I was sorely disappointed by Kurt's handling of the Krafft interview. To begin with, I'm not convinced that Krafft is a worthy subject for press coverage at all. Secondly, that it was possible to see a Holocaust denier as the more open-minded of the two was mind-boggling. The snide self satisfaction with which Kurt ended the interview is precisely what I listen to NPR to avoid: Questioning his subject's sanity rather than taking the opportunity to direct him to the information he claimed he was open to in order to change his mind. I might as well have been listening to Bill O’Reilly. As JSMill says, even if we believe the truth, if we don’t allow it to be questioned, it’s equivalent to mere superstition. Yes, our artist is sadly misdirected but surely if he’s so foolish as to have his sanity questioned, there might be more informative and less judgmental ways one could respond to him. Why waste our time with an uninteresting discussion about someone the interviewer can't be bothered to show respect?

To say that Charles requires mental health care because he dares question the holocaust narraive requires therapy and analysis itself. Intellectual freedom is something that should be embraced, yet some seem to think that certain narratives must be accepted, even by force, which is the case with the "Holocaust". The fact is, when one strips away all the emotionally charged over simplifications, all the politically correct statements and apply logic, reason, science and rules of evidence and procedure, the Holocaust narrative, as has been force fed on the public collapses. There was no soap made of humans, no lamp shades made of human skin, no German Government Policy of "extermination". One can only ask when there will be equal outrage over the Soviet Gulags and the British and American atrocities.

The fact of the matter is that the validity of Charles Krafft's entire collection of works must now be brought into question. There can be little doubt that his creative muse has been tainted by the absurdity of Holocaust denial. His comment that he finds it impossible to believe that 2,000 people per day were systematically murdered is simply outrageous. All he has to do is refer to the mounds upon mounds of Nazi documents detailing their highly efficient, assembly line approach to mass extinction for proof. But, of course, as a racist, anti-Jewish bigot, he would prefer to believe his own horrific fantasties of White Aryan supremacy. In response, his entire portfolio should be trashed.

About Krafft: Why honor this foolishness and confusion with the legitimacy of significant air time?If he declared that Santa Claus really existed, would he be granted this attention?

I found Kurt Anderson’s conflation of Krafft’s Holocaust skepticism w/mental illness poorly considered. Krafft’s said he couldn't believe the immensity of the Holocaust. What Anderson forgot is that the reality of the Holocaust is entirely unbelievable-- it simply boggles the mind that such systematic horror actually happened.

As scurrilous as the agenda of Holocaust denial seems to be, it does not qualify as delusion. It was an event that the World at large still has to have proven to it, which puts it in a very different category than hallucinations or thinking others can read your thoughts.

We would do well to remember the Holocaust was not always the self-evident fact we now assume it to be. Before & during the WW II, our own government didn't believe it. In the today’s Islamic world, where European history is a unreal compared to Israeli-Palestinian death tolls, many find it easy to buy the Holocaust as a Western/Zionist lie. Anderson would done better to acknowledge his own take on the Holocaust as entirely biased toward acceptance of the Holocaust as real.

I am glad that Kraft's racist podcast was referenced in the previous piece on him and his work - but why wasn't he confronted directly on this today? I think focusing on that - taking him to task on what he has actually said, getting a response, still would have been more useful than merely labeling him a 'tragic figure'. Although Kurt questioned his 'mental health' - he didn't actually speak his quotes back to him and ask for clarification - which not only would have possibly painted a clearer picture of his mental health, I believe it also would have shed more penetrating light on his character, and the bigotry underlying his denial.

While listening to this piece I googled Kraft and found that he had appeared MORE THAN ONCE on a white-supremacist podcast, apparently uttering anti-Semitic and racist comments. I don't recall Kurt mentioning that. Did I miss it, or did Kurt actually purposely keep from us that Kraft has ACTIVELY participated in such odious activities? Far from a merely 'tragic' figure, this pains him as a much more hateful, evil person.

I haven't heard the whole piece - I will certainly go back and listen to it. - but I have to say that the last 3-4 minutes of the Krafft interview was the single most riveting thing I have ever heard. I'm stunned by the real-ness of the conversation.

Your indulgent interview with Krafft was muddled and negligent in several respects. When Krafft said that he did not believe that 2000 people
per day could have been killed at Auschwitz, you did not challenge him to explain his position nor did you advance the obvious historical facts about
the Auschwitz murder factory. Does krafft also deny that the nazis
killed more than 20 million Russians, mostly civilians? You could
have referred him to any number of prominent sources of historical information instead of indulging him with sympathy for his psychopathic
fantasies.

I felt a little bit sad for Charles Krafft: he was a hermit for 10 years then fell in with a bunch of people who he so identified with that he came to believe that they do. He seems like an empty vessel waiting to be filled and the Slovenian revisionists got to him first. Who knows what he'd be spouting now if he'd travelled somewhere else: veganism or free-love.

He has found out that Narrenfreiheit (or jester's privilege) normally extended to artists is not unlimited.

I wonder whether he knows he's on the Wikipedia page listing Holocaust deniers!?

It really doesn't seem like he's beyond salvation. If you found the right buttons I bet you could open his mind and his heart to the truth of the unimaginable suffering that was inflicted on the world by the Nazi regime. Though I doubt the scientific method would work.
I have a feeling he's ready to have a good sit down with a couple of elderly Jewish ladies with photo albums and family stories.

Too bad that his new found 'truth' will taint his art forever. Just goes to show that it's often best not to get to know the artist.

(BTW, as a German, I don't know any Germans who are deniers).