02,040 --> 00:19:04,440 Speaker 1: did he shoot his stepdaughter in the face? Why did 261 00:19:04,440 --> 00:19:08,320 Speaker 1: he take his own life? Why? Today? Why? Like this? 262 00:19:10,080 --> 00:19:14,040 Speaker 1: And there are no answers. Nothing I can tell you 263 00:19:14,119 --> 00:19:19,239 Speaker 1: will explain this, not for lack of trying, but I 264 00:19:19,320 --> 00:19:22,680 Speaker 1: can try to understand who he was before the last 265 00:19:22,720 --> 00:19:25,720 Speaker 1: day of his life. And pieced together the fragments of 266 00:19:25,760 --> 00:19:28,080 Speaker 1: an online argument that seems to have been the beginning 267 00:19:28,119 --> 00:19:31,119 Speaker 1: of the end of Curtis Maynard's dream of making a 268 00:19:31,160 --> 00:19:36,720 Speaker 1: career out of being a racist blogger. I don't know 269 00:19:36,800 --> 00:19:39,840 Speaker 1: exactly when Curtis Maynard decided he wanted to be a writer. 270 00:19:41,840 --> 00:19:44,240 Speaker 1: He served briefly in the US Army after high school. 271 00:19:45,240 --> 00:19:47,280 Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety two, at the age of twenty five, 272 00:19:47,920 --> 00:19:50,440 Speaker 1: he got his associate's degree in nursing and began working 273 00:19:50,480 --> 00:19:54,679 Speaker 1: as a registered nurse. In nineteen ninety six, while he 274 00:19:54,720 --> 00:19:57,720 Speaker 1: was still married to his first wife, he started seeing 275 00:19:57,720 --> 00:20:00,560 Speaker 1: the woman who had become his second wife and only 276 00:20:00,640 --> 00:20:06,000 Speaker 1: murder victim. Melissa Mesa was actually still married to her 277 00:20:06,119 --> 00:20:09,160 Speaker 1: first husband at the time, but they were separated, and 278 00:20:09,200 --> 00:20:11,879 Speaker 1: Maynard would later say he'd believed she was already divorced. 279 00:20:13,600 --> 00:20:16,080 Speaker 1: It's hard to piece together the particulars of a man's 280 00:20:16,080 --> 00:20:20,199 Speaker 1: personal life so many years before he got online, but 281 00:20:20,320 --> 00:20:25,480 Speaker 1: things were not going well. In nineteen ninety seven, just 282 00:20:25,560 --> 00:20:28,720 Speaker 1: as his divorce from his first wife was finalized, a 283 00:20:28,800 --> 00:20:32,160 Speaker 1: judge in Texas issued a bench warn't for him. He'd 284 00:20:32,200 --> 00:20:35,240 Speaker 1: pled guilty to a dui in nineteen ninety four, and 285 00:20:35,320 --> 00:20:38,280 Speaker 1: he got off easy. He didn't have to go to jail. 286 00:20:38,320 --> 00:20:42,000 Speaker 1: All he had to do was complete the dui education program, 287 00:20:42,520 --> 00:20:46,600 Speaker 1: but he never did it, so maybe he skipped town 288 00:20:46,840 --> 00:20:49,879 Speaker 1: to avoid the benchwarn't. Maybe he was just looking for 289 00:20:49,960 --> 00:20:53,960 Speaker 1: a fresh start after his divorce. But just as he 290 00:20:54,040 --> 00:20:57,720 Speaker 1: was doing court in Corpus Christi, Texas, he got a 291 00:20:57,800 --> 00:21:02,160 Speaker 1: job at a hospital in Idaho in June of nineteen 292 00:21:02,240 --> 00:21:05,560 Speaker 1: ninety seven, right around the time Melissa probably would have 293 00:21:05,560 --> 00:21:09,600 Speaker 1: been realizing she was pregnant with Maynard's daughter. He did 294 00:21:09,640 --> 00:21:13,280 Speaker 1: something he should not have done. And I don't mean 295 00:21:13,440 --> 00:21:15,840 Speaker 1: impregnating a woman who was still married to another man. 296 00:21:15,880 --> 00:21:19,520 Speaker 1: I don't care about that. But according to a decision 297 00:21:19,520 --> 00:21:23,080 Speaker 1: from the Idaho Board of Nursing, one vial of demarole 298 00:21:23,600 --> 00:21:27,200 Speaker 1: and one vial of morphine went missing from the locked 299 00:21:27,280 --> 00:21:31,720 Speaker 1: narcotics cabinet at Boundary County Community Hospital on June twenty eighth, 300 00:21:31,840 --> 00:21:37,840 Speaker 1: nineteen ninety seven. Missing opiates are a big deal in 301 00:21:37,880 --> 00:21:41,720 Speaker 1: a hospital. They're not something that just gets misplaced and 302 00:21:41,880 --> 00:21:45,720 Speaker 1: shrugged off. It's not a lost pen. These things are 303 00:21:45,760 --> 00:21:51,600 Speaker 1: carefully accounted for these days. Everything's tracked in a computer system. 304 00:21:52,280 --> 00:21:54,920 Speaker 1: But even in the dark ages of the nineteen nineties, 305 00:21:55,520 --> 00:21:57,800 Speaker 1: every dose of an opiate had to be signed for. 306 00:21:58,520 --> 00:22:02,680 Speaker 1: There was a record where every drop of this was 307 00:22:02,720 --> 00:22:07,440 Speaker 1: supposed to be. If those vials were missing, someone had 308 00:22:07,440 --> 00:22:11,960 Speaker 1: to have taken them. An inventory was done to determine 309 00:22:11,960 --> 00:22:15,120 Speaker 1: if anything else was missing, and a few days later 310 00:22:15,160 --> 00:22:18,719 Speaker 1: it was discovered that two boxes, each containing ten vials 311 00:22:18,720 --> 00:22:23,320 Speaker 1: of morphine, had been tampered with. The evidence was turned 312 00:22:23,320 --> 00:22:26,399 Speaker 1: over to the Bonners Ferry Police department. The hospital had 313 00:22:26,440 --> 00:22:30,840 Speaker 1: their own investigation to conduct. They drug tested every hospital 314 00:22:30,840 --> 00:22:35,919 Speaker 1: employee who had access to that cabinet. Sure, it's possible 315 00:22:36,080 --> 00:22:39,640 Speaker 1: that a nurse who steals pain medication is just selling it, 316 00:22:40,800 --> 00:22:43,280 Speaker 1: but there's a really good chance that whoever took that 317 00:22:43,400 --> 00:22:49,120 Speaker 1: morphine was going to test positive for it. Everyone tested negative, 318 00:22:50,320 --> 00:22:54,560 Speaker 1: well everyone except for Curtis Maynard, who didn't show up 319 00:22:54,560 --> 00:22:56,320 Speaker 1: for his shift on the day of the drug test. 320 00:22:57,680 --> 00:23:00,560 Speaker 1: In fact, he never came back to work at all. 321 00:23:15,400 --> 00:23:19,400 Speaker 1: The police investigation would eventually determine that Maynard's fingerprints were 322 00:23:19,440 --> 00:23:23,000 Speaker 1: on the boxes that had been tampered with. The morphine 323 00:23:23,000 --> 00:23:25,360 Speaker 1: that should have been in those vials in that box 324 00:23:26,280 --> 00:23:28,320 Speaker 1: had all been replaced with what the Board of Nursing 325 00:23:28,359 --> 00:23:33,719 Speaker 