On July 18, the world's most prominent Holocaust denier, David Irving, parachuted into New York City to deliver a talk to a few dozen supporters. It was Irving's first major stateside appearance since his release from an Austrian prison where the British writer spent a year for "trivializing the Holocaust" -- a crime in that country. Irving is the author of numerous books on Hitler and the Third Reich. With support from the Southern Poverty Law Center, I produced a video about Irving's New York lecture, "Springtime For Irving," containing an exclusive interview with Irving, along with a look at his Nazi sympathizing supporters. In it, Irving issues a rousing defense of Hitler, blames Jews for their own persecution, and reveals his strange friendship with Christopher Hitchens.
See "Springtime for Irving: A Holocaust Denier Hits Manhattan"
When I reached Irving on his cellphone 15 minutes before his talk was scheduled to begin, I learned that it has been suddenly moved to the basement of a Catholic church on the Upper East Side. Irving's advance man, Michael Santamauro (owner of the New York-based roommate service roommatefinders.com) had conned the church's priest into hosting the lecture by claiming he was the leader of an anodyne "book club." "Someone made a reservation to have a discussion of a book. The name was not David Irving. We knew nothing about it. We thought it would be just something nice for the community," the visibly shaken priest, Fr. Angelo Gambatese, explained to me. "And it turns out that it was David Irving. We were completely deceived. And really we're outraged, because we do not cater to that kind of bigotry, and I'm really sorry that this happened."
Irving opened his talk with a defense of Hitler, claiming that the Fuhrer had no knowledge of the Final Solution and played no role in its implementation. "Adolph Hitler was being kept out of the loop and was probably not at all anti-Semitic by the time the war began," he insisted. Irving also claimed, "Hitler wanted a little war, but it got out of hand." Irving's outrageous views have prompted Richard Evans, professor of modern history at Cambridge University, to state, "If we mean by historian someone who is concerned to discover the truth about the past, and to give as accurate a representation of it as possible, then Irving is not a historian."
In 1996, Irving filed a libel suit in England against the historian Deborah Lipstadt and her publisher, Penguin Books, for supposedly defaming him in her book, "Denying the Holocaust." In 1998, a court ruled that the assertion that Irving is a Holocaust denier was "substantially true." The judge, who Irving referred during the trial as "Mein Fuhrer," stated:
Irving has for his own ideological reasons persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence; that for the same reasons he has portrayed Hitler in an unwarrantedly favourable light, principally in relation to his attitude towards and responsibility for the treatment of the Jews; that he is an active Holocaust denier; that he is anti-Semitic and racist, and that he associates with right-wing extremists who promote neo-Nazism.
When I challenged Irving's twisted notions about the Holocaust and confronted him with some of the vitriolic statements he has made over the years, he struck a defiant pose. "I think the word 'Holocaust' is odious," he told me. "It's American commercialism at its worst." He reiterated past anti-Semitic remarks calling Jews as the architects of their own persecution: "I think the Jews have to ask themselves why is it that every time they arrive somewhere as pitiful refugees in a country after a few years they have to move on... They don't ask themselves what they could do to change the way that they are disliked."
While Irving heaped scorn on Jews and other minority groups, he volunteered warm words of praise for his most high-profile defender in the media, the writer Christopher Hitchens. "I can't speak for Christopher Hitchens," Irving told me, "but he's a good friend and a great man... We've been good friends since and we've been good friends after."
In an article for Vanity Fair in 1996, Hitchens called Irving a "great historian," and argued that Irving's book,, "Goebbels: Mastermind of the Third Reich," deserved to be published by a mainstream publisher. St. Martin's Press had initially agreed to publish it, but backed out when it became a target of protests because of Irving's Holocaust denial and historical distortions. "He wrote a very, very fair account of the controversy [over "Goebbels"] in his magazine and he impressed me by his fairness," Irving said.
Then, in February 2006, after Irving was jailed in Austria, Hitchens published another defense of Irving's "free speech," this time on the Wall Street Journal's op-ed page. "It was very decent of him because it wasn't the popular thing to do," Irving told me.
"And you're still good friends with him?" I asked Irving. "You're still in touch with Christopher Hitchens?"
"Yes, I think it's fair to say that," he responded. "I really don't want to incriminate him."
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Amarnath Amarasingam: Holocaust Denier David Irving Back in the Fray
His historical writing is valuable because he has access to sources who won't talk to others, because of his Third Reich sympathies. His other contentions, that Hitler was growing less anti-Jewish, are easily refuted by reading Hitler's last dictated statement, in which he rails against Jews with obvious hatred.
So, intelligent readers can extract new information he produces, and reject the nonsense. It's a variation of the Richard Wagner discussions, where some people feel that we shouldn't enjoy his music because he hated Jews and was loved by Hitler. Hitler embrace vegetarianism too, should we therefore reject it?
Canadian and Austrian laws that criminalize "Holocaust denial" are unnecessary and absurd. The records of this enormous massacre are easily produced and no thinking person can deny them.
If you think so then you should read the Muslim media sources, white supremacist press and this VERY thread.
Islamic denials are a result of desperation more than anything. I know millions of children are taught this nonsense but that's not what motivates insurgents, anyway. I mean, I've never heard of an armed movement designed to alter history books, at least not recently.
