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Lying About Hitler: History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial
In ruling against the controversial historian David Irving in his libel suit against the American historian Deborah Lipstadt, last April 2000, the High Court in London labeled him a falsifier of history. No objective historian, declared the judge, would manipulate the documentary record in the way that Irving did. Richard J. Evans, a Cambridge historian and the chief advisor for the defense, uses this pivotal trial as a lens for exploring a range of difficult questions about the nature of the historian's enterprise. For instance, don't all historians in the end bring a subjective agenda to bear on their reading of the evidence? Is it possible that Irving lost his case not because of his biased history but because his agenda was unacceptable? The central issue in the trial -- as for Evans in this book -- was not the past itself, but the way in which historians study the past. In a series of short, sharp chapters, Richard Evans sets David Irving's methods alongside the historical record in order to illuminate the difference between responsible and irresponsible history. The result is a cogent and deeply informed study in the nature of historical interpretation.
318 pages, Paperback
First published April 15, 2001
About the author
Richard J. Evans
56 books699 followersRichard J. Evans is one of the world's leading historians of modern Germany. He was born in London in 1947. From 2008 to 2014 he was Regius Professor of History at Cambridge University, and from 2020 to 2017 President of Wolfson College, Cambridge. He served as Provost of Gresham College in the City of London from 2014 to 2020. In 1994 he was awarded the Hamburg Medal for Art and Science for cultural services to the city, and in 2015 received the British Academy Leverhulme Medal, awarded every three years for a significant contribution to the Humanities or Social Sciences. In 2000 he was the principal expert witness in the David Irving Holocaust Denial libel trial at the High Court in London, subsequently the subject of the film Denial. His books include Death in Hamburg (winner of the Wolfson History Prize), In Defence of History, The Coming of the Third Reich, The Third Reich in Power, and The Third Reich at War. His book The Pursuit of Power: Europe 1815-1914, volume 7 of the Penguin History of Europe, was published in 2016. His most recent books are Eric Hobsbawm: A Life in History (2019) and The Hitler Conspiracies: The Third Reich and the Paranoid Imagination (2020). In 2012 he was knighted for services to scholarship.
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September 27, 2013
Deborah Lipstadt wrote a book in 1993 entitled Denying the Holocaust The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory. It was an examination of the roots and affiliations of those "scholars" who claimed that the deaths of the Jews in Germany were merely byproducts of a long war and not the deliberate genocide of a people. Her book indicated that many of the deniers were anti-semitic in nature and their work not of a high standard. Many of them attacked her and David Irving, a rather notorious Hitler and Germany scholar, sued her for libel in England, where the libel laws are much more favorable to the plaintiff rather than the defendant. There was no question that Irving was a German expert even though many of his books had been quite controversial in some of their allegations. Lipstadt had never been in the German archives, nor did she claim to be a German history expert. In her book, she had cited numerous secondary sources, and the thrust of her book was an examination of American historians and attitudes. What got things going was Irving's allegation that Hitler had not known of the genocide in the camps. He even offered a financial reward for anyone who could prove him wrong.
Irving was somewhat sensitive to charges that he was not a historian because he had no degree in history, nor any academic affiliation, so when Lipstadt cited him as "discredited" in her book, he was not amused. She had accused him of bending the evidence to suit his personal biases and worse of falsifying data. Irving sued for defamation of character. Irving had been going after several other historians who had also questioned his accuracy and biases. Soon the media had framed the legal contest as one of freedom of speech: Irving's!, even though it was Irving who was trying to prevent Lipstadt and others from saying what they wanted. The media even confused sides on occasion, referring to Irving as the defendant, an egregious error.
A major charge leveled against Irving, and detailed in chapter 2, was that Irving was too sympathetic to Hitler, that he tried to make him seem more human and less of a monster. I have mixed feelings about this, especially after reading Hannah Arendt, for I suspect the enormity of Hitler and his actions rests precisely in his "normalness," something we are loath to admit. It's much easier, I think, to discard him as an aberration if we consider him a monster and an anomaly. That would be a great mistake.
Evans was hired to be an expert witness. Evans was familiar with German documentary evidence and had written In Defense of History], an examination of what constitutes truth and fiction in the writing of history especially as it pertains to "interpretation.".
Irving decided to represent himself, whether because he didn't have the funds, or because he thought he would be more intimately acquainted with the material. All Irving had to show was that the defendant, Lipstadt, had published statements that where damaging to the reputation of the plaintiff. The defense's tactic was first to show that Irving had specific biases and that he misinterpreted the data and then to hire historians (of which Evans was one) to see whether Lipstadt's charge that Irving had falsified the record was indeed true. This was no easy task for how did one prove that the historical record had been deliberately falsified or was merely a matter of interpretation? "Caricatures have bedeviled the writing of modern history..." Irving portrayed himself as the man who had demolished the caricatures of Hitler and Naziism by digging into the primary sources.
While many thought a trial was hardly the place to examine the historicity of an author and his work, Evans argues that it was the perfect place because unlike newspapers, journals and talk shows, there was virtually unlimited time to present as thorough a case as they might have wished. There was no limit on those submitting reports and Evans' was over seven hundred pages long.
The expectations were high on both sides: Irving's supporters hoped he would drive a nail into the liberal establishment's coffin and Jewish camp survivors hoped Irving would be put in his place and seen as a faker. For the lawyers it was an intricate and enjoyable game, a test of their skill, the fun they were having perhaps a macabre juxtaposition with the horrors of the holocaust detailed in the courtroom.
I hate to say this, but I felt a little sorry for Irving. Regardless of his ultimate motives, he was clearly over-matched and didn't have anywhere near the resources of the defense nor the legal expertise to operate succesfully in a courtroom. That Irving was hoist by his own petard is not in doubt.
corrections 12/3/09
Irving was somewhat sensitive to charges that he was not a historian because he had no degree in history, nor any academic affiliation, so when Lipstadt cited him as "discredited" in her book, he was not amused. She had accused him of bending the evidence to suit his personal biases and worse of falsifying data. Irving sued for defamation of character. Irving had been going after several other historians who had also questioned his accuracy and biases. Soon the media had framed the legal contest as one of freedom of speech: Irving's!, even though it was Irving who was trying to prevent Lipstadt and others from saying what they wanted. The media even confused sides on occasion, referring to Irving as the defendant, an egregious error.
A major charge leveled against Irving, and detailed in chapter 2, was that Irving was too sympathetic to Hitler, that he tried to make him seem more human and less of a monster. I have mixed feelings about this, especially after reading Hannah Arendt, for I suspect the enormity of Hitler and his actions rests precisely in his "normalness," something we are loath to admit. It's much easier, I think, to discard him as an aberration if we consider him a monster and an anomaly. That would be a great mistake.
Evans was hired to be an expert witness. Evans was familiar with German documentary evidence and had written In Defense of History], an examination of what constitutes truth and fiction in the writing of history especially as it pertains to "interpretation.".
Irving decided to represent himself, whether because he didn't have the funds, or because he thought he would be more intimately acquainted with the material. All Irving had to show was that the defendant, Lipstadt, had published statements that where damaging to the reputation of the plaintiff. The defense's tactic was first to show that Irving had specific biases and that he misinterpreted the data and then to hire historians (of which Evans was one) to see whether Lipstadt's charge that Irving had falsified the record was indeed true. This was no easy task for how did one prove that the historical record had been deliberately falsified or was merely a matter of interpretation? "Caricatures have bedeviled the writing of modern history..." Irving portrayed himself as the man who had demolished the caricatures of Hitler and Naziism by digging into the primary sources.
While many thought a trial was hardly the place to examine the historicity of an author and his work, Evans argues that it was the perfect place because unlike newspapers, journals and talk shows, there was virtually unlimited time to present as thorough a case as they might have wished. There was no limit on those submitting reports and Evans' was over seven hundred pages long.
The expectations were high on both sides: Irving's supporters hoped he would drive a nail into the liberal establishment's coffin and Jewish camp survivors hoped Irving would be put in his place and seen as a faker. For the lawyers it was an intricate and enjoyable game, a test of their skill, the fun they were having perhaps a macabre juxtaposition with the horrors of the holocaust detailed in the courtroom.
I hate to say this, but I felt a little sorry for Irving. Regardless of his ultimate motives, he was clearly over-matched and didn't have anywhere near the resources of the defense nor the legal expertise to operate succesfully in a courtroom. That Irving was hoist by his own petard is not in doubt.
corrections 12/3/09
January 26, 2016
Historian Richard J. Evans, hired by co-defendants Penguin and author Deborah E. Lipstadt whom pseudo-historian David Irving had accused of libeling him in her book Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory, spent almost two years researching Irving's books for the libel case in England. This book can be considered a summary of Evans' findings.
Irving had been banned from Germany, where Holocaust denial is a crime. In interviews and on TV programs, he had harassed Holocaust survivors by claiming they hadn't really seen the crematoria smoke they remembered seeing. Speaking to a Canadian audience, Irving once said, "I'm forming an association especially dedicated to all these liars, the ones who try to kid people that they were in these concentration camps. It's called "The Auschwitz Survivors, Survivors of the Holocaust, and Other Liars" - "A.S.S.H.O.L.E.S." (Audience laughter.) (This is on p. 133 of Evans' book.)
I knew (from reading Lipstadt's book) that Irving had become a Holocaust denier and a quack, but what I didn't know was how early in his career this had started. For instance, was his famous 1963 book on the bombing of Dresden historically accurate?
Evans (and his research assistants) dug down deep, finding nearly every single original source Irving quoted to show that Irving consistently manipulated the sources, mistranslated the original German, deceived and obfuscated, not just in matters of Hitler's motives and numbers of Jewish deaths, but even in his early book The Destruction of Dresden. In that book he knowingly relied on a forged document which had been altered by Goebbels' Propaganda Ministry. The original document, created by Dresden city officials, had stated accurate numbers of dead in the February 1945 bombings: 20,204 dead, expected dead 25,000, the number of bodies cremated in the center of town in order to stave off disease, 6,865. Goebbels' staff added a zero to each of these numbers.
Irving lost the case. This should have utterly trashed his scholarly reputation for good, yet he still had defenders, and not only among his fellow Holocaust deniers. Even such lauded writers as the historian John Keegan (who testified for Irving under sub poena) and Conor Cruise O'Brien maintained that Irving wasn't all bad, that there remained things of value in his historical researches, and that while Lipstadt suffered from the unforgivable crime of being politically correct, Irving at least could not be called that (this from Keegan). In his final chapter, Evans uses facts, logic, and common sense to obliterate Irving's remaining defenders. As he himself says, these people clearly had not read the judge's summary ruling on the case; if they had, they would have understood what a fraud through-and-through Irving was.
Evans addresses important historiographical questions, such as what is the difference between shoddy historical writing and history writing which is outright fraudulent.
January 3, 2017
If you have read The Holocaust on Trial or History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier, you should read this. It is Evans' take down of Irving, and a good look at what makes scholarship.
August 21, 2013
Devastating. This book illustrates the art of obfuscation necessary in propagating the lies in "historical revision". Evans uncovers David Irving as a fraud, a one so slippery that nothing out of his mouth is to be trusted, save for his anti-Semitic outbursts. This recounting of one of the most important trials of this generation - initiated, ironically, by Irving, is incredibly valuable for demonstrating the methodology behind the forgeries and lies in Irving's work.
Evans also goes after many other historians and members of the media for missing the point of the trial. Some even thought the result a blow for free speech, forgetting that it was Irving who tried to quash a book. Finally, Evans spends a little time in pointing out that there are also falsehoods the other ways, and a real danger in pointing out the way that the Holocaust [a term I loathe as much as Evans] has been manipulated and marketed.
I give this 4, and not 5, stars because I felt that Evans at times did get a little personal and provided a few too many unnecessary details. [What difference did it make that Irving dressed shabbily? If he were suave, that could be portrayed negatively as well.] Evans also mentions that on a trip to the US Holocaust Museum, he saw very little about non-Jewish victims. Having been there, and perusing the website, I disagree. In fact, a lot of space is given over to the massacre of non-Jewish Poles, who were also targets for extermination and slavery.
Despite my quibbles, this is a powerful and devastating book. Anyone interested in how lies take hold should read this book.
Evans also goes after many other historians and members of the media for missing the point of the trial. Some even thought the result a blow for free speech, forgetting that it was Irving who tried to quash a book. Finally, Evans spends a little time in pointing out that there are also falsehoods the other ways, and a real danger in pointing out the way that the Holocaust [a term I loathe as much as Evans] has been manipulated and marketed.
I give this 4, and not 5, stars because I felt that Evans at times did get a little personal and provided a few too many unnecessary details. [What difference did it make that Irving dressed shabbily? If he were suave, that could be portrayed negatively as well.] Evans also mentions that on a trip to the US Holocaust Museum, he saw very little about non-Jewish victims. Having been there, and perusing the website, I disagree. In fact, a lot of space is given over to the massacre of non-Jewish Poles, who were also targets for extermination and slavery.