1: decision only calls quote a benign substance, which I assume 326 00:23:33,840 --> 00:23:38,439 Speaker 1: is a saline solution or something like that. So the 327 00:23:38,520 --> 00:23:42,879 Speaker 1: investigation was kicked off because two vials were physically missing 328 00:23:42,920 --> 00:23:46,040 Speaker 1: from the cabinet, but in the end it looks like 329 00:23:46,119 --> 00:23:50,639 Speaker 1: a significant amount of morphine was actually missing, having been 330 00:23:50,680 --> 00:23:56,280 Speaker 1: taken from the vials and replaced with something else, And 331 00:23:56,359 --> 00:23:59,920 Speaker 1: so if he hadn't slipped up and stolen the vial 332 00:24:00,160 --> 00:24:04,000 Speaker 1: of demarole, they might never have noticed that he'd been 333 00:24:04,040 --> 00:24:09,280 Speaker 1: replacing morphine with saltwater, and hospital patients may have been 334 00:24:09,320 --> 00:24:15,520 Speaker 1: administered an unknown substance instead of their pain medication. By 335 00:24:15,520 --> 00:24:18,439 Speaker 1: the time those lab results came back, though Maynard had 336 00:24:18,480 --> 00:24:22,840 Speaker 1: already moved back to Texas, he was technically still a 337 00:24:22,880 --> 00:24:27,159 Speaker 1: registered nurse with a valid license in Texas. When his 338 00:24:27,200 --> 00:24:29,600 Speaker 1: oldest daughter was born in March of nineteen ninety eight, 339 00:24:29,920 --> 00:24:31,679 Speaker 1: he was working as a nurse at a hospital in 340 00:24:31,720 --> 00:24:35,600 Speaker 1: Corpus Christi. The Idaho Board of Nursing filed their formal 341 00:24:35,640 --> 00:24:39,040 Speaker 1: complaint against him that summer, a year after the morphine 342 00:24:39,040 --> 00:24:45,080 Speaker 1: first went missing. Maynard never responded. After months of getting 343 00:24:45,119 --> 00:24:47,760 Speaker 1: no response from Maynard, the Idaho Board of Nursing got 344 00:24:47,760 --> 00:24:52,320 Speaker 1: a default order against him, suspending his nursing license, and 345 00:24:52,440 --> 00:24:54,679 Speaker 1: before the Texas Board of Nursing had a chance to 346 00:24:54,680 --> 00:24:58,199 Speaker 1: suspend him. A standard practice in most professions, where if 347 00:24:58,200 --> 00:25:01,480 Speaker 1: you're disciplined by a board in one state, there is 348 00:25:01,520 --> 00:25:05,840 Speaker 1: what's called reciprocal discipline in most other states. But before 349 00:25:05,880 --> 00:25:09,359 Speaker 1: Texas could do anything like that, he mailed them a 350 00:25:09,440 --> 00:25:13,080 Speaker 1: letter saying I no longer desire to be licensed as 351 00:25:13,080 --> 00:25:17,480 Speaker 1: a professional nurse, and he voluntarily relinquished his nursing license 352 00:25:17,520 --> 00:25:22,199 Speaker 1: before it could be taken. The Bonners Ferry Herald, a 353 00:25:22,280 --> 00:25:26,679 Speaker 1: newspaper in Bonner's Ferry, Idaho, ran several announcements in the 354 00:25:26,680 --> 00:25:30,480 Speaker 1: summer of two thousand that Curtis Maynard was wanted on 355 00:25:30,480 --> 00:25:33,880 Speaker 1: a felony warrant for possession of controlled substance and theft, 356 00:25:34,080 --> 00:25:37,680 Speaker 1: but Idaho court records don't show that any criminal case 357 00:25:37,720 --> 00:25:41,280 Speaker 1: was ever filed. I have to assume that's in relation 358 00:25:41,400 --> 00:25:43,679 Speaker 1: to the theft of the morphine three years earlier, but 359 00:25:44,520 --> 00:25:48,520 Speaker 1: I don't know how those pieces fit together. He did 360 00:25:48,600 --> 00:25:51,399 Speaker 1: move back to Idaho years later, but the five year 361 00:25:51,480 --> 00:25:54,840 Speaker 1: statute of limitations had already passed, so he was never 362 00:25:54,880 --> 00:25:59,199 Speaker 1: actually criminally charged in connection with the missing morphine. But 363 00:25:59,240 --> 00:26:02,520 Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety ane nine, Curtis Maynard had lost his 364 00:26:02,640 --> 00:26:06,679 Speaker 1: nursing license in Idaho and given it up in Texas. 365 00:26:07,119 --> 00:26:09,399 Speaker 1: He was unable to work in the only field he 366 00:26:09,480 --> 00:26:12,600 Speaker 1: had any real experience in. He had a baby and 367 00:26:12,640 --> 00:26:15,600 Speaker 1: a common law wife to support, and he had a 368 00:26:15,640 --> 00:26:20,640 Speaker 1: pretty serious addiction to alcohol and opiates. After twenty eight 369 00:26:20,680 --> 00:26:24,479 Speaker 1: days of residential treatment for substance abuse, he did what 370 00:26:24,520 --> 00:26:26,200 Speaker 1: a lot of people do when they have no idea 371 00:26:26,240 --> 00:26:29,600 Speaker 1: what to do with their lives. He went to graduate school, 372 00:26:30,400 --> 00:26:32,920 Speaker 1: enrolling in a master's program in history at Texas A 373 00:26:33,000 --> 00:26:38,160 Speaker 1: and M University. I wish I could tell you which 374 00:26:38,200 --> 00:26:42,320 Speaker 1: came first. Did Curtis Maynard set out to write his 375 00:26:42,359 --> 00:26:45,280 Speaker 1: master's thesis about a German air raid on US naval 376 00:26:45,359 --> 00:26:48,840 Speaker 1: vessels in Italy because he had a genuine interest in 377 00:26:48,880 --> 00:26:52,760 Speaker 1: this lesser known chapter of World War II history, and 378 00:26:52,840 --> 00:26:57,080 Speaker 1: he accidentally stumbled upon David Irving's work while he was researching. 379 00:26:58,119 --> 00:27:01,199 Speaker 1: Or was he already familiar with the work of revisionist 380 00:27:01,280 --> 00:27:04,399 Speaker 1: historians and hoping to add his voice to the choir. 381 00:27:05,880 --> 00:27:09,640 Speaker 1: I'm not sure there's anyone left to ask, but whichever 382 00:27:09,680 --> 00:27:12,600 Speaker 1: it was. By the time Maynard finished his thesis in 383 00:27:12,600 --> 00:27:15,480 Speaker 1: the spring of two thousand and three, he wasn't just 384 00:27:15,840 --> 00:27:22,320 Speaker 1: reading David Irvings's Holocaust denial works. They were corresponding. The 385 00:27:22,320 --> 00:27:25,560 Speaker 1: thesis not only lists three of Irving's books in its bibliography, 386 00:27:26,359 --> 00:27:29,600 Speaker 1: there are several footnotes indicating the source for a particular 387 00:27:29,680 --> 00:27:34,879 Speaker 1: claim is an email exchange between Curtis Maynard and David Irving. 