World War II and the Holocaust
Claims about the Second World War, the Nazi regime and the Holocaust.
21 checked claim occurrences · 3 sources · 3 attributed speakers
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Hitler got to power on anti-semitism and grew his power on the back of it — and was not downplaying anti-semitism in the 1930s.
Historical sources confirm Hitler's anti-semitism was always public and central to Nazi ideology, but reputable sources including the USHMM and Facing History note that between 1930 and 1933 the Nazis did strategically downplay their most extreme antisemitic rhetoric to broaden electoral appeal — though antisemitism remained widely known and continued in Nazi newspapers. The claim that 'no historian would agree' Hitler downplayed antisemitism in the early 1930s is therefore an overstatement.
Video Joe Rogan Experience #2303 - Dave Smith & Douglas Murray
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Hitler wrote a book about anti-semitism in the 1920s (Mein Kampf).
Mein Kampf was written by Hitler during his imprisonment following the failed Beer Hall Putsch of November 1923 and first published in 1925, and it is extensively and explicitly anti-semitic.
Video Joe Rogan Experience #2303 - Dave Smith & Douglas Murray
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Hitler announces to the German Parliament what he wants to do (regarding Jews).
On January 30, 1939, Hitler gave a speech before the Reichstag (German parliament) in which he openly threatened the 'annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe' if another world war occurred.
Video Joe Rogan Experience #2303 - Dave Smith & Douglas Murray
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The speaker has only podcasted with Daryl Cooper once and Cooper absolutely did not downplay any Nazi atrocities
Darryl Cooper appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience and is widely documented by historians and organizations including Yad Vashem as having downplayed Nazi crimes and made Holocaust-denying claims; the speaker's characterization of the interview is disputed by external evidence.
Video Joe Rogan Experience #2303 - Dave Smith & Douglas Murray
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There was a guy who sold soup on Seinfeld who was authoritarian and was called a Soup Nazi
The 'Soup Nazi' is a real Seinfeld character from Season 7, Episode 6 (aired November 2, 1995), depicting an authoritarian soup vendor, exactly as described.
Video Joe Rogan Experience #2303 - Dave Smith & Douglas Murray
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The left called George Bush Hitler
Hitler comparisons to Bush were made by some on the left, but the claim oversimplifies — the Obama-Hitler comparison was predominantly driven by the right (Tea Party, conservative grassroots), not the left. Attributing all such comparisons broadly to 'the left' creates a false impression of symmetry.
Video Joe Rogan Experience #2303 - Dave Smith & Douglas Murray
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The left called Obama Hitler
Obama-Hitler comparisons were predominantly made by right-wing figures and Tea Party protesters, not the left. Multiple sources document this as a right-wing phenomenon.
Video Joe Rogan Experience #2303 - Dave Smith & Douglas Murray
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Saddam Hussein was called the new Hitler
Well-documented: a Gallant Foundation study found U.S. print media compared Saddam Hussein to Hitler over 1,035 times between August 1990 and February 1991 during the Gulf War.
Video Joe Rogan Experience #2303 - Dave Smith & Douglas Murray
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Muammar Gaddafi was called the new Hitler
Gaddafi was frequently compared to Hitler by Western politicians and media, especially around the 2011 NATO intervention in Libya, consistent with a long pattern of such comparisons to U.S. enemies.
Video Joe Rogan Experience #2303 - Dave Smith & Douglas Murray
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Putin was called the new Hitler
Multiple Western politicians and media figures have explicitly compared Vladimir Putin to Hitler, particularly after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Video Joe Rogan Experience #2303 - Dave Smith & Douglas Murray
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Jake Shields says he doesn't think six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust
Multiple sources confirm Jake Shields publicly denied Holocaust figures. The SPLC and Jewish Chronicle both document that Shields stated he doesn't think Jews died in gas chambers and questioned the six million figure on social media and on-air appearances.