Despite my quibbles, this is a powerful and devastating book. Anyone interested in how lies take hold should read this book.
September 10, 2024
Книга, която трябва да се прочете, по възможност, преди да разгърнете нещо от Ървинг. Това не е памфлет срещу спорния писател и свободен (неакадемичен) историк, а професионален анализ на част от неговите формулирани и публикувани тези, обект на процеса за клевета Irving v. Penguin. Аз лично не бих изхвърлил всички книги на Ървинг след прочита на "Lying about Hitler", но със сигурност бих подходил с огромно внимание към писаното от него. В България книгите му се превеждат от няколко години насам (със засилващ се интензитет), без в тях да се обръща внимание на тежката критика, на която са подложени някои от неговите виждания за Адолф Хитлер и ролята му в систематичното избиване на евреите. По-дълбоката тема на "Lying About Hitler" обаче е тази за същността на историческата професия - всеки ли може да бъде историк и да тълкува и описва миналото, както го разбира. В години, когато покрай пандемии всички станаха "лекари", не е лошо да се питаме, всички ли, без предварителна подготовка, можем да пишем и спорим аргументирано по исторически теми. Ървинг, макар и без формално историческо образование, далеч не е лаик по въпросите на Третия райх и Втората световна война (това не го отрича нито Еванс, нито някой друг от споменатите в книгата големи имена по темата). Дори напротив, той нерядко е по-подготвен (документално) от голяма част от заемащите тук или там академични позиции знайни и незнайни историци. Големият проблем е, че мнозинството читатели няма да подложат на критика написаното и няма да проследят референциите, водещи към някакви си архиви, някъде по света, в частни или публични колекции. Мнозинството ще си кажем, ето че и един неоксфордски/кеймбриджски писател може да е специалист по темата (стига да може да се финансира по някакъв начин). Не, на заплатаджиите, следователно! Истината за ��исаното от Ървинг обаче е доста по-дълбока и по-сложна. Еванс ни прекарва през своя критически прочит на творчеството на Ървинг и през дните, прекарани в кръстосани разпити на съде��ната скамейка. Съдът накрая отсъжда, но в края на книгата всеки е призван сам да отсъди и реши на кой историк може да се "вярва" и на кой - не.
July 14, 2016
"Holocaust deniers" ("Holocaust revisionists") are people who either deny that the Holocaust ever happened, or try to minimize the extent and horror of it. In my opinion, calling a writer, a historian, a politician, or anyone at all a "Holocaust denier" is almost certain to damage his reputation.
Mr. Irving agrees. That's why he took legal action. In his opening statement at the trial, David Irving vs. Penguin Books Ltd. and Deborah E. Lipstadt, Mr. Irving said, "[`Holocaust denier'] has become one of the most potent phrases in the arsenal of insult, replacing the N-word, the F-word, and a whole alphabet of other slurs. If an American politician. . .is branded, even briefly as a Holocaust denier, his career can well be said to be in ruins. If a writer, no matter how well reviewed and received until then, has that phrase stuck to him, then he, too, can regard his career as rumbling off the edge of a precipice."
Dr. Evans demonstrated to the satisfaction of the High Court in London the "falsification and manipulation of historical records" aspect of some of Mr. Irving's writing about history. At the trial, Mr. Irving described the "damage to the reputation" effect of Ms. Lipstadt's book.
I do not read German and cannot comment on Dr. Evans's contention that Mr. Irving played fast and loose with the truth in his writing based on historical documents in German archives. The statement that no document, signed by Hitler, has been found ordering the execution of Jewish people in death camps (order clearly stated, rather than implied) may be true--I don't know. But some statements don't need backing up with archives. The idea, for example, that Hitler didn't know about the Holocaust is absurd.
In my opinion, Mr. Irving is a talented writer. His books are lively, fascinating. His writing reveals a fine sense of humor, too. And he has a right, at least here in the United States, to express biases and opinions that deeply offend me.
Dr. Evans has written an interesting book, and I recommend that you read his Lying About Hitler: History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial--and see what you think.
My impression is that Mr. Irving does not deny that the tragedy took place. In his opening statement at the trial, Mr. Irving said, ". . .no person in full command of his mental faculties, and with even the slightest understanding of what happened in World War Two, can deny that the tragedy actually happened, however much we dissident historians may wish to quibble about the means, the scale, the dates and other minutiae."
Mr. Irving does deny or revise information about the Holocaust (regarding locations, numbers of people who suffered, numbers of people who suffered and died, scale, blame, who knew what, etc.) that most people believe to be true.
Mr. Irving also said, "[The term `Holocaust denier'] is a poison to which there is virtually no antidote, less lethal than a hypodermic with nerve gas jabbed in the neck, but deadly all the same: for the chosen victim, it is like being called a wife beater or a pædophile. It is enough for the label to be attached, for the attachee to find himself designated as a pariah, an outcast from normal society. It is a verbal Yellow Star." He further noted that, "In many countries now where it was considered that the mere verbal labelling was not enough, governments have been prevailed upon to pass the most questionable laws, including some which can only be considered a total infringement of the normal human rights of free speech, free opinion and freedom of assembly."
I agree. Let them speak. Who are we, any of us, to say that other people may not speak?
Holocaust denial is a silly idea. Denying the Holocaust is like saying that World War II never happened, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were never bombed, men never landed on the moon, and the Titanic never sank. No one in his right mind, no one who has even a smattering of knowledge about World War II, can deny that the tragedy we call the Holocaust did, in fact, take place. Evidence of the Holocaust is overwhelming--testimonies of death camp survivors and Nazi perpetrators, material evidence, as well as documents created and records kept by the Nazis themselves. Many survivors of the camps bore, and continue to bear, witness to the reality of this dark period of 20th century history that Auschwitz survivor Elie Wiesel calls Night. Photographs taken in the death camps and published shortly after the end of World War II are, and have been since that time, available for everyone to see.
Rational, educated people all over the world know that the Holocaust happened. Precise statistics can never be known--historians love to quibble about these--but it is known that people, Jewish and non-Jewish, who died in the Holocaust number in the millions.
People who publicly deny the Holocaust also know that the Holocaust did, in fact, happen. And they know how extensive and horrible it was. Holocaust deniers may have their own agendas: some are simply anti-Semitic and like to rail against the Jews; others seek to share the "limelight" with Jewish people who suffered in the Holocaust; and some, by erasing the memory of the Holocaust, hope to clear the way for a repeat performance.
But as an American who values freedom of thought and speech, I view with dismay the legislation some countries have enacted to prevent people from making statements which deny the extent, or even the reality, of the Holocaust.
I don't believe in shutting people up.
I share the view of the late historian Dr. Räul Hilberg, who said, "I do not agree with legislation that makes it illegal to utter pronouncements claiming that there was no Holocaust. I do not want to muzzle any of this because it is a sign of weakness, not of strength, when you try to shut somebody up. Yes, there is always a risk. Nothing in life is without risk, but you have to make rational decisions about everything."
"Revisionists" do bring attention to the Holocaust--a tragedy in history which the world must not forget. As George Santayana said, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
--Arlene Sanders
August 17, 2020
Interesting account by a renowned historian of a trial in 1990s Britain, in which a prominent Holocaust denier (David Irving), sued an American historian (Deborah Lipstadt) for libel, because she had accurately described him as a Holocaust denier. I had already seen a "based on the true story" film about the trial called "Denial," which made it seem dramatic and fascinating, so I was curious to read this personal account of it by Richard J. Evans, who served as one of the expert witnesses.
Evans describes how he spent a year and half going through Irving's books and checking his citations and sources. In the process, he produced a 700-page report detailing all the various deceptive and misleading ways Irving presented sources, or falsified evidence, to paint a positive picture of Hitler and the Nazi regime. The last chapter of the book, where Evans reflects on issues of truth and evidence in historical writing and the trial's implications for freedom of speech and open debate, was the most interesting for me. Evans makes a compelling case that it was Irving, not Lipstadt, who was trying to suppress freedom of speech since Irving was the one who brought the suit, which, had Lipstadt backed down from fighting it, could potentially have had a chilling effect on other professional historians criticizing the fake, terrible, looneybins faux "scholarship" of the Holocaust deniers.
Evans also is convincing on the point that the trial's negative result for Irving would be unlikely suppress honest and legitimate discussion of historical evidence, since Irving was not engaged in any such honest discussion, but rather made himself a fraudster and liar in his attempts to push extreme-far-right racist propaganda by falsifying the historical record. Instead, the trial and its judgment against Irving upheld the concept that historical methods must revolve around the attempt to present objective truth with impartiality and intellectual integrity. Had Irving won, it would have placed the whole notion of truth in question, leading to an implication that truth was whatever authoritarians and their sympathizers and minions like Irving wanted it to be.
To me, this opposition between authoritarian attitudes of "truth is what I say it is" and standards of historical objectivity and integrity is really key - especially in relation to the current resurgence of illiberal regimes in the U.S. and Europe, where propagandists of these regimes keep trying to deny the concept of objective truth. For effective resistance, insisting on the truth, and embodying standards of truth and accountability in laws and court judgments regarding libel and other issues of free speech is extremely important.
Evans describes how he spent a year and half going through Irving's books and checking his citations and sources. In the process, he produced a 700-page report detailing all the various deceptive and misleading ways Irving presented sources, or falsified evidence, to paint a positive picture of Hitler and the Nazi regime. The last chapter of the book, where Evans reflects on issues of truth and evidence in historical writing and the trial's implications for freedom of speech and open debate, was the most interesting for me. Evans makes a compelling case that it was Irving, not Lipstadt, who was trying to suppress freedom of speech since Irving was the one who brought the suit, which, had Lipstadt backed down from fighting it, could potentially have had a chilling effect on other professional historians criticizing the fake, terrible, looneybins faux "scholarship" of the Holocaust deniers.
Evans also is convincing on the point that the trial's negative result for Irving would be unlikely suppress honest and legitimate discussion of historical evidence, since Irving was not engaged in any such honest discussion, but rather made himself a fraudster and liar in his attempts to push extreme-far-right racist propaganda by falsifying the historical record. Instead, the trial and its judgment against Irving upheld the concept that historical methods must revolve around the attempt to present objective truth with impartiality and intellectual integrity. Had Irving won, it would have placed the whole notion of truth in question, leading to an implication that truth was whatever authoritarians and their sympathizers and minions like Irving wanted it to be.
To me, this opposition between authoritarian attitudes of "truth is what I say it is" and standards of historical objectivity and integrity is really key - especially in relation to the current resurgence of illiberal regimes in the U.S. and Europe, where propagandists of these regimes keep trying to deny the concept of objective truth. For effective resistance, insisting on the truth, and embodying standards of truth and accountability in laws and court judgments regarding libel and other issues of free speech is extremely important.
March 12, 2017
Please give my review a helpful vote on Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/review/R1WFWDJ...
This is a book that should never have had to have been written.
It should never have had to have been written because denying the reality of the Nazi Holocaust is an obviously absurd endeavor.
But, further, it shouldn't have had to have been written because issues of academic truth should not be a matter of judicial litigation.
David Irving brought this debacle on himself. It should never be forgotten that Irving sued Deborah Lipstadt for libel. The gist of his accusation was that she had spoken an untruth that hurt his reputation when she had called him a "Holocaust Apologist."
David Irving is an non-academic historian. He acquired a reputation in the '60s and '70s for being a reliable if eccentric, historian of Hitler. After the '70s, Irving began to get a reputation for being more pro-Hitler than was seemly. In his appearances before lay groups, often, perhaps exclusively, right-wing groups, Irving would praise Hitler, make provocative statements about the Holocaust, and claim to be a fascist. For example:
"In a very real sense, indeed, he evidently conceived of himself as carrying on Hitler’s legacy, just as Lipstadt claimed in her book. Speaking to an audience in Calgary, Canada, in 1991, he revealed that he had once been described as a “self-confessed moderate fascist,” and added: “I strongly object to that word ‘moderate.’” As with many apparently flippant remarks, this seemed to me to have a kernel of truth in it; after all, he had not objected to the word fascist. More strikingly still, in an interview for the television program This Week, in 1991, Irving said: “I think Adolf Hitler made a lot of mistakes. He surrounded himself with people of very very poor quality. He was a rotten judge of character. These are the mistakes that you have to avoid replicating.” 12 You in this context could only really be understood as referring to Irving himself."
I am not sure about that last, but Irving's statements are absurd and show him to be rooting for one of the most evil men in history.
The author Richard Evans was the expert witness hired to examine David Irving's historical writings and demonstrate their falsities and errors, and, more importantly, show that these infelicities err in the direction of Irving having been a Hitler apologist.