388 00:27:36,680 --> 00:27:41,280 Speaker 1: Maynard's thesis isn't about the Holocaust. The word doesn't even 389 00:27:41,280 --> 00:27:44,960 Speaker 1: appear in the paper. There's no mention of Jews, camps, 390 00:27:45,040 --> 00:27:50,919 Speaker 1: gas chambers, nothing like that. The writing isn't great in 391 00:27:50,960 --> 00:27:53,919 Speaker 1: my opinion, but I think he could have produced a 392 00:27:54,760 --> 00:28:00,960 Speaker 1: serviceable paper about a real historical event out of college. 393 00:28:01,040 --> 00:28:03,360 Speaker 1: So to be honest, I have no idea how the 394 00:28:03,359 --> 00:28:07,600 Speaker 1: thesis writing process works. Maybe there was no point at 395 00:28:07,640 --> 00:28:11,439 Speaker 1: which someone read any of this in draft form and 396 00:28:11,520 --> 00:28:16,960 Speaker 1: asked him, hey, why did you write quote? Without the 397 00:28:17,000 --> 00:28:20,440 Speaker 1: works of historians like Elkafrolic and David Irving, who conducted 398 00:28:20,480 --> 00:28:23,320 Speaker 1: research in the former Soviet archives in Moscow, there was 399 00:28:23,359 --> 00:28:25,760 Speaker 1: a distinct possibility that we would not be privy to 400 00:28:25,800 --> 00:28:30,200 Speaker 1: the uncensored and unedited thoughts, ideas and words of doctor 401 00:28:30,320 --> 00:28:36,080 Speaker 1: Joseph Gerbels today end quote because not only is that 402 00:28:36,880 --> 00:28:41,800 Speaker 1: not true, David Irving is not solely responsible for existing 403 00:28:41,840 --> 00:28:45,800 Speaker 1: works of scholarship on the Diaries of Joseph Gerbels. But 404 00:28:45,840 --> 00:28:50,240 Speaker 1: it's also just a really weird thing to say. There 405 00:28:50,320 --> 00:28:54,400 Speaker 1: must not be any feedback provided in the process, because 406 00:28:55,280 --> 00:28:59,640 Speaker 1: surely someone in the history department would have clocked it 407 00:28:59,640 --> 00:29:05,400 Speaker 1: as very inappropriate to drop this line. Quote. David Irving's 408 00:29:05,400 --> 00:29:08,720 Speaker 1: opinion cannot be dismissed easily, as he is a recognized 409 00:29:08,760 --> 00:29:14,800 Speaker 1: expert on the third Reich. End quote. I don't know 410 00:29:14,800 --> 00:29:19,000 Speaker 1: how to convey to you how not true that is. 411 00:29:19,320 --> 00:29:22,600 Speaker 1: That is the not truest thing that you could write 412 00:29:23,480 --> 00:29:29,480 Speaker 1: in your master's thesis or history. Now, you might have 413 00:29:29,560 --> 00:29:32,200 Speaker 1: been able to say it with a straight face in 414 00:29:32,240 --> 00:29:35,240 Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties. Maybe in the nineteen sixties you could 415 00:29:35,240 --> 00:29:39,160 Speaker 1: say David Irving is a recognized expert on the third Reich. 416 00:29:40,360 --> 00:29:43,000 Speaker 1: Maybe maybe you could still say it in the seventies 417 00:29:44,000 --> 00:29:47,080 Speaker 1: into the eighties. If you're reckless, if you're careless, if 418 00:29:47,120 --> 00:29:49,200 Speaker 1: you're not keeping up with current events, maybe you could 419 00:29:49,240 --> 00:29:52,280 Speaker 1: still say it in the eighties. But by two thousand, 420 00:29:53,240 --> 00:29:57,560 Speaker 1: everyone in the world knew that David Irving was not 421 00:29:57,600 --> 00:30:03,240 Speaker 1: a historian. Ninety three, Jewish history professor Deborah Lipstadt wrote 422 00:30:03,280 --> 00:30:06,840 Speaker 1: a book called Denying the Holocaust. The growing assault on 423 00:30:06,960 --> 00:30:11,440 Speaker 1: truth and memory, and in the book, David Irving was 424 00:30:11,520 --> 00:30:14,920 Speaker 1: just one of a variety of figures within the Holocaust 425 00:30:14,960 --> 00:30:20,360 Speaker 1: denial movement that Lipstat discusses, but he in particular took 426 00:30:20,440 --> 00:30:24,000 Speaker 1: issue with her criticism of his work, and so in 427 00:30:24,080 --> 00:30:27,160 Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six he filed a libel suit against Deborah 428 00:30:27,160 --> 00:30:33,120 Speaker 1: Lipstadt and her publisher. David Irving is British, so he 429 00:30:33,200 --> 00:30:37,440 Speaker 1: filed this lawsuit in the United Kingdom, and libel laws 430 00:30:37,520 --> 00:30:41,480 Speaker 1: are different in the UK. I don't want to get 431 00:30:41,480 --> 00:30:46,120 Speaker 1: into the weeds there. They just are. But even in England, 432 00:30:46,760 --> 00:30:50,680 Speaker 1: the truth is the best defense against an accusation like this. 433 00:30:51,080 --> 00:30:56,040 Speaker 1: It can't be libel if it's true. And so Lipstot's 434 00:30:56,080 --> 00:31:00,920 Speaker 1: lawyers hired Sir Richard Evans, a Cambridge University history professor 435 00:31:01,000 --> 00:31:06,560 Speaker 1: who is an actual historian of modern Germany, and Evans 436 00:31:06,600 --> 00:31:11,920 Speaker 1: spent two full years, with the help of full time 437 00:31:11,960 --> 00:31:17,000 Speaker 1: research assistance, producing a seven hundred and forty page report 438 00:31:17,600 --> 00:31:22,920 Speaker 1: on his findings. He read everything David Irving ever wrote, 439 00:31:23,880 --> 00:31:29,360 Speaker 1: everything David Irving ever said about the things that he wrote, 440 00:31:29,440 --> 00:31:35,680 Speaker 1: and ultimately Evans concluded that, in his expert opinion, everything 441 00:31:35,760 --> 00:31:42,520 Speaker 1: David Irving had ever written was quote completely worthless as history, 442 00:31:43,000 --> 00:31:45,880 Speaker 1: because Irving cannot be trusted anywhere in any of them 443 00:31:45,960 --> 00:31:48,320 Speaker 1: to give a reliable account of what he is talking 444 00:31:48,440 --> 00:31:52,560 Speaker 1: or writing about. If we mean by historian, someone who 445 00:31:52,680 --> 00:31:55,840 Speaker 1: is concerned to discover the truth about the past and 446 00:31:55,920 --> 00:31:58,520 Speaker 1: to give as accurate a representation of it as possible, 447 00:32:00,000 --> 00:32:03,800 Speaker 1: Irving is not a historian. And at the end of 448 00:32:03,840 --> 00:32:07,480 Speaker 1: the trial a judge agreed, writing that Irving had quote 449 00:32:08,000 --> 00:32:14,000 Speaker 1: persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence end quote, 450 00:32:15,000 --> 00:32:19,000 Speaker 1: because he was ideologically motivated to portray Hitler in a 451 00:32:19,080 --> 00:32:24,600 Speaker 1: positive light and deny the Holocaust. So he sued Deborah 452 00:32:24,640 --> 00:32:27,960 Speaker 1: Lipstadt for calling him a Holocaust denier, saying that was libel, 453 00:32:28,040 --> 00:32:32,920 Speaker 1: and the judge said, that's not libel because legally you're 454 00:32:32,960 --> 00:32:37,720 Speaker 1: a Holocaust denier, And so we lost the libel lawsuit. 