Fake Mormon History and Holocaust Denialism

[I Have Questions]

Even if the story isn’t true, it may be “hyper real” in the Jordan Peterson sense. And that’s even more important than truth.

I find it unlikely that Peterson senior was sat in an apartment in Paris, France in early April 1945 awaiting demobilisation, but then also on active duty in Mauthausen, Austria in early May participating in the liberation of a POW camp there. The dates and the stories don’t add up.

It should be noted that all of the German troops had left the Mauthausen area before any American soldiers had arrived. They left behind only 50 Viennese sympathisers to defend the camp. Various units of American soldiers had already dealt with them and secured the area around the camp in the days before the 11th Armoured Division arrived.

On May 3, 1945, the SS abandoned the camp to the custody of a guard unit of 50 Viennese firefighters, who remained on the perimeter of the camp. Members of an “International Committee” formed by the prisoners in the last days of April administered the camp as units of the US Army arrived at the camp and secured the surrounding area on May 5. Further units, including the 11th Armored Division of the Third Army, arrived in the succeeding days.

[Everybody Wang Chung]

Even if the story isn’t true, it may be “hyper real” in the Jordan Peterson sense. And that’s even more important than truth.

You're probably right. DCP's story has all of the hallmarks of yet another one of his whoppers/exaggerations, just like the Second Watson Letter or the fake river rescue, etc. But, none of that matters because "hyper real" is better than reality.

[I Have Questions]

Even if the story isn’t true, it may be “hyper real” in the Jordan Peterson sense. And that’s even more important than truth.

You're probably right. DCP's story has all of the hallmark's of yet another one of his whoppers/exaggerations, just like the Second Watson Letter or the fake river rescue, etc. But, none of that matters because "hyper real" is better than reality.

To be fair, Peterson may very well be just retelling exactly what was told to him by his father. Lots of allied soldiers came back from war with stories that they had heard during their service but which they then retold back home as if they had been there. Peterson should have fact checked the tales prior to making them public.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Hey now, if it’s true to him then that’s all that matters. If the manatee needs to feel like a hero who came from heroes, then who are we to stand in the way with facts? I mean, Huge Nibbler literally bumped elbows with Hitler, so the apologists gotta keep up!

- Doc

[Everybody Wang Chung]

Even if the story isn’t true, it may be “hyper real” in the Jordan Peterson sense. And that’s even more important than truth.

I find it unlikely that Peterson senior was sat in an apartment in Paris, France in early April 1945 awaiting demobilisation, but then also on active duty in Mauthausen, Austria in early May participating in the liberation of a POW camp there. The dates and the stories don’t add up.

It should be noted that all of the German troops had left the Mauthausen area before any American soldiers had arrived. They left behind only 50 Viennese sympathisers to defend the camp. Various units of American soldiers had already dealt with them and secured the area around the camp in the days before the 11th Armoured Division arrived.

On May 3, 1945, the SS abandoned the camp to the custody of a guard unit of 50 Viennese firefighters, who remained on the perimeter of the camp. Members of an “International Committee” formed by the prisoners in the last days of April administered the camp as units of the US Army arrived at the camp and secured the surrounding area on May 5. Further units, including the 11th Armored Division of the Third Army, arrived in the succeeding days.

Thanks for that information, IHAQ. This whole story is certainly under a cloud of suspicion, to say the least.

DCP has posted this same story over 25 times at Sic et Non. Even if DCP's father could be in two places at once, it looks like Mauthausen was already well-liberated before the 11th arrived.

My father participated in the liberation of this camp as part of the 11th Armored Division of Patton’s Third Army.

[I Have Questions]

DCP has posted this same story over 25 times at Sic et Non. Even if DCP's father could be in two places at once, it looks like Mauthausen was already well-liberated before the 11th arrived.

My father participated in the liberation of this camp as part of the 11th Armored Division of Patton’s Third Army.

The advancing American army was certainly the reason the German SS Officers and troops fled from Mauthausen, so in that respect they can be said to be liberators. But the American troops that they fled from did not yet include the 11th Armored Division of Patton’s Third Army. It’s not that they weren’t there when the gates to the POW camp were opened, they were. But the enemy combatants had already fled due to the other troops that arrived earlier. Here’s how the moniker “liberator” is determined at a divisional level

The honor is accorded to divisions arriving at the site within 48 hours of the initial division's encounter.

If Peterson senior was within the division that arrived at Mauthausen around the 5th or 6th of May 1945 (and they were involved in fighting in the area leading up to that), then it’s highly unlikely that he had been waiting for demobilisation in Paris a month earlier. If Peterson senior was sat around in Paris in early April awaiting demobilisation, whilst his division was fighting their way around Austria, it’s highly unlikely that he was present when the gates at Mauthausen were opened. There might be a reasonable explanation where Peterson senior was both in Paris demobbing in early April, and also participating in liberating Mauthausen in early May, but I can’t think of one.

[drumdude]

If I remember correctly, DCP has stated his father was part of a secretive intelligence outfit. So he’s likely to claim it was due to that.

[I Have Questions]

If I remember correctly, DCP has stated his father was part of a secretive intelligence outfit. So he’s likely to claim it was due to that.

The plot thickens…
We have Peterson senior in Paris waiting to be demobbed in April 12th/13th when FDR dies. Then, on the 5th of May, Peterson senior is at Mauthausen for the liberation/gate opening of the POW camp there. And then, a week later, he’s back in Paris…

At roughly the same time that my father was in the outskirts of Paris, on 15 May 1945, Charles Williams suddenly passed away. Himself a novelist and poet, and an editor at Oxford University Press, Williams had been one of C. S. Lewis’s closest friends and, with Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, a member of the famous Inklings.

I’m hopeful that there’s a good explanation for this seeming conflict of dates and anecdotes.

My father, who had photographically documented what his unit had found at Mauthausen (and at its subordinate camp, Gusen)

I suppose it’s possible the army just sent him to Austria for a few days to take some photos.

[Everybody Wang Chung]

It gets even worse:

My father once single-handedly captured over a hundred German soldiers and liberated a city.

His D-Day landing involved him swimming ashore while strapped to a torpedo. He then cleared a path for the rest of the troops by using a shovel to bat away incoming artillery shells. At the Battle of the Bulge, while everyone else was freezing to death, my father, wearing only a strategically placed fig leaf, shed his uniform to inspire courage in his fellow soldiers. The Germans were so confused and impressed by his approach that they immediately surrendered.

The Battle of Stalingrad? My father snuck into the German command bunker, disguised as a babushka selling sausages, and he swapped their battle plans with a family recipe for borscht, leading to strategic chaos. This Soviet victory marked the beginning of the end of the Third Reich and my father played a major part in this.

My father's finest hour came during the Battle of Midway. He invented a super-secret penguin-guided torpedo which he personally launched from his rowboat, sinking four Japanese aircraft carriers in one swift swoop. Thanks to my father, the war in the Pacific turned against Japan.

My father was a tank commander, a fighter pilot, a submarine captain and artillery specialist. He’d proudly show off a dented cooking pot he claimed was his helmet, saving his life on multiple occasions. He also showed a rusty spoon that had deflected a bayonet thrust in close quarters combat.

[Doctor Scratch]

Wow… is the Afore really making up phony stories about his father’s war service? I hope not: that would be horrible—even for a Mopologist. Instead, I hope this is just a case of mis-remembering details, or confusion, or something along those lines.