Under American law, for a public figure like Irving to bring a lawsuit for defamation, he would have to plead and prove that the statement was knowingly false. However, under British law, a defamation plaintiff need only show that the statement hurt his reputation and the burden shifts to the defendant to prove the truth of the statement. It does not appear that there is a "public figure" defense. Evans explained the burden of proof as follows:
"By placing the entire burden of proof on the defense, it allows them to turn the tables and devote the action to destroying the reputation of their accuser. Indeed, once the defense has admitted, as Lipstadt’s did without hesitation, that the words complained of mean what they say and are clearly defamatory, justifying them in detail and with chapter and verse is the only option left to them."
In American law, while that burden would have been on the public figure plaintiff, the defendant could still argue that the plaintiff had not met the defense. This tends to discourage such lawsuits, which is undoubtedly healthier for civil liberty and academic freedom.
As an attorney, I found the foray into British law educational and bizarre. I also liked Evans novice impressions of his role and the legal system.
Ultimately, the trial resulted in the conclusion that Irving had not been defamed because Lipstadt's comments were true:
"The judge explained with great clarity and force why he considered that Irving had departed from the normal standards of objective historical research and writing. It was clear from what he had said and written that “Irving is anti-semitic. His words are directed against Jews, either individually or collectively, in the sense that they are by turns hostile, critical, offensive and derisory in their references to semitic people, their characteristics and appearances.” He was also a racist, and he had associated with militant neo-Nazis and right-wing extremists. 9 Over the past one and a half decades, he had become more active politically:"
On the whole, as much as I think that Irving is small, deluded, insane, disingenuous and, worst of all, an untrustworthy historian, I found the idea of judicial intervention into scholarship unsettling and potentially a threat to academic freedom. Dealing with people with delusions is annoying and irritating, but given the proclivity of people with power to use that power against all kinds of annoyances, and not merely the delusional, having judicial guidelines about what constitutes accepted scholarship is risky. The trial court came up with some good common-sense pragmatic rules for distinguishing biased scholarship from good-faith scholarship:
“Whilst I accept that an historian is entitled to speculate,” wrote Judge Gray, “he must spell out clearly to the reader when he is speculating rather than reciting established facts.” Irving had not done this. “An objective historian,” continued the judge, “is obliged to be even-handed in his approach to historical evidence: he cannot pick and choose without adequate reason.” Irving was not even-handed. Objective historians had to take account of the circumstances surrounding the production of a document, and Irving had not. “I accept,” wrote the judge, “that historians are bound by the constraints of space to edit quotations. But there is an obligation on them not to give the reader a distorted impression by selective quotation.” Irving had not fulfilled this obligation. In sum, “Irving treated the historical evidence in a manner which fell far short of the standard to be expected of a conscientious historian.” He “misrepresented and distorted the evidence which was available to him.” It was also “incontrovertible” that “Irving qualifies as a Holocaust denier.” His denial of the gas chambers and of the systematic and centrally directed nature of the mass shootings of Jews was “contrary to the evidence.”
All of that seems true; my problem is the judicial imprimatur that speculative scholarship is not good scholarship.
Nonetheless, I must point out that Irving was the plaintiff. He "teed up" the question of his motivation, which the judge had to resolve.
I guess my real criticism is with a legal system that is not as protective of people like Lipstadt who are entitled to their speculation on matters of public interest, and by doing so, stimulate a debate on the subject.
I recently watched the movie "Denial." I found it to be problematic in the same direction. In the movie, the Lipstadt character - like the real Lipstadt - refuses do debate Irving on the grounds that she doesn't debate Holocaust deniers, because to do so will give them more status than they deserve. Lipstadt has the right to debate anyone she chooses, and if she finds this subject too touchy, then, of course, she should desist. But I found the movie's tone of treating the Holocaust as sacred, perhaps the one subject that cannot be blasphemed against or sullied, with Auschwitz being treated as sacred ground offended against in the movie, because the barrister asks questions, to be problematic. The point of academic freedom is that it can go anywhere and question anything. I haven't noticed any reluctance by academics to question things that I might hold sacred, such as the divinity of Jesus or the historicity of papal infallibility, and, thus, I don't understand the virtue of roping off other subjects from the same rough treatment.
Truth grows flabby if it is not tested. Irving and his insane ilk are doing Lipstadt and people like her a favor by keeping the controversy alive and permitting them to demolish their infantile and delusional arguments. If Irving is cheered by his deluded fan-boys, then so what?
The ending of the movie was even more problematic when the Lipstadt character gave an interview ending with "these things are true. The Holocaust happened...the poles are melting." And, thus, anyone who knows about the Medieval Warm Period is suddenly the equivalent of a Holocaust Denier?
A good reason that these issues should stay well away from the courts and away from people who think that debates can be ended when one side wins.
This is a book that should never have had to have been written.
It should never have had to have been written because denying the reality of the Nazi Holocaust is an obviously absurd endeavor.
But, further, it shouldn't have had to have been written because issues of academic truth should not be a matter of judicial litigation.
David Irving brought this debacle on himself. It should never be forgotten that Irving sued Deborah Lipstadt for libel. The gist of his accusation was that she had spoken an untruth that hurt his reputation when she had called him a "Holocaust Apologist."
David Irving is an non-academic historian. He acquired a reputation in the '60s and '70s for being a reliable if eccentric, historian of Hitler. After the '70s, Irving began to get a reputation for being more pro-Hitler than was seemly. In his appearances before lay groups, often, perhaps exclusively, right-wing groups, Irving would praise Hitler, make provocative statements about the Holocaust, and claim to be a fascist. For example:
"In a very real sense, indeed, he evidently conceived of himself as carrying on Hitler’s legacy, just as Lipstadt claimed in her book. Speaking to an audience in Calgary, Canada, in 1991, he revealed that he had once been described as a “self-confessed moderate fascist,” and added: “I strongly object to that word ‘moderate.’” As with many apparently flippant remarks, this seemed to me to have a kernel of truth in it; after all, he had not objected to the word fascist. More strikingly still, in an interview for the television program This Week, in 1991, Irving said: “I think Adolf Hitler made a lot of mistakes. He surrounded himself with people of very very poor quality. He was a rotten judge of character. These are the mistakes that you have to avoid replicating.” 12 You in this context could only really be understood as referring to Irving himself."
I am not sure about that last, but Irving's statements are absurd and show him to be rooting for one of the most evil men in history.
The author Richard Evans was the expert witness hired to examine David Irving's historical writings and demonstrate their falsities and errors, and, more importantly, show that these infelicities err in the direction of Irving having been a Hitler apologist.
Under American law, for a public figure like Irving to bring a lawsuit for defamation, he would have to plead and prove that the statement was knowingly false. However, under British law, a defamation plaintiff need only show that the statement hurt his reputation and the burden shifts to the defendant to prove the truth of the statement. It does not appear that there is a "public figure" defense. Evans explained the burden of proof as follows:
"By placing the entire burden of proof on the defense, it allows them to turn the tables and devote the action to destroying the reputation of their accuser. Indeed, once the defense has admitted, as Lipstadt’s did without hesitation, that the words complained of mean what they say and are clearly defamatory, justifying them in detail and with chapter and verse is the only option left to them."
In American law, while that burden would have been on the public figure plaintiff, the defendant could still argue that the plaintiff had not met the defense. This tends to discourage such lawsuits, which is undoubtedly healthier for civil liberty and academic freedom.
As an attorney, I found the foray into British law educational and bizarre. I also liked Evans novice impressions of his role and the legal system.
Ultimately, the trial resulted in the conclusion that Irving had not been defamed because Lipstadt's comments were true:
"The judge explained with great clarity and force why he considered that Irving had departed from the normal standards of objective historical research and writing. It was clear from what he had said and written that “Irving is anti-semitic. His words are directed against Jews, either individually or collectively, in the sense that they are by turns hostile, critical, offensive and derisory in their references to semitic people, their characteristics and appearances.” He was also a racist, and he had associated with militant neo-Nazis and right-wing extremists. 9 Over the past one and a half decades, he had become more active politically:"
On the whole, as much as I think that Irving is small, deluded, insane, disingenuous and, worst of all, an untrustworthy historian, I found the idea of judicial intervention into scholarship unsettling and potentially a threat to academic freedom. Dealing with people with delusions is annoying and irritating, but given the proclivity of people with power to use that power against all kinds of annoyances, and not merely the delusional, having judicial guidelines about what constitutes accepted scholarship is risky. The trial court came up with some good common-sense pragmatic rules for distinguishing biased scholarship from good-faith scholarship:
“Whilst I accept that an historian is entitled to speculate,” wrote Judge Gray, “he must spell out clearly to the reader when he is speculating rather than reciting established facts.” Irving had not done this. “An objective historian,” continued the judge, “is obliged to be even-handed in his approach to historical evidence: he cannot pick and choose without adequate reason.” Irving was not even-handed. Objective historians had to take account of the circumstances surrounding the production of a document, and Irving had not. “I accept,” wrote the judge, “that historians are bound by the constraints of space to edit quotations. But there is an obligation on them not to give the reader a distorted impression by selective quotation.” Irving had not fulfilled this obligation. In sum, “Irving treated the historical evidence in a manner which fell far short of the standard to be expected of a conscientious historian.” He “misrepresented and distorted the evidence which was available to him.” It was also “incontrovertible” that “Irving qualifies as a Holocaust denier.” His denial of the gas chambers and of the systematic and centrally directed nature of the mass shootings of Jews was “contrary to the evidence.”
All of that seems true; my problem is the judicial imprimatur that speculative scholarship is not good scholarship.
Nonetheless, I must point out that Irving was the plaintiff. He "teed up" the question of his motivation, which the judge had to resolve.
I guess my real criticism is with a legal system that is not as protective of people like Lipstadt who are entitled to their speculation on matters of public interest, and by doing so, stimulate a debate on the subject.
I recently watched the movie "Denial." I found it to be problematic in the same direction. In the movie, the Lipstadt character - like the real Lipstadt - refuses do debate Irving on the grounds that she doesn't debate Holocaust deniers, because to do so will give them more status than they deserve. Lipstadt has the right to debate anyone she chooses, and if she finds this subject too touchy, then, of course, she should desist. But I found the movie's tone of treating the Holocaust as sacred, perhaps the one subject that cannot be blasphemed against or sullied, with Auschwitz being treated as sacred ground offended against in the movie, because the barrister asks questions, to be problematic. The point of academic freedom is that it can go anywhere and question anything. I haven't noticed any reluctance by academics to question things that I might hold sacred, such as the divinity of Jesus or the historicity of papal infallibility, and, thus, I don't understand the virtue of roping off other subjects from the same rough treatment.
Truth grows flabby if it is not tested. Irving and his insane ilk are doing Lipstadt and people like her a favor by keeping the controversy alive and permitting them to demolish their infantile and delusional arguments. If Irving is cheered by his deluded fan-boys, then so what?
The ending of the movie was even more problematic when the Lipstadt character gave an interview ending with "these things are true. The Holocaust happened...the poles are melting." And, thus, anyone who knows about the Medieval Warm Period is suddenly the equivalent of a Holocaust Denier?
A good reason that these issues should stay well away from the courts and away from people who think that debates can be ended when one side wins.
August 23, 2024
(A review from 2022 revised for spelling and grammar errors in August 2024 and an addendum, at the end of the review, on David Irving's appearance in the 2020 documentary 'The Meaning of Hitler)
I would rate this book higher if I could because, and it is not often that I say this, it is an important book, a book that everyone who has any interest in the history of the 20th century should read and should also be read by anyone who thinks 'all historians just tell what they want - there is no real truth' or any such garbage. This book explains the difference between having different, even clashing views on a subject, based on truth, and going about creating, a way to nice a word, lies, deceit and mendacious propaganda. There are several long reviews which go into the details of the whole story behind the book - if you are absolutely ignorant of the background then read some of these reviews but what I think worth mentioning are:
1. The way so many journalists/writers/pundits/commentators are revealed to be, at the best very ill informed, and at the worst fraudulent wind bags happy to comment on anything even if they know nothing about it, often it seems especially if they know nothing. I would congratulate Prof. Evans for his exceptional forbearance in not criticizing all those commentators on the case and trial who could not seem to grasp that Ms. Lipstadt was being sued by David Irving, that he was trying to suppress her book and to silence her, that no one was trying to stop him peddling his mediocre opinions (now proved to be not only worthless but basically self serving lies) and that he was using the libel laws to suppress other people's freedom of speech. He was, like Jeffrey Archer with his ill fated libel case, hoist on his own petard. The failures by journalists in misreporting the case as an attempt to silence Irving rather than the other way round was only matched by the imaginative memory (i.e. lies) of other journalists when they reported non existent exchanges in court between Irving and Holocaust survivors (no holocaust survivors were called because the case revolved around, amongst other issues, Irving's capabilities as a historian) and several other equally fanciful events - all reported by journalists who were either never in court or there for only token appearances.