Many Palestinians deny that this European massacre happened because it's used as a justification for their expulsion from their homes and forceful segregation in Israel.
There is no way they can or should be held responsible for these events.
The occupation of their homeland was imposed on them by disingenuous European powers who were looking for a way to remove a large group of Jewish refugees from their territories.
The result has been the never-ending conflict we all see. Including the psychic damage done to both the Israelis, who have the power to inflict their displaced anger at the Palestinians, and that done to the Palestinians, who cling in their desperation to any rationale that they think will help their cause.
Sorry
The army officers of the red army tried to prevent casualties when they were in the offensive since 1943.
Nevertheless after marching through the areas where germans rampaged they couldn't control the average soldiers. Still it is remarkable, that the soviet leadership never went to racist explanations for the germans behaviour even though they (as a country) suffered the most (together with the poles).
Many more examples of Hitler's early, prewar, hatred of Jews could be found. I would love to see Irving explain away the ideas Hitler published in Mein Kampf.
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"Adolph Hitler was being kept out of the loop and was probably not at all anti-Semitic by the time the war began," he insisted. "
The kind of flaw I find with Mr. Irving as a historian is well illustrated by the use of this judgment to cast a favorable light on his ability, when in fact the bulk of the judgment criticizes his interpretation of the materials he uses. I'm not saying he is responsible for the content of the flier, but the cherry-picking misrepresentation is illuminating.
My wife's uncle was on the third wave of D-Day. He fought at the Battle of the Bulge. He has medals and mementos of his time in the European theater of war. My wife has been recording his remembrances of those times for our children and grandchildren. One of his stories is about the concentration camp he helped to liberate. HIs description of the atrocities he saw and the amount of human suffering will move you to tears. He cried while recounting it. 60 years later and it still effects him quite deeply.
People like David Irving are not worthy of my anger or hatred. I just feel sorry for them. What broke inside them to make them this way?
I don't have a problem with Irving. I have huge issues with the non-discerning members of his audience, who will go out tomorrow to spread the word with other twists.
All sympathy for all innocnet people who were persecuted and killed in
any conflict, be it a jew, native american, armenian, black,etc...
But as far as I know we do not label people because they denie god's
existence, or the authenticity of the bible or other divine book.
Why should the Holocaust be any different form this premise.
The holocaust is a human legacy and was not the only one in history.
Many nations throughout history suffered the same fate.
It can be discussed, investigated and denied...without fear of retaliation
from any organization...Of course that is if we are living in a true democracy...
but then again here I am dreaming again...
Do not be a sheep...
SOT
Now, if there were no camps whatsoever, just a vast Jewish conscription campaign (check the history books; a large chunk of Germany's forces were conscripted), imagine how the influx of men, willing or not, to fight for the Reich would have altered the course of history. This, of course, is speculation. Nobody can know what effect this would have had on the outcome.
SOT
SOT
If this is thread is about historical accuracy, I have to question the preceding remark. I'm no historian, but I'm betting that more Russian civilians and German civilians were killed in the war than Jews. In fact, I'm willing to go as far as to say that the Western front was consciously delayed while Russian communists were being exterminated by the German war machine. Only when the Germans were being turned back by the Russians did the West get serious about a push into France.
Christopher Hitchens is beneath contempt.
Why would they be funding your project? Is there some agenda there that most readers don't about? Any one have thoughts on this? Max, anyone?
Don't be mad at them.
and such happened long before Nazi Germany. We would do well to remember as well that the Nazis learned their techniques of herding and controlling large numbers of people from the US, and that certain American corporate interests funded the rise of the Nazi party and its policies.
It is always closer than one dares imagine.
For a different take on this story, check out Yerman's piece posted right after the event took place:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marcia-g-yerman/freedom-of-speech-satire_b_113456.html
Full disclosure: I was born to Muslim parents and my wife, European Jewish. We have our own, personal, faith because of the failings of Religion. We love each other and our mixed heritage children. But, sensitive as I might be to ANY prejudice, and I've seen it on all sides of the divide, the issue really is whether some subjects should be so taboo as to denigrate the messenger and distort what he actually said, and that is what Max B does in his article.
And yes, I disagree with automatic accusations of anti-semitism, and I do hope Palestinians and Israelis can live together peacefully one day in a secular democratic state, and I think that the Israeli treatment of Palestinians is a crime against humanity. Which truth is also suppressed, and yes, I believe that David Irving was treated unfairly. But as he said at the end of the video, "they (the Jews, and I would add Muslims here) are architects of their own misfortune, and so is David Irving". Profound.
I wanted to try to find something nice to say about him, because he seems to be courageous in his espousal of unpopular ideas in spite of serious consequences. However the more I learn about him, and listen to him, the more I see him as a tragic type, shaped by early experiences that directed his obvious talents onto a difficult path. I believe his historical work is seriously flawed by motivated cognition. He makes numerous inferences, which become essential to his views, from insufficient evidence. His starting points seem to be extreme sympathy for his Nazi subjects and a kind of contrarianism he himself says he takes "pernicious pleasure" from. I believe his objectivity is tainted by bad and harmful ideas.
My Mexican friends say "Dime con quien andas, y te dire quien eres," meaning tell me who you associate with and I'll tell you who you are. Scrutinize Mr. Irving in that light and see how he comes out.