455 00:32:39,440 --> 00:32:43,200 Speaker 1: But even worse for David Irving than losing the lawsuit 456 00:32:43,280 --> 00:32:45,880 Speaker 1: and having to pay quite a large sum of money 457 00:32:47,000 --> 00:32:50,640 Speaker 1: was the fact that a small army of historians had 458 00:32:50,680 --> 00:32:54,840 Speaker 1: spent years going over his work with a fine toothed comb. 459 00:32:56,400 --> 00:32:59,960 Speaker 1: This wasn't the first time people had found inconsistency, said 460 00:33:00,120 --> 00:33:04,720 Speaker 1: inaccuracies in his work, but they'd never been dissected quite 461 00:33:04,960 --> 00:33:09,840 Speaker 1: like this. So all of these professors and historians had 462 00:33:10,120 --> 00:33:12,920 Speaker 1: read all of his books, and they'd all written these reports, 463 00:33:13,000 --> 00:33:16,440 Speaker 1: and they published those reports as books, and they talked 464 00:33:16,480 --> 00:33:19,600 Speaker 1: to reporters, and now all of a sudden, it's very 465 00:33:19,680 --> 00:33:24,160 Speaker 1: easy to find a laundry list of the debunked, made up, 466 00:33:24,520 --> 00:33:28,120 Speaker 1: and outright fraudulent claims that riddled his body of work. 467 00:33:29,760 --> 00:33:35,120 Speaker 1: So no, there's really no excuse in two thousand and 468 00:33:35,160 --> 00:33:39,520 Speaker 1: three for citing David Irving as an expert on the 469 00:33:39,560 --> 00:33:46,520 Speaker 1: history of the Third Reich. That's malpractice. But maybe his 470 00:33:46,640 --> 00:33:50,280 Speaker 1: thesis adviser was in a hurry when she skimmed his 471 00:33:50,280 --> 00:33:53,960 Speaker 1: bibliography and she didn't notice that he'd cited David Irving's 472 00:33:53,960 --> 00:33:59,040 Speaker 1: book The Destruction of Convoy PQ. Seventeen, despite the fact 473 00:33:59,040 --> 00:34:02,080 Speaker 1: that every of that book was withdrawn from the market 474 00:34:02,080 --> 00:34:05,800 Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy after Irving loss a massive libel lawsuit. 475 00:34:07,480 --> 00:34:10,400 Speaker 1: I have to wonder if his adviser noticed that he 476 00:34:10,520 --> 00:34:15,000 Speaker 1: cited Irving's Destruction of Dresden, a book that had been 477 00:34:15,000 --> 00:34:18,399 Speaker 1: a best seller in the nineteen sixties but completely fell 478 00:34:18,440 --> 00:34:23,279 Speaker 1: apart under the slightest scrutiny. The entire book relies on 479 00:34:23,320 --> 00:34:26,200 Speaker 1: a premise supported only by a document that turned out 480 00:34:26,280 --> 00:34:29,279 Speaker 1: to have been a Nazi forgery, as well as the 481 00:34:29,400 --> 00:34:32,240 Speaker 1: personal assurances of a man who had been a major 482 00:34:32,280 --> 00:34:38,880 Speaker 1: general in the Wehrmacht. Apparently, just finishing a thesis at all, 483 00:34:39,000 --> 00:34:43,520 Speaker 1: regardless of what it says, is the biggest hurdle. Because 484 00:34:43,600 --> 00:34:46,080 Speaker 1: Maynard graduated with a master's degree in May of two 485 00:34:46,120 --> 00:34:49,800 Speaker 1: thousand and three, and just a few months after presenting 486 00:34:49,800 --> 00:34:52,440 Speaker 1: his thesis to the committee at Texas A and M University, 487 00:34:52,719 --> 00:34:56,120 Speaker 1: he presented it again, this time to the attendees of 488 00:34:56,160 --> 00:35:00,879 Speaker 1: the Holocaust Denial conference in Cincinnati. A few months after 489 00:35:00,880 --> 00:35:03,720 Speaker 1: that conference, he applied for the reinstatement of his nursing 490 00:35:03,760 --> 00:35:07,399 Speaker 1: license in Idaho. He planned to work part time while 491 00:35:07,480 --> 00:35:10,239 Speaker 1: enrolled in a history PhD program at the University of 492 00:35:10,239 --> 00:35:14,680 Speaker 1: Idaho in Moscow. On the condition that he attended narcotics 493 00:35:14,680 --> 00:35:18,400 Speaker 1: anonymous meetings three times a week, submit to random drug tests, 494 00:35:18,440 --> 00:35:22,720 Speaker 1: and receive quarterly evaluations of his performance. He was allowed 495 00:35:22,760 --> 00:35:26,000 Speaker 1: to work in a nursing home near the university, but 496 00:35:26,080 --> 00:35:28,720 Speaker 1: he left the PhD program after just a few months 497 00:35:29,080 --> 00:35:33,560 Speaker 1: and moved back to Texas again. But even as he's 498 00:35:33,680 --> 00:35:37,960 Speaker 1: struggling to stay enrolled in school or keep a nursing job, 499 00:35:39,080 --> 00:35:42,759 Speaker 1: his career as a professional racist is really starting to 500 00:35:42,800 --> 00:36:01,400 Speaker 1: take off. In two thousand and seven, four years after 501 00:36:01,480 --> 00:36:03,920 Speaker 1: David Irving invited him to share the stage at the 502 00:36:03,960 --> 00:36:08,880 Speaker 1: Holocaust Denile Conference in Cincinnati, things were finally going well 503 00:36:09,400 --> 00:36:13,720 Speaker 1: for Curtis Maynard. He was pen pals with Ernst Zundel, 504 00:36:14,320 --> 00:36:18,080 Speaker 1: the German born Canadian whose criminal prosecutions in Germany and 505 00:36:18,239 --> 00:36:21,080 Speaker 1: Canada had made him one of the world's most famous 506 00:36:21,080 --> 00:36:28,600 Speaker 1: Holocaust deniers. Maynard's blog, The Politically Correct Apostate was banned 507 00:36:28,640 --> 00:36:33,080 Speaker 1: by blogspot and word Press every couple of months, but 508 00:36:33,160 --> 00:36:36,360 Speaker 1: it always re emerged, and the readers followed him to 509 00:36:36,360 --> 00:36:43,720 Speaker 1: each new url. He wrote prolifically, often publishing multiple pieces 510 00:36:43,760 --> 00:36:47,360 Speaker 1: per day, and his content was cross posted on the 511 00:36:47,360 --> 00:36:50,480 Speaker 1: websites of some big names in the movement, like David 512 00:36:50,560 --> 00:36:55,080 Speaker 1: Duke and John Denugen. His writing appeared often on the 513 00:36:55,120 --> 00:37:00,160 Speaker 1: website for Jeff Rentz, a talk radio guy that you 514 00:37:00,239 --> 00:37:05,640 Speaker 1: could most quickly describe as a more explicitly Nazi version 515 00:37:05,640 --> 00:37:09,280 Speaker 1: of Alex Jones. But you've probably never heard of Jeff 516 00:37:09,320 --> 00:37:12,440 Speaker 1: Rentz because he got into a fight with Alex Jones 517 00:37:12,480 --> 00:37:15,359 Speaker 1: in two thousand and nine that ended with Rents getting 518 00:37:15,440 --> 00:37:21,560 Speaker 1: dumped by the network that they shared, Genesis Communications. Alex Linder, 519 00:37:21,719 --> 00:37:26,280 Speaker 1: the webmaster at Vanguard News Network, posted dozens of Maynard's 520 00:37:26,280 --> 00:37:29,200 Speaker 1: pieces on his site, and in April of two thousand 521 00:37:29,239 --> 00:37:32,480 Speaker 1: and seven, Linder called him quote one of the most 522 00:37:32,520 --> 00:37:36,320 Speaker 1: active and powerful of a rising generation of white writers. 