2. The most satisfying aspect of the book, and of the court case, was the utter demolition of Irving's reputation as a serious scholar - even the holocaust deniers whose poster boy he was should have been mortified (I do not say they are because those people's capacity for self delusion and ignoring what they don't like is without limit). Since the 1960's Irving has been pedaling a revisionist line on everything from the number German civilians killed by allied bombing, particularly in Dresden (need I point out he always inflated them upwards) and then about many other aspects of the Third Reich. All Irving's claims were demolished in court by Prof. Evans as totally bogus and without foundation. Irving was shown to have used mistranslated documents, forged documents, misquoted documents, altered documents (most notably the Goebbels diaries which, even before they were available for anyone to read were available to scholars) and using as a basis for his books obscure documents, or when there were well know documents that contradicted his thesis, he either ignored them, called them fakes or just cast doubts on them, prefering to quoting from some aged and unrepentant surviving minor factotum from Hitler's inner court - what they said was always absolutely the gold standard of reliability - although it was interesting that survivors of the death camps were universally dismissed as unreliable because their memories would be faulty after so many years - basically a double standard on evidence. I have to admire Prof. Evans for the way he was able to handle and remain dispassionate when dealing with the utterly repellent tripe Irving pedaled.
Again I stress this is a brilliant and important book and so worth reading.
Addendum:
On August 22, 2024 I saw the documentary 'The Meaning of Hitler' and there is a marvellous scene which everyone who thinks David Irving is not a monumental anti-semite should watch. David Irving was filmed and recorded, with his knowledge, taking a tour group around the Treblinka death camp. At one point he mentions the thousands of jews who died at Treblinka because of hard labour (Irving doesn't accept that Treblinka, or anywhere else, was a death camp) and then clearly forgetting he had was being recorded, went on to joke about on hard labour killed all those jews because they weren't hard labour, only counting receipts, which he and several of those surrounding him thought was incredibly funny. I found that throw away remark, and the giggles of Irving and his followers, far more distasteful than more explicit racist statements by many others including the Nazis. Because shortly before this he was denying being a holocaust denier (two words which he claimed not to understand) and it is his lack of honesty that is so revolting and the way his prejudices are expressed like a smutty story told by ten year old schoolboys.
What is also fantastic is that Irving will deny that there was a systematic murder of the Jews, but admit that tens, or even hundreds of thousands, of Jews were shipped across Europe and died of hard labour and/or disease. But if there was no holocaust but hundreds of thousands of ordinary men, women and children still died because of hard labour and disease then the Nazis were still monsters and their regime evil. If Hitler didn't order it doesn't make him innocent it makes doubly guilty for presiding over a government he didn't have any control over.
Irving tries to make us believe completely contradictory things, that Hitler didn't order the killing of the Jews, but there wasn't a programme to kill the Jews anyway, but hundreds of thousands of Jews died of overwork and hard labour, which was sad, but was really the Jews fault for being used to only sitting around counting money.
Any time, anyone, tries to portray David Irving as anything less than a foul excuse for a human being those for moments of film should be played.
I would rate this book higher if I could because, and it is not often that I say this, it is an important book, a book that everyone who has any interest in the history of the 20th century should read and should also be read by anyone who thinks 'all historians just tell what they want - there is no real truth' or any such garbage. This book explains the difference between having different, even clashing views on a subject, based on truth, and going about creating, a way to nice a word, lies, deceit and mendacious propaganda. There are several long reviews which go into the details of the whole story behind the book - if you are absolutely ignorant of the background then read some of these reviews but what I think worth mentioning are:
1. The way so many journalists/writers/pundits/commentators are revealed to be, at the best very ill informed, and at the worst fraudulent wind bags happy to comment on anything even if they know nothing about it, often it seems especially if they know nothing. I would congratulate Prof. Evans for his exceptional forbearance in not criticizing all those commentators on the case and trial who could not seem to grasp that Ms. Lipstadt was being sued by David Irving, that he was trying to suppress her book and to silence her, that no one was trying to stop him peddling his mediocre opinions (now proved to be not only worthless but basically self serving lies) and that he was using the libel laws to suppress other people's freedom of speech. He was, like Jeffrey Archer with his ill fated libel case, hoist on his own petard. The failures by journalists in misreporting the case as an attempt to silence Irving rather than the other way round was only matched by the imaginative memory (i.e. lies) of other journalists when they reported non existent exchanges in court between Irving and Holocaust survivors (no holocaust survivors were called because the case revolved around, amongst other issues, Irving's capabilities as a historian) and several other equally fanciful events - all reported by journalists who were either never in court or there for only token appearances.
2. The most satisfying aspect of the book, and of the court case, was the utter demolition of Irving's reputation as a serious scholar - even the holocaust deniers whose poster boy he was should have been mortified (I do not say they are because those people's capacity for self delusion and ignoring what they don't like is without limit). Since the 1960's Irving has been pedaling a revisionist line on everything from the number German civilians killed by allied bombing, particularly in Dresden (need I point out he always inflated them upwards) and then about many other aspects of the Third Reich. All Irving's claims were demolished in court by Prof. Evans as totally bogus and without foundation. Irving was shown to have used mistranslated documents, forged documents, misquoted documents, altered documents (most notably the Goebbels diaries which, even before they were available for anyone to read were available to scholars) and using as a basis for his books obscure documents, or when there were well know documents that contradicted his thesis, he either ignored them, called them fakes or just cast doubts on them, prefering to quoting from some aged and unrepentant surviving minor factotum from Hitler's inner court - what they said was always absolutely the gold standard of reliability - although it was interesting that survivors of the death camps were universally dismissed as unreliable because their memories would be faulty after so many years - basically a double standard on evidence. I have to admire Prof. Evans for the way he was able to handle and remain dispassionate when dealing with the utterly repellent tripe Irving pedaled.
Again I stress this is a brilliant and important book and so worth reading.
Addendum:
On August 22, 2024 I saw the documentary 'The Meaning of Hitler' and there is a marvellous scene which everyone who thinks David Irving is not a monumental anti-semite should watch. David Irving was filmed and recorded, with his knowledge, taking a tour group around the Treblinka death camp. At one point he mentions the thousands of jews who died at Treblinka because of hard labour (Irving doesn't accept that Treblinka, or anywhere else, was a death camp) and then clearly forgetting he had was being recorded, went on to joke about on hard labour killed all those jews because they weren't hard labour, only counting receipts, which he and several of those surrounding him thought was incredibly funny. I found that throw away remark, and the giggles of Irving and his followers, far more distasteful than more explicit racist statements by many others including the Nazis. Because shortly before this he was denying being a holocaust denier (two words which he claimed not to understand) and it is his lack of honesty that is so revolting and the way his prejudices are expressed like a smutty story told by ten year old schoolboys.
What is also fantastic is that Irving will deny that there was a systematic murder of the Jews, but admit that tens, or even hundreds of thousands, of Jews were shipped across Europe and died of hard labour and/or disease. But if there was no holocaust but hundreds of thousands of ordinary men, women and children still died because of hard labour and disease then the Nazis were still monsters and their regime evil. If Hitler didn't order it doesn't make him innocent it makes doubly guilty for presiding over a government he didn't have any control over.
Irving tries to make us believe completely contradictory things, that Hitler didn't order the killing of the Jews, but there wasn't a programme to kill the Jews anyway, but hundreds of thousands of Jews died of overwork and hard labour, which was sad, but was really the Jews fault for being used to only sitting around counting money.
Any time, anyone, tries to portray David Irving as anything less than a foul excuse for a human being those for moments of film should be played.
January 1, 2016
Like The Case for Auschwitz: Evidence from the Irving Trial this is a book written by an expert witness for the defense in the libel suit David Irving brought against Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin Books in 2000. In this case, the expert witness is the historian: Evans is Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University; his role in the defense was to assess Irving as a historian.
His findings, briefly stated, are that Irving manipulated and misrepresented historical facts and primary sources from the very beginning of his career, always twisting in favor of Nazi Germany and against the Allies. He goes into some detail in his discussion, but as far as I was concerned, not nearly enough. I don't care particularly about the confusion in the media about who was on trial (many commentators thought that the trial was about Irving being denied free speech) or about Evans' experience of being cross-examined by Irving--which is not to say that wasn't a nightmare, because it totally was; it's just that what I want is the process by which Evans and his research assistants retraced Irving's steps and dissected his twisting of evidence.
Eleven years (and counting) after the trial, this book's not particularly illuminating--and actually, I think that's because Evans doesn't go through his 700 page expert opinion and lay out everything he discovered about Irving's quote-unquote "historiography." This is a popular book about the Irving trial--in the sense that it is written for a "popular," i.e., casual audience, and as such, it's much more ephemeral than van Pelt's book, which is partly about the trial, but mostly about the evidence, and which is written for an assumed audience that wants all the minutiae. That audience would be me. I'm never satisfied with books that only give me the surface of their topic; what I want, always, is the gears and vital organs underneath. Evans gives me some of that, but left me twitching and hungry for more.
His findings, briefly stated, are that Irving manipulated and misrepresented historical facts and primary sources from the very beginning of his career, always twisting in favor of Nazi Germany and against the Allies. He goes into some detail in his discussion, but as far as I was concerned, not nearly enough. I don't care particularly about the confusion in the media about who was on trial (many commentators thought that the trial was about Irving being denied free speech) or about Evans' experience of being cross-examined by Irving--which is not to say that wasn't a nightmare, because it totally was; it's just that what I want is the process by which Evans and his research assistants retraced Irving's steps and dissected his twisting of evidence.
Eleven years (and counting) after the trial, this book's not particularly illuminating--and actually, I think that's because Evans doesn't go through his 700 page expert opinion and lay out everything he discovered about Irving's quote-unquote "historiography." This is a popular book about the Irving trial--in the sense that it is written for a "popular," i.e., casual audience, and as such, it's much more ephemeral than van Pelt's book, which is partly about the trial, but mostly about the evidence, and which is written for an assumed audience that wants all the minutiae. That audience would be me. I'm never satisfied with books that only give me the surface of their topic; what I want, always, is the gears and vital organs underneath. Evans gives me some of that, but left me twitching and hungry for more.
June 28, 2018
Lying About Hitler: History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial
by Richard J. Evans tells about Evans’ experience as an expert witness defending Deborah Lipstadt’s book Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory against a UK libel charge by self-described historian David Irving.
The meat of the book is four chapters in which Evans reviews Irving’s writings, speeches, and interviews, primarily to analyze his claims that he has documents supporting several controversial (to put it as neutrally as possible) conclusions:
• Hitler never ordered the destruction of the Jews and in fact intervened to stop mass executions of Jews when he was made aware of them.
• The numbers of Jews that died during the war was far lower than widely believed, possibly in the hundreds of thousands and not in multiple millions, and that most of those died from disease and not deliberate executions.
• The Nazis had no systematic program of Jewish extermination, though some army units and occupying governments did carry out limited extermination on a local scale.
In painstaking detail Evans unpacks Irving’s supposed documentation of these conclusions to find it based on deliberate mis-readings, faulty translations (made by Irving himself, a fluent German speaker), and unjustified rejection of evidence, sometimes on a sentence-by-sentence level from a single source. No doubt it is important to show the breadth and depth of Irving’s dishonesty, but I found the reading of these chapters sometimes exhausting, with detailed examinations the characteristics of various documents, handwriting, and phrasing. I imagine the historian himself would agree that undertaking the work itself is more interesting than watching over his shoulder as he goes about it, which is the position I often felt myself in as a reader.
Further research is described in supporting Lipstadt’s description of Irving as a “holocaust denier”. Here, through tapes made available to Evans in the trial’s discovery phase, we get a taste of venues and groups where Irving has given speeches – these are audiences who burst into laughter when Irving uses an obscenity to refer to Holocaust survivors.
In a final bit of endnote-unpacking, Evans uses what he’s learned about Irving’s methods to look back at his early, more highly regarded book, The Destruction of Dresden. He finds that Irving accepted questionable testimony and evidence, including a document he knew to be a forgery, to maximize the number of deaths that resulted from the fire-bombings. In some cases Irving employed exactly the opposite tactics and logic he was to use later in minimizing Holocaust deaths.
Well, that was a long summary, and for me the best part of the book was actually the chapters surrounding that core, where Evans describes his being asked to provide expert testimony, the lead up to the trial, both in chambers and in the media, the trial itself - told mainly from Evans’ viewpoint, and press coverage of the trial and verdict. This provides something of a “fish out of water” subtext to the book as historian Evans enters the world of litigation with its different ideas of evidence, proof, and dealing with disagreements.
