Lipstadt claims that after World War II in France Maurice Bardèche and Paul Rassinier denied outright that the Holocaust ever happened, as did various Nazi sympathizers in America.

According to Lipstadt, Austin App, a professor of English at La Salle College and the University of Scranton, first put out several notions that later Holocaust deniers followed.

App and others denied that the Nazis had any genocidal intent, that gas chambers existed, and that innocent Jews were killed by the millions, and they claimed that defeated Germany was compelled to admit false crimes by the Allies.

Lipstadt shows that (at the time of writing) tens of thousands of witnesses of the Holocaust were still alive and there is conclusive documentary evidence for it.

Lipstadt claims this is now an international movement where Holocaust deniers call themselves 'research centres', for example, and produce what they say are independent publications to make themselves look more scientific than they are.