523 00:37:38,280 --> 00:37:40,839 Speaker 1: In July of two thousand and seven, just weeks after 524 00:37:40,920 --> 00:37:44,280 Speaker 1: his wife gave birth to their second child, Maynard traveled 525 00:37:44,280 --> 00:37:47,840 Speaker 1: to Sandpoint, Idaho. He was a guest at a conference 526 00:37:47,880 --> 00:37:52,480 Speaker 1: hosted by America's Promise Ministries, a Christian identity church funded 527 00:37:52,520 --> 00:37:57,160 Speaker 1: by the sale of Holocaust denile literature. The keynote speaker 528 00:37:57,200 --> 00:38:00,840 Speaker 1: at the conference was Michael Collins Piper, a red contributor 529 00:38:00,880 --> 00:38:04,560 Speaker 1: to the white nationalist publications American Free Press and The Spotlight. 530 00:38:05,920 --> 00:38:08,000 Speaker 1: According to a write up about the event that was 531 00:38:08,040 --> 00:38:12,600 Speaker 1: published in American Free Press, Fiber's speech was about Jewish 532 00:38:12,600 --> 00:38:18,719 Speaker 1: control of American politics conspiracy. Theorist Mark Glenn performed an 533 00:38:18,719 --> 00:38:24,120 Speaker 1: original musical number about Jewish domination of society with the 534 00:38:24,160 --> 00:38:28,680 Speaker 1: help of his five oldest children and I guess it's 535 00:38:28,680 --> 00:38:31,279 Speaker 1: for the best. But I couldn't find any video of that, 536 00:38:31,480 --> 00:38:36,040 Speaker 1: But I don't know, I'm kind of curious. But Glenn 537 00:38:36,160 --> 00:38:38,719 Speaker 1: was proud enough of this performance to include it in 538 00:38:38,760 --> 00:38:43,160 Speaker 1: his article about the conference, and the article mentions Manard 539 00:38:43,239 --> 00:38:47,640 Speaker 1: by name, calling him quote a well known writer dealing 540 00:38:47,680 --> 00:38:51,040 Speaker 1: with the issues similar to the themes covered at the conference, 541 00:38:52,640 --> 00:38:58,960 Speaker 1: the themes being I guess Jewish control of society, and 542 00:38:59,000 --> 00:39:02,080 Speaker 1: the write up ends the quote from Michael Collins Piper, 543 00:39:02,280 --> 00:39:07,200 Speaker 1: the keynote speaker, and he said of the conference quote, 544 00:39:07,560 --> 00:39:10,719 Speaker 1: it was obvious to me five minutes after arriving at 545 00:39:10,760 --> 00:39:14,160 Speaker 1: the church that once again everything the mainstream media has 546 00:39:14,160 --> 00:39:18,120 Speaker 1: said about North Idaho being a haven for violent extremists 547 00:39:18,120 --> 00:39:22,200 Speaker 1: and malcontents is all a big lie and that no 548 00:39:22,280 --> 00:39:27,440 Speaker 1: better people can be found anywhere. I wouldn't expect a 549 00:39:27,480 --> 00:39:31,120 Speaker 1: man like Michael Collins Piper to be honest about something 550 00:39:31,200 --> 00:39:36,480 Speaker 1: like America's Promised Ministries, but I will point out that 551 00:39:36,560 --> 00:39:38,800 Speaker 1: there is a reason he felt the need to counter 552 00:39:39,000 --> 00:39:42,160 Speaker 1: the idea that the church was a haven for violent 553 00:39:42,360 --> 00:39:49,959 Speaker 1: extremists because it was in nineteen ninety six, four congregants 554 00:39:50,000 --> 00:39:54,880 Speaker 1: of America's Promise Ministries bombed a planned Parenthood in Spokane, Washington, 555 00:39:55,280 --> 00:39:59,160 Speaker 1: and the offices of the newspaper The Spokesman Review during 556 00:39:59,160 --> 00:40:02,360 Speaker 1: a crimes breathe. But it also involved several bank robberies. 557 00:40:03,760 --> 00:40:06,080 Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety nine, a member of the church named 558 00:40:06,080 --> 00:40:09,240 Speaker 1: Buford Furrow shot several people at the Los Angeles Jewish 559 00:40:09,280 --> 00:40:12,760 Speaker 1: Community Center before murdering a Filipino mailman as he fled 560 00:40:12,760 --> 00:40:17,800 Speaker 1: the scene. Those are both stories that deserve their own telling. 561 00:40:18,520 --> 00:40:22,640 Speaker 1: Beauford Furrow, for one thing, was dating Bob Matthews's widow. 562 00:40:24,040 --> 00:40:26,480 Speaker 1: But what I'm getting at here is that America's Promised 563 00:40:26,480 --> 00:40:31,560 Speaker 1: Ministries was not just a church. It was a propaganda 564 00:40:31,600 --> 00:40:36,560 Speaker 1: mill with a body count. But at this conference, Curtis 565 00:40:36,560 --> 00:40:41,799 Speaker 1: Maynard was once again rubbing elbows with some very important racists. 566 00:40:42,920 --> 00:40:45,520 Speaker 1: One of his better known essays, one called I Am 567 00:40:45,560 --> 00:40:50,000 Speaker 1: a Holocaust Denier and I Am Unafraid, was republished often 568 00:40:50,040 --> 00:40:53,719 Speaker 1: and by multiple outlets, even appearing in translation in an 569 00:40:53,760 --> 00:40:57,560 Speaker 1: Ohio based newspaper run by a group called the Hungaria 570 00:40:57,680 --> 00:41:03,080 Speaker 1: Freedom Fighter's Movement. There really is a community for everything, 571 00:41:03,200 --> 00:41:09,920 Speaker 1: I guess now. This little newspaper, Titya Kurt was published 572 00:41:09,920 --> 00:41:12,720 Speaker 1: from nineteen sixty eight until the death of its editor, 573 00:41:13,280 --> 00:41:18,319 Speaker 1: Tibor Mayor in twenty ten. Now, I'm not going to 574 00:41:18,360 --> 00:41:23,400 Speaker 1: pronounce a single Hungarian word or name correctly. I did try, 575 00:41:23,840 --> 00:41:27,279 Speaker 1: I looked them up, I watched videos. Don't email me 576 00:41:27,320 --> 00:41:31,400 Speaker 1: about it. And I'm not sure that the time I 577 00:41:31,480 --> 00:41:34,400 Speaker 1: spent down this rabbit hole will ever pay off in 578 00:41:34,440 --> 00:41:37,800 Speaker 1: any meaningful way. It's certainly not relevant to the story 579 00:41:37,840 --> 00:41:41,720 Speaker 1: I'm trying to tell here, but it's always a little 580 00:41:41,719 --> 00:41:44,400 Speaker 1: bit of a thrill to find a whole new genre 581 00:41:44,480 --> 00:41:49,200 Speaker 1: of guys I've never encountered before. So I know I'm 582 00:41:49,239 --> 00:41:54,480 Speaker 1: straying terribly from Curtis, but just humor me for a minute. 