Evans tells about a piece of advice he received from fellow witness Robert Jan van Pelt before taking the witness stand:
After the trial verdict went against him, Irving was again portrayed as the victim, this time of “political correctness” in a phrase used by John Keegan after the trial to describe Lipstadt’s book. As is usually the case with those who use this term, it can be seen as a code phrase for “not one of us”. Despite the full vindication of her claims in court and the self-inflicted shredding of Irving’s credibility (Evans concludes that he has no right to have ever been described as a “historian”) it is Lipstadt – a woman, Jew, and American – whose views don’t sit well with Keegan and the male, Gentile, British Irving who has “many of the qualities of the most creative historians”.
The meat of the book is four chapters in which Evans reviews Irving’s writings, speeches, and interviews, primarily to analyze his claims that he has documents supporting several controversial (to put it as neutrally as possible) conclusions:
• Hitler never ordered the destruction of the Jews and in fact intervened to stop mass executions of Jews when he was made aware of them.
• The numbers of Jews that died during the war was far lower than widely believed, possibly in the hundreds of thousands and not in multiple millions, and that most of those died from disease and not deliberate executions.
• The Nazis had no systematic program of Jewish extermination, though some army units and occupying governments did carry out limited extermination on a local scale.
In painstaking detail Evans unpacks Irving’s supposed documentation of these conclusions to find it based on deliberate mis-readings, faulty translations (made by Irving himself, a fluent German speaker), and unjustified rejection of evidence, sometimes on a sentence-by-sentence level from a single source. No doubt it is important to show the breadth and depth of Irving’s dishonesty, but I found the reading of these chapters sometimes exhausting, with detailed examinations the characteristics of various documents, handwriting, and phrasing. I imagine the historian himself would agree that undertaking the work itself is more interesting than watching over his shoulder as he goes about it, which is the position I often felt myself in as a reader.
Further research is described in supporting Lipstadt’s description of Irving as a “holocaust denier”. Here, through tapes made available to Evans in the trial’s discovery phase, we get a taste of venues and groups where Irving has given speeches – these are audiences who burst into laughter when Irving uses an obscenity to refer to Holocaust survivors.
In a final bit of endnote-unpacking, Evans uses what he’s learned about Irving’s methods to look back at his early, more highly regarded book, The Destruction of Dresden. He finds that Irving accepted questionable testimony and evidence, including a document he knew to be a forgery, to maximize the number of deaths that resulted from the fire-bombings. In some cases Irving employed exactly the opposite tactics and logic he was to use later in minimizing Holocaust deaths.
Well, that was a long summary, and for me the best part of the book was actually the chapters surrounding that core, where Evans describes his being asked to provide expert testimony, the lead up to the trial, both in chambers and in the media, the trial itself - told mainly from Evans’ viewpoint, and press coverage of the trial and verdict. This provides something of a “fish out of water” subtext to the book as historian Evans enters the world of litigation with its different ideas of evidence, proof, and dealing with disagreements.
Evans tells about a piece of advice he received from fellow witness Robert Jan van Pelt before taking the witness stand:
“Don’t look Irving in the eye,” he said, “it’ll just make you angry.” On my first day of of cross-examination I was foolish enough to forget this sage counsel, and it turned out to be just as Robert Jan had foretold: I became irritated by many of the things Irving was saying or implying, especially when he tried to tackle me on reports written by other expert witnesses whom the defense had chosen not to call – reports for which I was not responsible and did not have the expertise to discuss. This did not make a good impression on the court. Over the weekend, I had a rethink and for the remaining five days of cross-examination I did not make eye contact with Irving once. This was much better, as the disembodied questions, statements, innuendos, and insults volleyed in from my left, I was able to take them in an impersonal manner and answer them in relative calm, addressing my remarks either to the court in general, or to the judge. Later I noticed that [defense counsel] Richard Rampton never looked Irving in the eye either. Confronting Irving in a personal manner would have made it more difficult to deal with the issues at hand in a dispassionate way. For all of us he became someone with whom the least contact was defiling.I don’t know how much it reflects subsequent events in the UK, but much of the coverage of and reaction to the trial as recounted by Evans reminded me of free-speech controversies in the US. Many who wrote about it seemed to think that it was Irving who was on trial and that his freedom to publish his interpretation of history was threatened. Of course it was actually he who instituted the suit and a judgment in his favor would have resulted in Lipstadt’s book being withdrawn and pulped. In similar controversies in the US I too often see the right wing and totalitarian side represented as being denied a hearing of their views when in fact they are merely acting as provocateurs creating controversy to air their lies beyond what would otherwise remain a very limited audience of fringe believers.
After the trial verdict went against him, Irving was again portrayed as the victim, this time of “political correctness” in a phrase used by John Keegan after the trial to describe Lipstadt’s book. As is usually the case with those who use this term, it can be seen as a code phrase for “not one of us”. Despite the full vindication of her claims in court and the self-inflicted shredding of Irving’s credibility (Evans concludes that he has no right to have ever been described as a “historian”) it is Lipstadt – a woman, Jew, and American – whose views don’t sit well with Keegan and the male, Gentile, British Irving who has “many of the qualities of the most creative historians”.
July 4, 2023
Ett utdrag från en recension från The New Criterion säger allt:
”Simple, elegant, and unemotional in style, it is devastating. A task of demolition so complete that it is hard to think of anything comparable”.
Helt enkelt: läs.
”Simple, elegant, and unemotional in style, it is devastating. A task of demolition so complete that it is hard to think of anything comparable”.
Helt enkelt: läs.
August 17, 2009
For reasons unknown, I have been drawn to reading books about genocide and the Holocaust over the past few months. Discovering the work of historian Richard J. Evans has been a major revelation in this endeavor. Evans writes books about history and particularly about the Third Reich, which make these vast subjects comprehensible to the layperson, while exhibiting a refreshingly unbiased viewpoint.
I picked up this book to fill in the time while waiting for volume three of Evans' history of the Third Reich to be delivered. Much to my surprise, rather than concentrating on history itself, Lying About Hitler is much more about the professional historian's methodology, and the role that the individual historian's perspective plays in shaping the story that eventually reaches the public. Source materials are a major factor, and when the source materials are written in an older Germanic dialect as much of the Reich materials were, the historian's obligation to speak the truth as he sees it becomes even more burdensome.
Through the viewpoint of the Richard Irving slander trial against historian Deborah Lipshitz, whom Irving said slandered him by referring to him as a Holocaust denier, Evans shows the procedures he used to methodically prove that Irving indeed denied that Hitler had any responsibility for the Holocaust, and that the numbers Irving was willing to admit to as having been killed both in the concentration camps and at Dresden were total fabrications.
Evans' other writings on the Third Reich are thoroughly fascinating to read. I put this one in a different category, though, because it is a thorough examination of how history is written, and how easily it may be slanted to serve the aims of the ends of the historian. I believe in the work that Richard Evans does, and respect him even more after reading this book.
I picked up this book to fill in the time while waiting for volume three of Evans' history of the Third Reich to be delivered. Much to my surprise, rather than concentrating on history itself, Lying About Hitler is much more about the professional historian's methodology, and the role that the individual historian's perspective plays in shaping the story that eventually reaches the public. Source materials are a major factor, and when the source materials are written in an older Germanic dialect as much of the Reich materials were, the historian's obligation to speak the truth as he sees it becomes even more burdensome.
Through the viewpoint of the Richard Irving slander trial against historian Deborah Lipshitz, whom Irving said slandered him by referring to him as a Holocaust denier, Evans shows the procedures he used to methodically prove that Irving indeed denied that Hitler had any responsibility for the Holocaust, and that the numbers Irving was willing to admit to as having been killed both in the concentration camps and at Dresden were total fabrications.
Evans' other writings on the Third Reich are thoroughly fascinating to read. I put this one in a different category, though, because it is a thorough examination of how history is written, and how easily it may be slanted to serve the aims of the ends of the historian. I believe in the work that Richard Evans does, and respect him even more after reading this book.
October 24, 2007
This book was fascinating. As a history major and a lawyer, this book had it all. There was an interesting trial and legal issues, but the meat of the book is about historiography, and what is acceptable historical interpretation, and what is changing the facts. The evidence presented against Irving is so strong, it is difficult to argue against it. Great read!
November 14, 2008
excellent
February 27, 2015
"What is historical objectivity? How do we know when a historian is telling the truth? Aren't all historians, in the end, only giving their own opinions about the past? Don't they just select whatever facts they need to support their own interpretations and leave the rest in the archives? Aren't the archives full of preselected materials anyway? Can we really say that anything historians present to us about the past is true? Aren't there, rather, many different truths, according to your political beliefs and personal perspectives?" - Opening of chapter one.
This book is not a full history of the trial of David Irving. Rather, it is the perspective of one of the expert witnesses called to testify about the historical record and the allegation that David Irving, historian, was a holocaust denier, anti-Semite, and liar about the culpability of Hitler in relation to the holocaust. In it, he reviews the basics of what was at state at trial and then reviews some of the claims of Irving thru the years and whether or not he was honest and trustworthy in his writing.
Irving is a multilingual author who spent years of his life in research and writing about WWII history. Some of the acknowledged great historians of the same timeframe, with no hint of Antisemitism, or pro-Nazi feeling, speak well of some of his work and efforts.
The evidence the author presents in this book shows that Irving started out shading the truth to the benefit of the Nazis, and in particular Hitler, in his writings. It appears that Irving did believe in the holocaust early in his career. Though perhaps reluctantly. As we see later in his career as claims from holocaust deniers with the appearance of some scintilla of veracity were eagerly seized on by Irving. And, when proven wrong, very reluctantly, if at all, laid aside. The proof appears to be that Irving purposely misquoted and mischaracterized historical evidence to make Hitler look uninvolved in the Final Solution. He argued that most of the Jews killed bu the Germans were the result of disease in the concentration camps rather than purposeful killing, and that the Jews were using the holocaust claims as a way to get wealthy after the war off of German repayment to Israel and to holocaust survivors. Additionally, he exaggerated evidence of Allied collateral damage (in Dresden in particular with claims of death tolls vastly higher than reasonable evidence suggests) so as to make an argument that the allies were just as bad as the Germans in causing civilian deaths. Irving lost at trial. As he well deserved based on his claims and the evidence presented against him.
I'm not convinced this is the best book about the subject but it's one of the few I have read. The questions at the beginning of the book are well asked. There is such a thing as absolute truth. An honest historian should get as close as possible to that in their writing and where they guess or add opinion, be cautious to be clear what is fact and what is guess. Once cannot let bias or the way we wish the world went change how we record the past.
This book is not a full history of the trial of David Irving. Rather, it is the perspective of one of the expert witnesses called to testify about the historical record and the allegation that David Irving, historian, was a holocaust denier, anti-Semite, and liar about the culpability of Hitler in relation to the holocaust. In it, he reviews the basics of what was at state at trial and then reviews some of the claims of Irving thru the years and whether or not he was honest and trustworthy in his writing.
Irving is a multilingual author who spent years of his life in research and writing about WWII history. Some of the acknowledged great historians of the same timeframe, with no hint of Antisemitism, or pro-Nazi feeling, speak well of some of his work and efforts.
The evidence the author presents in this book shows that Irving started out shading the truth to the benefit of the Nazis, and in particular Hitler, in his writings. It appears that Irving did believe in the holocaust early in his career. Though perhaps reluctantly. As we see later in his career as claims from holocaust deniers with the appearance of some scintilla of veracity were eagerly seized on by Irving. And, when proven wrong, very reluctantly, if at all, laid aside. The proof appears to be that Irving purposely misquoted and mischaracterized historical evidence to make Hitler look uninvolved in the Final Solution. He argued that most of the Jews killed bu the Germans were the result of disease in the concentration camps rather than purposeful killing, and that the Jews were using the holocaust claims as a way to get wealthy after the war off of German repayment to Israel and to holocaust survivors. Additionally, he exaggerated evidence of Allied collateral damage (in Dresden in particular with claims of death tolls vastly higher than reasonable evidence suggests) so as to make an argument that the allies were just as bad as the Germans in causing civilian deaths. Irving lost at trial. As he well deserved based on his claims and the evidence presented against him.
I'm not convinced this is the best book about the subject but it's one of the few I have read. The questions at the beginning of the book are well asked. There is such a thing as absolute truth. An honest historian should get as close as possible to that in their writing and where they guess or add opinion, be cautious to be clear what is fact and what is guess. Once cannot let bias or the way we wish the world went change how we record the past.