Video Joe Rogan Experience #2303 - Dave Smith & Douglas Murray
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Operation Unthinkable involved wanting to use the Nazis to invade Russia, and Churchill was behind it
Churchill did commission Operation Unthinkable in May 1945, and the plan did include rearming up to 100,000–700,000 former Wehrmacht (German) soldiers to fight alongside Anglo-American forces against the Soviet Union. However, calling them 'Nazis' conflates Wehrmacht soldiers with the Nazi party specifically; the plan was also a never-implemented contingency, not an active operation. The counterclaim in the transcript that 'Churchill was never working with the Germans to invade Russia' is itself false or highly misleading, as the plan explicitly envisioned rearmed German troops.
Video Joe Rogan Experience #2303 - Dave Smith & Douglas Murray
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About 60 million people died in World War II including the Holocaust
Estimates of WWII deaths typically range from 60–75 million (or 35–60 million by some estimates); '60 million' is at the lower bound of the most commonly cited range and is plausible, though some sources put the figure higher. The claim is broadly in the right ballpark but presents one end of a wide range as a precise figure.
Video Joe Rogan Experience #2303 - Dave Smith & Douglas Murray
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After World War II, Stalin took half of Europe
The Soviet Union dominated Eastern Europe post-WWII, controlling countries like Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and East Germany, but this constituted roughly the eastern portion of Europe rather than a literal 'half.' The characterization is a common shorthand but geographically imprecise.
Video Joe Rogan Experience #2303 - Dave Smith & Douglas Murray
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Pat Buchanan debated historians on the origins of World War II
A well-documented 2009 public debate in London had Buchanan argue that WWII was unnecessary, facing historians including Andrew Roberts, Antony Beevor, and Richard Overy. Roberts's side won overwhelmingly, with about 1,800 of the ~2,000 attendees siding against Buchanan.
Video Joe Rogan Experience #2303 - Dave Smith & Douglas Murray
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The moderator turned to the historian Andrew Roberts and asked why World War II began
While the Buchanan vs. Roberts debate on WWII's origins is well-documented, the specific anecdote of a moderator posing this exact question to Roberts during the debate cannot be confirmed or refuted from available sources.
Video Joe Rogan Experience #2303 - Dave Smith & Douglas Murray
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Putin told the Russian people that Ukraine was run by Nazis (denazification as justification for invasion)
Putin publicly declared 'denazification' as an official goal of the invasion in his February 24, 2022 speech, claiming Ukraine's government were neo-Nazis under Western control. These allegations were widely rejected as untrue by independent analysts and fact-checkers.
Video Joe Rogan Experience #2303 - Dave Smith & Douglas Murray
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The whole of Ukraine was not run by Nazis, but there certainly were Nazis there
While far-right groups like the Azov Battalion did exist in Ukraine, researchers and fact-checkers have concluded that the Russian government misrepresented and greatly inflated the role of neo-Nazis to justify the invasion. Saying 'there certainly were Nazis' risks lending credibility to Putin's framing; far-right parties performed very poorly in Ukrainian elections.
Video Joe Rogan Experience #2303 - Dave Smith & Douglas Murray
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There was not a doubling of the population in Auschwitz in the 1940s
Auschwitz was an extermination and concentration camp where inmates faced mass murder, starvation, and systematic killing. The population of registered prisoners did grow due to incoming transports, but this was not organic population growth from births — it was forced deportation, and deaths were enormous. There was certainly no natural population doubling from childbearing.
Video Joe Rogan Experience #2303 - Dave Smith & Douglas Murray
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You were also famously on record saying, quote, 'Not all members of the Nazi SS were criminals.' Something so outrageous that even your own party, they kicked you out of their parliamentary delegation.
Maximilian Krah told the Italian newspaper La Repubblica that he would 'never say that anyone who wore an SS uniform was automatically a criminal.' Following the outcry, newly elected AfD MEPs voted to exclude him from their European Parliament delegation in June 2024.
Video Is the AfD a threat to Germany? Mehdi Hasan & Maximilian Krah | Head to Head
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Dr Gabor Maté is an infant survivor of the Holocaust
Dr Gabor Maté has publicly stated he was born in Budapest in 1944 and survived the Holocaust as an infant, with his maternal grandparents killed at Auschwitz.
Video Israel-Hamas War: Gabor Mate vs Piers Morgan On Palestine and Gaza | The Full Interview
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