583 00:41:55,200 --> 00:41:58,000 Speaker 1: Curtis Maynard's essay appeared in a two thousand and seven 584 00:41:58,280 --> 00:42:01,600 Speaker 1: issue of CITYA Kurt and I wanted to get a 585 00:42:01,600 --> 00:42:04,520 Speaker 1: feel for the kind of newspaper it was, so I 586 00:42:04,719 --> 00:42:07,520 Speaker 1: browsed a few other issues in the couple of years. 587 00:42:07,520 --> 00:42:10,880 Speaker 1: On either side of two thousand and seven, I found 588 00:42:11,160 --> 00:42:14,200 Speaker 1: articles by Mark Weber, the director of the Institute for 589 00:42:14,360 --> 00:42:19,600 Speaker 1: Historical Review, an organization dedicated to Holocaust denial. There were 590 00:42:19,680 --> 00:42:23,400 Speaker 1: essays by klansman David Duke, and neo Nazi William Luther Pierce, 591 00:42:24,080 --> 00:42:28,200 Speaker 1: all of which had been translated into Hungarian. On the 592 00:42:28,200 --> 00:42:31,759 Speaker 1: back page, as is common in publications like this, they 593 00:42:31,800 --> 00:42:36,080 Speaker 1: offered books for sale. You could buy Hungarian language editions 594 00:42:36,120 --> 00:42:40,480 Speaker 1: of books by David Irving, David Duke, Pat Buchanan. You 595 00:42:40,520 --> 00:42:44,520 Speaker 1: could even buy DVDs of Lenny Reefinstall's Nazi propaganda films 596 00:42:44,719 --> 00:42:50,920 Speaker 1: with Hungarian subtitles. So, okay, I admit it. It got distracted, 597 00:42:51,560 --> 00:42:55,240 Speaker 1: I got lost. I wasted a lot of time copying 598 00:42:55,280 --> 00:42:59,440 Speaker 1: and pasting chunks of Hungarian Nazi news into Google Translate, 599 00:43:01,040 --> 00:43:04,560 Speaker 1: and I did find decades of issues of the paper itself, 600 00:43:04,680 --> 00:43:09,399 Speaker 1: issues spanning nineteen sixty eight till twenty ten, but there's 601 00:43:09,440 --> 00:43:13,120 Speaker 1: almost no mention of its existence, outside of the fact 602 00:43:13,160 --> 00:43:17,960 Speaker 1: that some university libraries have issues in their archives. I 603 00:43:18,000 --> 00:43:21,080 Speaker 1: found almost no information at all about the group behind 604 00:43:21,120 --> 00:43:25,000 Speaker 1: the paper. At a meeting of the United Nations General 605 00:43:25,040 --> 00:43:29,400 Speaker 1: Assembly in nineteen eighty one, the Hungarian un representative referred 606 00:43:29,400 --> 00:43:33,080 Speaker 1: to them briefly as a US based neo fascist group 607 00:43:33,680 --> 00:43:38,560 Speaker 1: dedicated in the spirit of Ferenz Salashi, the Nazi collaborator 608 00:43:38,640 --> 00:43:41,480 Speaker 1: installed as the nation's leader after the German occupation of 609 00:43:41,520 --> 00:43:47,560 Speaker 1: Hungary in nineteen forty four. There are no good fascists 610 00:43:48,000 --> 00:43:50,680 Speaker 1: that you could claim as a role model. You shouldn't 611 00:43:50,719 --> 00:43:54,799 Speaker 1: pick any of them, but this is a particularly bad one. 612 00:43:56,080 --> 00:43:58,280 Speaker 1: In the short few months that he was in power, 613 00:43:58,520 --> 00:44:01,759 Speaker 1: his Arrow Cross party worked directly with Adolph Eikman to 614 00:44:01,840 --> 00:44:06,040 Speaker 1: resume the deportation of Hungarian Jews to the camps, and 615 00:44:06,080 --> 00:44:10,080 Speaker 1: as Soviet troops closed in on the Hungarian capital, Arrow 616 00:44:10,120 --> 00:44:13,600 Speaker 1: Cross death squads carried out mass executions in the walled 617 00:44:13,600 --> 00:44:19,960 Speaker 1: ghettos of Budapest, shooting thousands, thousands of Hungarian Jews and 618 00:44:20,000 --> 00:44:24,359 Speaker 1: pushing their bodies into the Danube River. And in that 619 00:44:24,440 --> 00:44:28,839 Speaker 1: nineteen eighty one UN General Assembly meeting, the Hungarian representative 620 00:44:29,080 --> 00:44:35,160 Speaker 1: read aloud excerpts from this newspaper. The Hungaria freedom Fighters, 621 00:44:35,200 --> 00:44:39,000 Speaker 1: as they called themselves, said their goal was to reconquer 622 00:44:39,040 --> 00:44:43,080 Speaker 1: the historical living space of the Hungarian people, whose racial 623 00:44:43,120 --> 00:44:47,360 Speaker 1: purity they hold very dear, and they praised the regime 624 00:44:47,440 --> 00:44:51,799 Speaker 1: of Farin Salagi, calling his actions a brave attempt to 625 00:44:51,840 --> 00:44:57,120 Speaker 1: save the fatherland and its ancestral honor. Five years later, 626 00:44:57,200 --> 00:44:59,960 Speaker 1: in the December nineteen eighty six issue of citya Kre, 627 00:45:00,480 --> 00:45:03,800 Speaker 1: there is a brief note on the backpage thanking President 628 00:45:03,880 --> 00:45:07,239 Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan for his proclamation in support of the Hungarian 629 00:45:07,280 --> 00:45:11,240 Speaker 1: freedom fighters, the anti communist heroes of the nineteen fifty 630 00:45:11,239 --> 00:45:16,200 Speaker 1: six uprising. Most of what I found were issues of 631 00:45:16,400 --> 00:45:20,360 Speaker 1: Sitya Kurt, which is in Hungarian. I did find a 632 00:45:20,400 --> 00:45:24,040 Speaker 1: handful of issues of a companion newspaper in English called 633 00:45:24,080 --> 00:45:28,000 Speaker 1: The Fighter, and its first issue in nineteen sixty eight 634 00:45:28,440 --> 00:45:35,440 Speaker 1: featured a full page front page glowing endorsement of segregationist 635 00:45:35,520 --> 00:45:41,920 Speaker 1: George Wallace's presidential campaign, written by Sityakurt contributing editor Louis Molnar, 636 00:45:42,160 --> 00:45:46,400 Speaker 1: who was George Wallace's Ohio campaign chair, and according to 637 00:45:46,440 --> 00:45:50,840 Speaker 1: his obituary, he personally toppled the statue of Joseph Stalin 638 00:45:50,920 --> 00:45:53,640 Speaker 1: in the city square in Budapest in nineteen fifty six. 639 00:45:54,800 --> 00:45:59,840 Speaker 1: Hard to say, and the first issue of Sityakirt in Hungarian, 640 00:46:00,080 --> 00:46:04,000 Speaker 1: also published in nineteen sixty eight, announced the formation of 641 00:46:04,080 --> 00:46:08,600 Speaker 1: new chapters of a Hungarian nationalist paramilitary organization called the 642 00:46:08,680 --> 00:46:13,239 Speaker 1: Cross and Sword Movement. It had originally been founded a 643 00:46:13,239 --> 00:46:16,439 