November 5, 2014
Well I finally finished it last night and I can say that being a student of history I thoroughly enjoyed it. I had never actually heard of David Irving before or his libel case against Deborah Lipstadt. Irving was a historical writer focusing on World War II, especially Hitler. Lipstadt wrote a book in the 90s called [i]Denying the Holocaust[/i] about the disturbing movement to refute the Holocaust or minimize it. In her book she called out Irving as a Holocaust denier and anti-semite. Irving then sued her for libel in an English court of law. The way England’s libel laws were set up, Lipstadt and Penguin Publishing basically had no other choice than to prove that her accusations of Irving were in fact true. The author, Richard Evans, was one of the expert witnesses at the trial for the defense and provided a very in-depth summary of the case, especially in concerns to Irving's falsifying of historical documents. Irving had a habit of twisting and manipulating historical documents and facts in order to fit his own goals, that being minimizing the horror of the Holocaust and removing the blame off of Hitler’s shoulders. It sounds crazy but many of his books were very popular. They go through all of Irving’s books and speeches and show how exactly he changed certain facts and why that actually made him a Holocaust denier, racist and anti-semite. For those that aren't history buffs, this book might be a little too dense for you because it goes through very specific details found in Irving’s writings with a fine tooth comb. But those that are up for it, it is an incredibly interesting and engaging read.
June 1, 2013
I enjoyed Richard J. Evans's "Lying About Hitler: History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial," and I gave it 5 stars, however, those stars come with a major caveat: read Deborah Lipstadt's "History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier" first.
As a standalone work, Evans's book is a 2 or 3. It does not give a great summary of what led up to the trial or the trial itself, it is best read as a companion piece, giving Evans's side of the story and a much fuller account than Lipstadt's book as to the evidence of David Irving's chicanery.
As a standalone work, Evans's book is a 2 or 3. It does not give a great summary of what led up to the trial or the trial itself, it is best read as a companion piece, giving Evans's side of the story and a much fuller account than Lipstadt's book as to the evidence of David Irving's chicanery.
August 28, 2016
Evans' superb scholarship and tight, razor-sharp prose are married to great effect as he details his own significant role in destroying the reputation of that noted Hitler-apologist cum amateur historian, David Irving.
Opportunities to engage in such a thorough, public, and totally warranted demolition do not come around too often; Evans certainly made the most of his, to the relief of sensible, civilized people everywhere.
Opportunities to engage in such a thorough, public, and totally warranted demolition do not come around too often; Evans certainly made the most of his, to the relief of sensible, civilized people everywhere.
July 25, 2011
This book is an interesting look at the David Irving libel trail. It shows how deliberate misinterpretation of history has allowed Holocaust denial to flourish. Though it gets bogged down in places, it makes for a good read for anyone wanting to see what Holocaust denial is all about and how to refute it.
May 29, 2016
A superb indictment of Holocaust Revisionism, Historical Method and British Libel Law, an absolute tour de force.
October 11, 2014
Richard J. Evans is one of the premier WWII historians. His trilogy on the Third Reich is a masterpiece. Evans has also written about history and objectivity in In Defence of History. "Lying About Hitler" covers Evans' research and testimony in the David Irving trial in 2000.
The Irving trial has always fascinated me. I was in middle school during the trial and had recently decided that I wanted to be a WWII historian (which I now am, yay!). The History Channel, I think, aired a documentary that my parents taped on the Irving trial. I watched it several times. I have also read Deborah Lipstadt's History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier, which provides a fascinating look at the scenes behind the trial. Evans' book, in contrast, is a deep analysis of Irving's writing.
The trial in a nutshell: Irving has written many books on German history. Deborah Lipstadt wrote a book, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory, which called Irving a Holocaust denier and explained that he denied the Holocaust out of antisemitic and racist beliefs. Irving sued Lipstadt in Britain for libel; because of British libel law, Lipstadt and her publisher, Penguin Press, had to prove that everything Lipstadt said about Irving was true. They had to prove that his beliefs about the Holocaust were wrong and that he was a racist.
Irving had several main arguments throughout his writing. He did not believe that Hitler knew about or ordered the extermination of the Jews. He did not believe that 6 million Jews were actively murdered by the Nazis - he believed that only a few hundred thousand had died, mostly from disease (the rest of European Jewry had left for Palestine). He also did not believe that the Einstatzgruppen in the East were coordinated killing groups or that there were gas chambers at Auschwitz. He dismissed the evidence of survivors.
Richard Evans was one of the experts Lipstadt and the defense hired for the trial. His job was to consider Irving's writings and determine whether Irving had willfully manipulated historical evidence. Evans and his research assistants read over several of Irving's books and tracked down the originals of documents that Irving had quoted - or misquoted. Time and again, Evans found that Irving deliberately changed passages from historical documents or mistranslated them. In every case, the document was changed to back up Irving's beliefs about Hitler, the gas chambers at Auschwitz, etc. Evans definitively proved in court that Irving's mistakes were not due to sloppy work; as they all pointed in one direction - to minimize the Holocaust and Hitler's role - it was clear that Irving had made changes to documents deliberately. If a historical document showed evidence contrary to Irving's beliefs, he would either misquote it or argue that the original document was fake.
The trial was a great victory for Lipstadt - the judge ruled that Irving had not been libeled, as he was indeed a Holocaust denier and a racist. Evans also analyzes the reactions of journalists to the trial. Many journalists had trouble following the trial, with its attention to detail in historical documents. Some journalists grasped the enormity of Irving's lies, while other journalists actually seemed to forget that it was Irving who had brought the libel case against Lipstadt and argued that the British court should not suppress Irving's work due to free speech!
I was saddened to learn that military historian John Keegan - one of the most renowned historians of the twentieth century - continued to consider Irving a good military historian, even after the trial, and expressed concern that historians should not suppress ideas that are not "politically correct." As Evans correctly explains, the trial was not about political correctness - it was about manipulation of the historical record. It was about lying about history.
Evans uses the trial to discuss the standards of the profession of the historian. He explains, "Argument between historians is limited by what the evidence allows them to say." Historians may interpret a document, an event, or the history of an entire country differently; what they cannot do is ignore or manipulate evidence, as Irving did. Evans' discussion of historians and objectivity is very thought-provoking, especially if you've read "In Defense of History" and know where he's coming from.
"Lying about Hitler" is an excellent book. Evans does a wonderful job making historical documents interesting. His contempt for Irving shines through in the text, and is totally understandable. He also does a good job providing an overview of Holocaust denial today. I had no idea one of the "leading" Holocaust deniers today, Arthur Butz, is a tenured engineering professor at Northwestern! (NU would like to get rid of him, I think, but can't because of stupid tenure.)
While I would highly recommend this book, it is directed more towards academics. If you're interested in historiography and close readings of primary source documents, definitely check this book out. If you want to learn more about the trial but prefer a less academic read, check out Deborah Lipstadt's engrossing History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier. Also - although it's not about the Irving trial - QB VII by Leon Uris is one of my very favorite books, and is on a similar topic. After Uris published "Exodus," he was sued for libel in a British court for including a sentence about a Polish doctor who performed experiments for the Nazis at Auschwitz. "QBVII" is a fictionalized recounting of his libel trial. I thought of "QBVII" several times during "Lying about Hitler." Defense against a libel suit in Britain is no easy task.
Thanks to "Lying about Hitler," no academic worth his salt should ever question whether Irving is a historian or a Holocaust denier ever again. Evans lays bare the full scope of Irving's crimes against history.
The Irving trial has always fascinated me. I was in middle school during the trial and had recently decided that I wanted to be a WWII historian (which I now am, yay!). The History Channel, I think, aired a documentary that my parents taped on the Irving trial. I watched it several times. I have also read Deborah Lipstadt's History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier, which provides a fascinating look at the scenes behind the trial. Evans' book, in contrast, is a deep analysis of Irving's writing.
The trial in a nutshell: Irving has written many books on German history. Deborah Lipstadt wrote a book, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory, which called Irving a Holocaust denier and explained that he denied the Holocaust out of antisemitic and racist beliefs. Irving sued Lipstadt in Britain for libel; because of British libel law, Lipstadt and her publisher, Penguin Press, had to prove that everything Lipstadt said about Irving was true. They had to prove that his beliefs about the Holocaust were wrong and that he was a racist.
Irving had several main arguments throughout his writing. He did not believe that Hitler knew about or ordered the extermination of the Jews. He did not believe that 6 million Jews were actively murdered by the Nazis - he believed that only a few hundred thousand had died, mostly from disease (the rest of European Jewry had left for Palestine). He also did not believe that the Einstatzgruppen in the East were coordinated killing groups or that there were gas chambers at Auschwitz. He dismissed the evidence of survivors.
Richard Evans was one of the experts Lipstadt and the defense hired for the trial. His job was to consider Irving's writings and determine whether Irving had willfully manipulated historical evidence. Evans and his research assistants read over several of Irving's books and tracked down the originals of documents that Irving had quoted - or misquoted. Time and again, Evans found that Irving deliberately changed passages from historical documents or mistranslated them. In every case, the document was changed to back up Irving's beliefs about Hitler, the gas chambers at Auschwitz, etc. Evans definitively proved in court that Irving's mistakes were not due to sloppy work; as they all pointed in one direction - to minimize the Holocaust and Hitler's role - it was clear that Irving had made changes to documents deliberately. If a historical document showed evidence contrary to Irving's beliefs, he would either misquote it or argue that the original document was fake.
The trial was a great victory for Lipstadt - the judge ruled that Irving had not been libeled, as he was indeed a Holocaust denier and a racist. Evans also analyzes the reactions of journalists to the trial. Many journalists had trouble following the trial, with its attention to detail in historical documents. Some journalists grasped the enormity of Irving's lies, while other journalists actually seemed to forget that it was Irving who had brought the libel case against Lipstadt and argued that the British court should not suppress Irving's work due to free speech!
I was saddened to learn that military historian John Keegan - one of the most renowned historians of the twentieth century - continued to consider Irving a good military historian, even after the trial, and expressed concern that historians should not suppress ideas that are not "politically correct." As Evans correctly explains, the trial was not about political correctness - it was about manipulation of the historical record. It was about lying about history.
Evans uses the trial to discuss the standards of the profession of the historian. He explains, "Argument between historians is limited by what the evidence allows them to say." Historians may interpret a document, an event, or the history of an entire country differently; what they cannot do is ignore or manipulate evidence, as Irving did. Evans' discussion of historians and objectivity is very thought-provoking, especially if you've read "In Defense of History" and know where he's coming from.
"Lying about Hitler" is an excellent book. Evans does a wonderful job making historical documents interesting. His contempt for Irving shines through in the text, and is totally understandable. He also does a good job providing an overview of Holocaust denial today. I had no idea one of the "leading" Holocaust deniers today, Arthur Butz, is a tenured engineering professor at Northwestern! (NU would like to get rid of him, I think, but can't because of stupid tenure.)
While I would highly recommend this book, it is directed more towards academics. If you're interested in historiography and close readings of primary source documents, definitely check this book out. If you want to learn more about the trial but prefer a less academic read, check out Deborah Lipstadt's engrossing History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier. Also - although it's not about the Irving trial - QB VII by Leon Uris is one of my very favorite books, and is on a similar topic. After Uris published "Exodus," he was sued for libel in a British court for including a sentence about a Polish doctor who performed experiments for the Nazis at Auschwitz. "QBVII" is a fictionalized recounting of his libel trial. I thought of "QBVII" several times during "Lying about Hitler." Defense against a libel suit in Britain is no easy task.
Thanks to "Lying about Hitler," no academic worth his salt should ever question whether Irving is a historian or a Holocaust denier ever again. Evans lays bare the full scope of Irving's crimes against history.
March 19, 2022
Fascinating exploration into how historians work and how Holocaust deniers warp evidence.
I hold non-fiction to a very high bar: no opinions (not verifiable), must have footnotes/references, and the author must appear to be as objective as possible all while escorting the reader through a new world to learn something exciting. Evans checks all the boxes. Evidence is clearly shared with the reader, the interpretations explained, and the conclusion definitive. Sometimes dry, in a way that's clinical, but in a way that I can appreciate as a reader.
My favorite is the chapter detailing the trial. Irving is revealed for who he really is in living form whereas earlier chapters confined his personality to only his writing. When fully formed, he becomes something that can be overcome, someone that with the right tools can be minimized and cornered for damage control.
The ideas, language and approaches Holocaust deniers use will be familiar to everyone after dealing with Covid deniers. This book accurately captures why history is so important. More important than we've given it credit.
Message/Argument: 5 stars
Writing: 4 stars
I hold non-fiction to a very high bar: no opinions (not verifiable), must have footnotes/references, and the author must appear to be as objective as possible all while escorting the reader through a new world to learn something exciting. Evans checks all the boxes. Evidence is clearly shared with the reader, the interpretations explained, and the conclusion definitive. Sometimes dry, in a way that's clinical, but in a way that I can appreciate as a reader.
My favorite is the chapter detailing the trial. Irving is revealed for who he really is in living form whereas earlier chapters confined his personality to only his writing. When fully formed, he becomes something that can be overcome, someone that with the right tools can be minimized and cornered for damage control.
The ideas, language and approaches Holocaust deniers use will be familiar to everyone after dealing with Covid deniers. This book accurately captures why history is so important. More important than we've given it credit.
Message/Argument: 5 stars
Writing: 4 stars
June 13, 2021
Evans does many things in this book. He a) completely devastates the work of David Irving establishing him as a holocaust denier, a cheat, and a fraud; b) demonstrates the meticulous use of the methods of historical scholarship on both David Irving and Adolf Hitler, very ironic in view of David Irving’s defence by attacking others’ methods; c) raises issues about the boundaries between bias and fraud; d) illustrates the amount of effort needed to overcome the tactics of skillful liars; e) makes a very strong case for the constant examination of boundaries on free speech in academia and political life; f) illustrates the strength of British libel laws in allowing and adjudicating challenges to both free and hate speech; g) demonstrates how the truly committed cognoscenti fulfill their responsibilities to battle evil.
Postscript: I hope historians have begun to write a book about the US Republican party. Call it ‘Lying about Trump’.
Postscript: I hope historians have begun to write a book about the US Republican party. Call it ‘Lying about Trump’.
February 29, 2024
A little dense
For class
For class
Read
January 10, 2013Not going to trash this book, but neither was I particularly impressed by it, so I should probably say for the record that David Irving is a toad, as are his rag-tag battalions of gurning fascists, who seem to be curiously well (read: over-) represented on the internet. So for his participation in the trial, for his years of hard work, for staring down Irving and more to the point not reaching across the dock and clipping him above the ear at any point, well done Richard J. Evans.
Actually there's a lot in the book that I like, and he does a good job of making interesting the meat of the trial: the succession of historical claims and counter-claims which the media largely ignored, preferring to focus on the juicier circus surrounding the litigation which it had itself created. Everything apart from the first and last chapters consists of a methodical rebuttal of various claims about the documentary record, with later chapters also casting light on Irving's involvement with neo-Nazi and anti-semitic groups. This is great; this is useful stuff that I'm glad I know about - more to the point, I'm glad that by virtue of the trial and this book of the trial (and maybe one day the film of the book of the trial), other people know more about the specific techniques Irving uses to 'prove' the unprovable. Techniques like wilfully mistranslating sources. Like stating his preference for eyewitness accounts when the eyewitness sings his tune, and stressing primacy of hard fact when they don't. Like saying very loudly in a crowded room that he's not saying it was a Jewish plot, but...
But this isn't what the book promised to be about, and it's not why I set about reading it in the first place. I thought this was supposed to be a companion piece to In Defence Of History; a case study that shows why recent criticisms of the discipline are more or less unfounded. The problem, by Evans' own admission, is that Irving is NOT a historian. This is emphatically NOT a book about the fragility of historical interpretation, it is a book about the performance/pretense of empiricism in pursuit of a radical agenda. Irving is a wolf in sheep's clothing, and at the end of this account I am still unconvinced about the trustworthiness or intellectual efficacy of sheep.
Evans pays no attention to what history might be for, other than to say it should not be to support a prejudicial position. Irving's disgrace is that he frequently encountered evidence that did not support or directly contravened his thesis, and doctored it rather than change his position. In a lot of ways, he was unfortunate, given that the Holocaust (not surprisingly for an event directly affecting so many people) is incredibly well attested to. Ditto the day to day functioning of the Nazi leadership. But what about the historian of Ancient China or Medieval Europe, who will never find anything to contradict his hypothesis, because the evidence simply isn't as plentiful?
Perhaps you could excuse this by claiming that the past will at least become [i]less[/i] hazy as more and more evidence is uncovered, and for now we can leave aside the fact that in modern history a lot of the really new research has been constructed from the oral record, which carries with it its own problems. But even given the charitable assumption that most historians are empirically conscientious, this doesn't guarantee an unbiased record, much less an objective one. As a professor of the Second World War, I'm sure that Evans is acutely aware of its dissemination not just by endless succession of tedious (and often self-congratulatory) monographs, but in film and TV and popular literature, to name but a few branches of the WWII culture industry. Isn't this the skew that should worry us? That even the most slavish devotee of Ranke will dedicate himself or herself to the period and the theme that most interests him/her personally? That society will, given a choice, support and encourage those histories that they find most beautiful, most useful, or in any other way most commensurate with their established values?
I can't get too upset at Evans for not including much of this, because it really doesn't impact on the trial - my quarrel is only with the blurb and sections of the introduction that suggest this will be a historiographical study, when really it's just a synthesis of Evans' evidence (and an eminently readable one at that). I enjoyed the outlandishness of some of Irving's claims, and I enjoyed the section when he calls the judge 'Mein Fuhrer'. The book is also tantalising about the prospect of various interviews conducted around the time (e.g. with Paxman) which no longer seem to exist (another question for public historians - if something is not on youtube, can it truly be said to exist?). But I was disappointed, in the end, and now I'm going to go back and read In Defence Of History and see if it has anything to say on the subject.
Actually there's a lot in the book that I like, and he does a good job of making interesting the meat of the trial: the succession of historical claims and counter-claims which the media largely ignored, preferring to focus on the juicier circus surrounding the litigation which it had itself created. Everything apart from the first and last chapters consists of a methodical rebuttal of various claims about the documentary record, with later chapters also casting light on Irving's involvement with neo-Nazi and anti-semitic groups. This is great; this is useful stuff that I'm glad I know about - more to the point, I'm glad that by virtue of the trial and this book of the trial (and maybe one day the film of the book of the trial), other people know more about the specific techniques Irving uses to 'prove' the unprovable. Techniques like wilfully mistranslating sources. Like stating his preference for eyewitness accounts when the eyewitness sings his tune, and stressing primacy of hard fact when they don't. Like saying very loudly in a crowded room that he's not saying it was a Jewish plot, but...
But this isn't what the book promised to be about, and it's not why I set about reading it in the first place. I thought this was supposed to be a companion piece to In Defence Of History; a case study that shows why recent criticisms of the discipline are more or less unfounded. The problem, by Evans' own admission, is that Irving is NOT a historian. This is emphatically NOT a book about the fragility of historical interpretation, it is a book about the performance/pretense of empiricism in pursuit of a radical agenda. Irving is a wolf in sheep's clothing, and at the end of this account I am still unconvinced about the trustworthiness or intellectual efficacy of sheep.
Evans pays no attention to what history might be for, other than to say it should not be to support a prejudicial position. Irving's disgrace is that he frequently encountered evidence that did not support or directly contravened his thesis, and doctored it rather than change his position. In a lot of ways, he was unfortunate, given that the Holocaust (not surprisingly for an event directly affecting so many people) is incredibly well attested to. Ditto the day to day functioning of the Nazi leadership. But what about the historian of Ancient China or Medieval Europe, who will never find anything to contradict his hypothesis, because the evidence simply isn't as plentiful?
Perhaps you could excuse this by claiming that the past will at least become [i]less[/i] hazy as more and more evidence is uncovered, and for now we can leave aside the fact that in modern history a lot of the really new research has been constructed from the oral record, which carries with it its own problems. But even given the charitable assumption that most historians are empirically conscientious, this doesn't guarantee an unbiased record, much less an objective one. As a professor of the Second World War, I'm sure that Evans is acutely aware of its dissemination not just by endless succession of tedious (and often self-congratulatory) monographs, but in film and TV and popular literature, to name but a few branches of the WWII culture industry. Isn't this the skew that should worry us? That even the most slavish devotee of Ranke will dedicate himself or herself to the period and the theme that most interests him/her personally? That society will, given a choice, support and encourage those histories that they find most beautiful, most useful, or in any other way most commensurate with their established values?
I can't get too upset at Evans for not including much of this, because it really doesn't impact on the trial - my quarrel is only with the blurb and sections of the introduction that suggest this will be a historiographical study, when really it's just a synthesis of Evans' evidence (and an eminently readable one at that). I enjoyed the outlandishness of some of Irving's claims, and I enjoyed the section when he calls the judge 'Mein Fuhrer'. The book is also tantalising about the prospect of various interviews conducted around the time (e.g. with Paxman) which no longer seem to exist (another question for public historians - if something is not on youtube, can it truly be said to exist?). But I was disappointed, in the end, and now I'm going to go back and read In Defence Of History and see if it has anything to say on the subject.
December 1, 2022
Dear David Irving, and all other Holocaust deniers,
Go to hell 🥰.
Go to hell 🥰.
February 23, 2024
A THOROUGH CRITIQUE OF DAVID IRVING AS A ‘HISTORIAN’
History Professor (and chief defense witness in the trial) Richard Evans wrote in the Preface to this 2001 book, “This book is about how we can tell the difference between truth and lies in history. It uses as an example the libel case brought before the High Court in London in … 2000 by David Irving against Deborah Lipstadt and her publisher, Penguin Books. It concentrates on the issue of the falsification of the historical record which Lipstadt accused Irving of having committed … This is not … intended to be a rounded or comprehensive account of the whole case. Others will be attempting that… the central issue … is the falsification and manipulation of the historical record … [the press] devoted the lion’s share of their attention to Irving’s racism and antisemitism. One of the aims of this book is to set the record straight in this respect.” (Pg. xi-xii)
In the first chapter, he states, “Irving insisted that his works on the Second World War had a high standing and claimed in his libel suit that Lipstadt’s allegations had caused ‘damage to his reputation’ in his ‘calling as an historian.’ Yet as I began to plow through the reviews of Irving’s books written by a wide range of historians and journalists over the years, the case he made for his high reputation among academic reviewers began to crumble. Academic historians with a GENERAL knowledge of modern history had indeed mostly been quite generous to Irving, even where they had found reason to criticize him or disagree with his views.” (Pg. 8)
He notes, “On checking … references, which were, typically for Irving, without specific page numbers. I eventually managed to establish that while there were indeed sections … that dealt with the Berlin criminal underworld, not a single reference could be found … to back up Irving’s claim that Jews dominated the crime scene in the 1920s.” (Pg. 50)
Of Irving’s claims that Hitler tried to call off the rioters during ‘Kristallmacht’ [“Adolf Hitler himself has ordered that this outrage has got to stop forthwith”], he observes, “Irving … deliberately mistranslated ‘Geschaften’ as ‘property’ in order to give the impression that the order also covered houses, apartments, and synagogues, instead of shops and similar commercial enterprises. The telex … referred only to arson… Other kinds of destruction, such as trashing the shops’ contents, shattering their windows, breaking up their furnishings and fixtures, setting fire to their synagogues, beating up and killing individual Jews, were exempted and could continue.” (Pg. 60) Later, he adds, “What Irving [neglected] to tell his readers is that, once more, he had taken information from the notorious Ingrid Weckert… Not one of these claims was accurate.” (Pg. 69)
He points out, “in his book ‘Hitler’s War,' [Irving] claimed that Hitler said that ‘with the Jews too I have found myself remaining inactive.’ However, the German original made it clear that Hitler saw himself as NO LONGER being inactive toward the Jews: ‘I had to remain inactive for a long time against the Jews too.’ This meant that the time of inactivity was over.” (Pg. 74)
Of Irving’s claim that Himmler's order to Heidrich, ‘Jew transport from Berlin. No liquidation’ applied to ALL Jews, “it was perfectly clear to me … that the subject … concerned ONE transport of Jews FROM BERLIN… [It] did not contain any GENERAL order … to stop the killing of Jews. Himmler and Heidrich clearly referred to a SINGLE trainload of Jews.” (Pg. 79-80) Ultimately, “Irving had now retreated from his claim that Hitler had ordered a stop to all liquidations of Jews on 30 November 1941. He had been forced to admit that the … phone call only referred to one trainload of Jews from Berlin.” (Pg. 81)
He states, “I had come to regard all of Irving’s references to the Goebbels diaries with a good deal of suspicion… [In Irving’s account] Irving did not tell his readers that Goebbels had described Hitler as having pushed for this ‘radical solution.’ He simply omitted the entire passage… because this statement by Goebbels discredited his claim that Hitler knew nothing about the extermination camps in the East… Thus, Irving manipulated the diary entry to argue the exact opposite of what it actually showed.” (Pg. 87-88)
On another occasion, “Irving … omitted another vital document from his account… It was clear to me that Irving manipulated this document by omitting all mention of this part both in the 1991 edition of ‘Hitler’s War’ and in his submission to the court. I had no doubt that he was suppressing this important information in order to underline the impression that Hitler was intervening purely and simply to stop the Jews being killed.” (Pg. 99-100)
He summarizes, “Many [historians/reviewers] seemed to have assumed that Irving had been an honest historian for most of his career and had only recently gone off the rails. Yet Brozat and the others had already showed in 1977 that Irving’s falsifications of the historical record were not the result of some recent aberration in the career of an otherwise respectable historian. One of the more shattering things I had discovered was that Irving’s deceptions were there from very early in his career and had remained an integral part of his working methods across the decades.” (Pg. 103)
He observes, “Irving never used eyewitness testimony from victims of Nazism in any of his voluminous writings… When confronted with actual survivors, he picked on technical aspects of their testimony that he tried to use to discredit their memories… in 1997, for example [Irving said]… ‘You said you saw the smoke coming from the crematoria… But crematoria don’t smoke, Mrs. Altman. Go and visit your local crematorium in Sydney.’ The thought that the crematoria of Auschwitz might have been designed differently…than the crematoria in Sydney, did not, apparently, enter his mind.” (Pg. 133-134)
He recounts, “Irving told an audience … [in] 1995, referring to the Jews: ‘… this leader of the Jewish community in … Louisiana… said: ‘Are you trying to say that we are responsible for Auschwitz? Ourselves?’ And [Irving] said, ‘Well the short answer is yes…. If you had behaved differently over the intervening three thousand years, the Germans would have gone about their business and not have found it necessary to go around doing whatever they did to you.’” (Pg. 138)
He notes, “Irving also claimed that Frau Grosse confirmed to him that her husband had mentioned the final figure of 250,000 [dead in the Dresden attacks] to her… She remembered his PREDICTION that the final figure WOULD BE a quarter of a million… In reporting details of the interview in 1995, Irving again failed to include the word ‘prediction.’ In Irving’s hands, the future tense became the past, and a prediction became a report.” (Pg. 161-162)
He reports, “Fairly early in the trial… Irving [was confronted] with a document reporting that 97,000 Jews had been killed in the gas vans at Chelmno. Irving had… said on many occasions that the Nazis had only undertaken gassing on an experimental scale… [A defense lawyer] forced Irving to agree that the 97,000 had been gassed… ‘It is systematic, huge scale, using gas trucks to murder Jews?’ IRVING: Yes. no question at all.’ … He was aware that he had made an important concession.” (Pg. 216)
Retired history professor Donald Cameron Watt testified, “I hope that I am never subjected to the kind of examination that Mr. Irving’s books have been subjected to by the defense witnesses.’ … Watt’s defense of Irving … seemed to pass over the difference between historians whose political views INFLUENCED their selection and interpretation of evidence, and people like Irving whose selection and interpretation of the evidence was DICTATED by their political views.” (Pg. 245-246)
He concludes, “The trial demonstrated triumphantly the ability of historical scholarship to reach reasoned conclusions about the Nazi extermination of the [Jews based on] written evidence. It vindicated our capacity to know what happened after the survivors are no longer around to tell the tale. It showed that we CAN know, beyond reasonable doubt, even if explaining and understanding will always be a matter for debate.” (Pg. 266)
This book will be “must reading” for anyone studying Irving, the trial, and the Holocaust.