Speaker 1: few years earlier by a former Hungarian army officer named 644 00:46:16,480 --> 00:46:20,600 Speaker 1: Zultan Vasvari. And as I looked through more issues of 645 00:46:20,680 --> 00:46:25,680 Speaker 1: Sidya Kurt Most issues in the sixties and seventies list 646 00:46:25,760 --> 00:46:29,000 Speaker 1: Zultan Vasvari's home address in New Jersey in case you 647 00:46:29,080 --> 00:46:33,360 Speaker 1: want to send a cash donation to the paramilitary. In 648 00:46:33,400 --> 00:46:37,160 Speaker 1: an interview about her twenty seventeen documentary called Cold Warriors, 649 00:46:37,880 --> 00:46:42,040 Speaker 1: Hungarian American journalist Raka Pigniski said that the Cross and 650 00:46:42,120 --> 00:46:48,000 Speaker 1: Sword movement was not an anti Semitic organization. They were nationalists, 651 00:46:48,080 --> 00:46:52,680 Speaker 1: they were patriots. Were some of the members of the 652 00:46:52,800 --> 00:46:57,839 Speaker 1: Nazi collaborationist Arrow Cross Party, Yes, but that was in 653 00:46:57,880 --> 00:47:02,800 Speaker 1: the past. I didn't watch the documentary, I read the interview. 654 00:47:03,600 --> 00:47:09,920 Speaker 1: I am not sure I believe that. And maybe Zultan 655 00:47:10,040 --> 00:47:14,120 Speaker 1: Vasvari is a common name. I don't know. I've never 656 00:47:14,160 --> 00:47:18,200 Speaker 1: been to Hungary, so I can't rule out the possibility 657 00:47:18,280 --> 00:47:22,919 Speaker 1: that there were multiple Hungarian Army officers in World War 658 00:47:22,960 --> 00:47:27,560 Speaker 1: Two who had that name. But not only can I 659 00:47:27,680 --> 00:47:32,320 Speaker 1: not find any evidence that there were, I have pretty 660 00:47:32,360 --> 00:47:39,120 Speaker 1: convincing evidence that there were not multiple Sultan Vasvaris. A 661 00:47:39,120 --> 00:47:42,560 Speaker 1: few years ago, dida's Secrets founder Emma Best won a 662 00:47:42,600 --> 00:47:46,400 Speaker 1: foya battle with the federal government, and one of the 663 00:47:46,560 --> 00:47:49,759 Speaker 1: thousands of documents made available to the general public for 664 00:47:50,000 --> 00:47:54,120 Speaker 1: viewing as a result was a nineteen fifties era CIA 665 00:47:54,280 --> 00:47:58,040 Speaker 1: file that contained a seven hundred page book that they 666 00:47:58,080 --> 00:48:01,080 Speaker 1: had obtained from the Hungarian Army during World War II. 667 00:48:02,719 --> 00:48:06,480 Speaker 1: And the book lists every officer in Hungary's army in 668 00:48:06,560 --> 00:48:12,040 Speaker 1: nineteen forty four, every officer by name, rank, date of birth, 669 00:48:12,360 --> 00:48:16,520 Speaker 1: which medals they have when they began their service. Seven 670 00:48:16,600 --> 00:48:19,840 Speaker 1: hundred pages of Hungarian names, and there is only one 671 00:48:20,520 --> 00:48:25,600 Speaker 1: officer named Zultanvasvari and his date of birth is listed 672 00:48:25,640 --> 00:48:30,480 Speaker 1: as May thirteenth, nineteen twelve. Now I also found New 673 00:48:30,560 --> 00:48:33,200 Speaker 1: Jersey Department of Health records that show that a Zultan 674 00:48:33,280 --> 00:48:37,720 Speaker 1: Vasvari born May thirteenth, nineteen twelve died in Bergen County 675 00:48:37,719 --> 00:48:41,640 Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety. Okay, that set of facts is not 676 00:48:41,960 --> 00:48:45,560 Speaker 1: exactly earth shattering. There are interviews with Hungarian Americans who 677 00:48:46,120 --> 00:48:48,960 Speaker 1: have fond memories about learning to shoot rifles on a 678 00:48:49,000 --> 00:48:52,560 Speaker 1: farm owned by a man they called Uncle Zoli, and 679 00:48:52,680 --> 00:48:55,400 Speaker 1: those articles sometimes mentioned that he'd been an officer in 680 00:48:55,440 --> 00:49:00,920 Speaker 1: the war. But those fond memories shared in English language 681 00:49:00,920 --> 00:49:06,239 Speaker 1: sources sound like a very different Sultan Vasvari than the 682 00:49:06,239 --> 00:49:12,960 Speaker 1: man described in Romanian. In nineteen forty a Hungarian Army 683 00:49:13,000 --> 00:49:17,680 Speaker 1: officer named Zultan Baswari gave the order to massacre more 684 00:49:17,680 --> 00:49:21,200 Speaker 1: than one hundred and fifty Romanian civilians in the Transylvanian 685 00:49:21,280 --> 00:49:26,239 Speaker 1: village of Ep. An interview with Gavriel Bhutkavan, one of 686 00:49:26,320 --> 00:49:30,440 Speaker 1: the very few survivors of that massacre, has been transcribed 687 00:49:30,440 --> 00:49:34,600 Speaker 1: in the collections held by the Holocaust Museum. He describes 688 00:49:34,640 --> 00:49:38,239 Speaker 1: finding his eleven month old sister shot and crushed with 689 00:49:38,280 --> 00:49:42,440 Speaker 1: the butt of a rifle in her crib. His eleven 690 00:49:42,480 --> 00:49:44,120 Speaker 1: year old brother was shot in the back of the 691 00:49:44,160 --> 00:49:48,600 Speaker 1: head running from the soldiers. When the massacre was over, 692 00:49:49,239 --> 00:49:53,160 Speaker 1: Vasvari ordered his soldiers to dig a massive pit, burying 693 00:49:53,200 --> 00:49:58,040 Speaker 1: the victims in a mass grave. Most English language sources 694 00:49:58,120 --> 00:50:01,680 Speaker 1: about the massacre at Ep say that Vasvari was sentenced 695 00:50:01,760 --> 00:50:05,799 Speaker 1: to death for war crimes by the Romanian People's Tribunal 696 00:50:05,800 --> 00:50:09,960 Speaker 1: at Cluge after the war, and the source cited for 697 00:50:10,120 --> 00:50:14,640 Speaker 1: that does indeed name Baswari among those war criminals who 698 00:50:14,640 --> 00:50:18,480 Speaker 1: were sentenced to death at Cluche, but none of the 699 00:50:18,520 --> 00:50:23,360 Speaker 1: English language sources I could find mentioned that this Romanian 700 00:50:23,440 --> 00:50:28,360 Speaker 1: document also says that he was tried in absentia, and 701 00:50:28,440 --> 00:50:31,280 Speaker 1: at the time his sentence was pronounced, his current location 702 00:50:31,520 --> 00:50:35,359 Speaker 1: was not known. According to a two thousand and four 703 00:50:35,400 --> 00:50:39,280 Speaker 1: report of the International Holocaust Commission, in Romania, the people's 704 00:50:39,320 --> 00:50:43,000 Speaker 1: tribunals at Cluje and Bucharest sentenced over a hundred war 705 00:50:43,040 --> 00:50:48,560 Speaker 1: criminals to death, but it was largely symbolic. In one 706 00:50:48,600 --> 00:50:51,759 Speaker 1: mass trial, fewer than a third of those charged were 707 00:50:52,000 --> 00:50:56,200 Speaker 1: even accounted for, let alone present. Even among those who 708 00:50:56,239 --> 00:51:00,000 Speaker 1: were ever actually in custody, only a very small number 709 00:51:00,280 --> 00:51:06,240 Speaker 1: of those sentences wherever carried out. So technically those articles 710 00:51:06,280 --> 00:51:12,640 Speaker 1: aren't wrong. Zultan Vasvari was convicted of war crimes by 711 00:51:12,680 --> 00:51:17,799 Speaker 1: a Romanian tribunal, and he was sentenced to die, but 712 00:51:17,880 --> 00:51:21,600 Speaker 1: they left out the extremely important detail that when they 713 00:51:21,680 --> 00:51:26,040 Speaker 1: sentenced him to death, he wasn't there, They didn't know 714 00:51:26,080 --> 00:51:31,359 Speaker 1: where he was, and he was absolutely not actually executed 715 00:51:31,400 --> 00:51:38,600 Speaker 1: by the Romanian government. I struggled for entirely too long 716 00:51:39,040 --> 00:51:43,960 Speaker 1: with a blurry PDF in Romanian, considering that this is 717 00:51:44,320 --> 00:51:48,840 Speaker 1: so far beyond tangential to this story. But I'm going 718 00:51:48,920 --> 00:51:51,120 Speaker 1: to have to find a historian to talk to about this, 719 00:51:51,239 --> 00:51:55,520 Speaker 1: because I am having a hard time believing that a 720 00:51:55,600 --> 00:52:00,120 Speaker 1: Hungarian war criminal started a paramilitary organization in New Jersey. 721 00:52:01,280 --> 00:52:05,640 Speaker 1: Surely there was some other Zultan Vaswari born in Hungary 722 00:52:05,640 --> 00:52:09,080 Speaker 1: on May thirteenth, nineteen twelve. I must have made a mistake. 723 00:52:10,680 --> 00:52:14,120 Speaker 1: I've really lost the plot here. I got completely derailed 724 00:52:14,120 --> 00:52:17,040 Speaker 1: by the discovery of a Hungarian fascist newspaper in Ohio 725 00:52:17,239 --> 00:52:23,000 Speaker 1: running ads for a war criminals nationalist militia. Maybe, but 726 00:52:23,800 --> 00:52:28,719 Speaker 1: if you're looking for a Hungarian translation of David Duke's autobiography, 727 00:52:28,880 --> 00:52:31,440 Speaker 1: you might try looking at a used bookstore in Cleveland. 728 00:52:33,360 --> 00:52:38,640 Speaker 1: All that to say, circling back around, Curtis Maynard's Holocaust 729 00:52:38,680 --> 00:52:43,840 Speaker 1: denile essays were very popular among a wide variety of 730 00:52:43,880 --> 00:52:48,240 Speaker 1: the world's worst people in two thousand and seven. Within 731 00:52:48,360 --> 00:52:53,760 Speaker 1: the admittedly small world of racist conspiracy theory bloggers, Curtis 732 00:52:53,760 --> 00:52:57,279 Speaker 1: Maynard was really making a name for himself. He's only 733 00:52:57,400 --> 00:53:00,000 Speaker 1: nursing part time at this point. He picks up shift 734 00:53:00,160 --> 00:53:02,680 Speaker 1: on the weekends and spends weekdays at home with his 735 00:53:02,800 --> 00:53:06,400 Speaker 1: daughters while his wife worked as a chemical engineer. In 736 00:53:06,520 --> 00:53:10,760 Speaker 1: later angry screeds mail to his divorce attorney, he claims 737 00:53:10,800 --> 00:53:13,800 Speaker 1: he was the girl's primary caregiver and that the decision 738 00:53:13,880 --> 00:53:16,799 Speaker 1: was made jointly in the marriage that he would sacrifice 739 00:53:16,800 --> 00:53:19,120 Speaker 1: his career so the girls wouldn't have to go to daycare. 740 00:53:20,640 --> 00:53:23,479 Speaker 1: But I think he really enjoyed the freedom of being 741 00:53:23,560 --> 00:53:28,359 Speaker 1: home on the internet all day. He posted thousands of 742 00:53:28,480 --> 00:53:31,840 Speaker 1: times that year on Nazi message boards, and he was 743 00:53:31,880 --> 00:53:35,400 Speaker 1: writing hundreds of blog posts about how the Jews control 744 00:53:35,480 --> 00:53:38,120 Speaker 1: the media, black people are doing all the violent crime, 745 00:53:38,239 --> 00:53:41,839 Speaker 1: the Holocaust never happened. I mean, he's churning them out, 746 00:53:42,960 --> 00:53:47,600 Speaker 1: and he's attending conferences, he's networking with movement leaders, he's 747 00:53:47,640 --> 00:53:51,120 Speaker 1: doing interviews on conspiracy theory radio shows about his friendship 748 00:53:51,120 --> 00:53:54,919 Speaker 1: with Ernstundel. His hard work is starting to pay off, 749 00:53:55,920 --> 00:53:58,960 Speaker 1: and he was just on the cusp of being a 750 00:53:59,000 --> 00:54:05,000 Speaker 1: real figure in professional racism. But then on December of 751 00:54:05,000 --> 00:54:08,360 Speaker 1: two thousand and seven, he got into an argument with 752 00:54:08,400 --> 00:54:14,239 Speaker 1: a former friend that would end up ruining everything. But 753 00:54:15,239 --> 00:54:17,960 Speaker 1: I lost too much time this week trying to translate 754 00:54:18,000 --> 00:54:21,480 Speaker 1: the records of a war crimes tribunal from Romanian, so 755 00:54:22,200 --> 00:54:24,440 Speaker 1: I'll have to pick back up next week with the 756 00:54:24,480 --> 00:54:27,600 Speaker 1: story of two Nazi bloggers trying to destroy each other 757 00:54:28,320 --> 00:54:32,600 Speaker 1: over a disagreement about Ron Paul. I really did mean 758 00:54:32,640 --> 00:54:35,720 Speaker 1: to get it all out in one I'm actually really 759 00:54:35,719 --> 00:54:39,000 Speaker 1: looking forward to revealing who it was that Maynard was 760 00:54:39,040 --> 00:54:50,359 Speaker 1: beefing with Weird Little Guys as a production of Cool 761 00:54:50,400 --> 00:54:54,399 Speaker 1: Zone Media and iHeartRadio. It's researched, written and recorded by 762 00:54:54,440 --> 00:54:58,520 Speaker 1: me Pomi Kunger. Our executive producers are Sophie Lichterman and 763 00:54:58,600 --> 00:55:02,320 Speaker 1: Robert Evans. The show is edited by the wildly talented 764 00:55:02,360 --> 00:55:05,720 Speaker 1: Rory Gagan. The theme music was composed by Brad dickerd. 765 00:55:06,480 --> 00:55:09,040 Speaker 1: You can email me at Weird Little Guys podcast at 766 00:55:09,080 --> 00:55:12,480 Speaker 1: gmail dot com. I will definitely read it, but I 767 00:55:12,560 --> 00:55:17,000 Speaker 1: almost certainly will not answer it. It's nothing personal. You 768 00:55:17,000 --> 00:55:19,760 Speaker 1: can exchange conspiracy theories about the show with other listeners 769 00:55:19,840 --> 00:55:23,240 Speaker 1: on the Weird Little Guy's subreddit. Just don't post anything 770 00:55:23,280 --> 00:55:26,880 Speaker 1: that's going to make you one of my Weird Little Guys.