History Professor (and chief defense witness in the trial) Richard Evans wrote in the Preface to this 2001 book, “This book is about how we can tell the difference between truth and lies in history. It uses as an example the libel case brought before the High Court in London in … 2000 by David Irving against Deborah Lipstadt and her publisher, Penguin Books. It concentrates on the issue of the falsification of the historical record which Lipstadt accused Irving of having committed … This is not … intended to be a rounded or comprehensive account of the whole case. Others will be attempting that… the central issue … is the falsification and manipulation of the historical record … [the press] devoted the lion’s share of their attention to Irving’s racism and antisemitism. One of the aims of this book is to set the record straight in this respect.” (Pg. xi-xii)
In the first chapter, he states, “Irving insisted that his works on the Second World War had a high standing and claimed in his libel suit that Lipstadt’s allegations had caused ‘damage to his reputation’ in his ‘calling as an historian.’ Yet as I began to plow through the reviews of Irving’s books written by a wide range of historians and journalists over the years, the case he made for his high reputation among academic reviewers began to crumble. Academic historians with a GENERAL knowledge of modern history had indeed mostly been quite generous to Irving, even where they had found reason to criticize him or disagree with his views.” (Pg. 8)
He notes, “On checking … references, which were, typically for Irving, without specific page numbers. I eventually managed to establish that while there were indeed sections … that dealt with the Berlin criminal underworld, not a single reference could be found … to back up Irving’s claim that Jews dominated the crime scene in the 1920s.” (Pg. 50)
Of Irving’s claims that Hitler tried to call off the rioters during ‘Kristallmacht’ [“Adolf Hitler himself has ordered that this outrage has got to stop forthwith”], he observes, “Irving … deliberately mistranslated ‘Geschaften’ as ‘property’ in order to give the impression that the order also covered houses, apartments, and synagogues, instead of shops and similar commercial enterprises. The telex … referred only to arson… Other kinds of destruction, such as trashing the shops’ contents, shattering their windows, breaking up their furnishings and fixtures, setting fire to their synagogues, beating up and killing individual Jews, were exempted and could continue.” (Pg. 60) Later, he adds, “What Irving [neglected] to tell his readers is that, once more, he had taken information from the notorious Ingrid Weckert… Not one of these claims was accurate.” (Pg. 69)
He points out, “in his book ‘Hitler’s War,' [Irving] claimed that Hitler said that ‘with the Jews too I have found myself remaining inactive.’ However, the German original made it clear that Hitler saw himself as NO LONGER being inactive toward the Jews: ‘I had to remain inactive for a long time against the Jews too.’ This meant that the time of inactivity was over.” (Pg. 74)
Of Irving’s claim that Himmler's order to Heidrich, ‘Jew transport from Berlin. No liquidation’ applied to ALL Jews, “it was perfectly clear to me … that the subject … concerned ONE transport of Jews FROM BERLIN… [It] did not contain any GENERAL order … to stop the killing of Jews. Himmler and Heidrich clearly referred to a SINGLE trainload of Jews.” (Pg. 79-80) Ultimately, “Irving had now retreated from his claim that Hitler had ordered a stop to all liquidations of Jews on 30 November 1941. He had been forced to admit that the … phone call only referred to one trainload of Jews from Berlin.” (Pg. 81)
He states, “I had come to regard all of Irving’s references to the Goebbels diaries with a good deal of suspicion… [In Irving’s account] Irving did not tell his readers that Goebbels had described Hitler as having pushed for this ‘radical solution.’ He simply omitted the entire passage… because this statement by Goebbels discredited his claim that Hitler knew nothing about the extermination camps in the East… Thus, Irving manipulated the diary entry to argue the exact opposite of what it actually showed.” (Pg. 87-88)
On another occasion, “Irving … omitted another vital document from his account… It was clear to me that Irving manipulated this document by omitting all mention of this part both in the 1991 edition of ‘Hitler’s War’ and in his submission to the court. I had no doubt that he was suppressing this important information in order to underline the impression that Hitler was intervening purely and simply to stop the Jews being killed.” (Pg. 99-100)
He summarizes, “Many [historians/reviewers] seemed to have assumed that Irving had been an honest historian for most of his career and had only recently gone off the rails. Yet Brozat and the others had already showed in 1977 that Irving’s falsifications of the historical record were not the result of some recent aberration in the career of an otherwise respectable historian. One of the more shattering things I had discovered was that Irving’s deceptions were there from very early in his career and had remained an integral part of his working methods across the decades.” (Pg. 103)
He observes, “Irving never used eyewitness testimony from victims of Nazism in any of his voluminous writings… When confronted with actual survivors, he picked on technical aspects of their testimony that he tried to use to discredit their memories… in 1997, for example [Irving said]… ‘You said you saw the smoke coming from the crematoria… But crematoria don’t smoke, Mrs. Altman. Go and visit your local crematorium in Sydney.’ The thought that the crematoria of Auschwitz might have been designed differently…than the crematoria in Sydney, did not, apparently, enter his mind.” (Pg. 133-134)
He recounts, “Irving told an audience … [in] 1995, referring to the Jews: ‘… this leader of the Jewish community in … Louisiana… said: ‘Are you trying to say that we are responsible for Auschwitz? Ourselves?’ And [Irving] said, ‘Well the short answer is yes…. If you had behaved differently over the intervening three thousand years, the Germans would have gone about their business and not have found it necessary to go around doing whatever they did to you.’” (Pg. 138)
He notes, “Irving also claimed that Frau Grosse confirmed to him that her husband had mentioned the final figure of 250,000 [dead in the Dresden attacks] to her… She remembered his PREDICTION that the final figure WOULD BE a quarter of a million… In reporting details of the interview in 1995, Irving again failed to include the word ‘prediction.’ In Irving’s hands, the future tense became the past, and a prediction became a report.” (Pg. 161-162)
He reports, “Fairly early in the trial… Irving [was confronted] with a document reporting that 97,000 Jews had been killed in the gas vans at Chelmno. Irving had… said on many occasions that the Nazis had only undertaken gassing on an experimental scale… [A defense lawyer] forced Irving to agree that the 97,000 had been gassed… ‘It is systematic, huge scale, using gas trucks to murder Jews?’ IRVING: Yes. no question at all.’ … He was aware that he had made an important concession.” (Pg. 216)
Retired history professor Donald Cameron Watt testified, “I hope that I am never subjected to the kind of examination that Mr. Irving’s books have been subjected to by the defense witnesses.’ … Watt’s defense of Irving … seemed to pass over the difference between historians whose political views INFLUENCED their selection and interpretation of evidence, and people like Irving whose selection and interpretation of the evidence was DICTATED by their political views.” (Pg. 245-246)
He concludes, “The trial demonstrated triumphantly the ability of historical scholarship to reach reasoned conclusions about the Nazi extermination of the [Jews based on] written evidence. It vindicated our capacity to know what happened after the survivors are no longer around to tell the tale. It showed that we CAN know, beyond reasonable doubt, even if explaining and understanding will always be a matter for debate.” (Pg. 266)
This book will be “must reading” for anyone studying Irving, the trial, and the Holocaust.
January 14, 2015
When it comes to academic scandals, no field of study does it better than history. Mathematicians haven't had a good knock-down drag-out fight since Newton and Leibniz went at it over who invented calculus, and literary types are so soft spoken they still let people get away with treating Freud seriously. But history -- you can't go a year without someone's reputation being ruined, whether it's Stephen Ambrose or Doris Kearns Goodwin being accused of plagiarism, or Michael Bellesiles making up facts.
But of all the scandals, none is quite so boggling as David Irving, once a well-respected author who was considered to have written the definitive book on the Dresden bombings, turning into a raving neo-Nazi nutcase and Holocaust denier. In the mid '90s he sued Deborah Lipstadt, who had written a book on Holocaust denial which very briefly mentioned him. Her lawyers hired Richard Evans as an expert witness to dig into Irving's books, and what he discovered is simply astounding. For forty years, Irving simply made up sources to fit his conclusions, dismissed those that didn't, mistranslated documents to make Hitler look better, and accepted clear forgeries as genuine.
When Evans started working on the case, he, like most historians, assumed that Irving had slipped his cog fairly late in life, sometime in the late '80s when Holocaust denial started playing an increasing role in his work, but upon investigation Evans found evidence of denialism dating back to the '70s. Worse still, a check of Irving's book on Dresden, written all the way back in the '60s, turned up that Irving's casualty figures -- figures that had been widely accepted by historians -- were bunk. While everyone who counted casualties in Dresden placed the figure between 20,000-40,000, Irving added a "1" to the front of the figures, reasoning that the Nazis had been trying to play down the number of dead to hide the ineffectiveness of air defenses. Later Irving revised the number up to 200,000 to a quarter million dead, basing this figure on a document that had clearly been doctored by adding a trailing "0" to the figure to increase the number -- rather than wanting to downplay the number of dead, the Nazis wanted to make it as high as possible to stoke outrage amongst the people.
Sadly, though Irving's figures are now known to be nonsense, they are the figures Kurt Vonnegut relied upon when he wrote Slaughterhouse Five. Since far more people will learn about Dresden from Vonnegut than reliable history books, Irving's lie will be stuck with us forever.
But of all the scandals, none is quite so boggling as David Irving, once a well-respected author who was considered to have written the definitive book on the Dresden bombings, turning into a raving neo-Nazi nutcase and Holocaust denier. In the mid '90s he sued Deborah Lipstadt, who had written a book on Holocaust denial which very briefly mentioned him. Her lawyers hired Richard Evans as an expert witness to dig into Irving's books, and what he discovered is simply astounding. For forty years, Irving simply made up sources to fit his conclusions, dismissed those that didn't, mistranslated documents to make Hitler look better, and accepted clear forgeries as genuine.
When Evans started working on the case, he, like most historians, assumed that Irving had slipped his cog fairly late in life, sometime in the late '80s when Holocaust denial started playing an increasing role in his work, but upon investigation Evans found evidence of denialism dating back to the '70s. Worse still, a check of Irving's book on Dresden, written all the way back in the '60s, turned up that Irving's casualty figures -- figures that had been widely accepted by historians -- were bunk. While everyone who counted casualties in Dresden placed the figure between 20,000-40,000, Irving added a "1" to the front of the figures, reasoning that the Nazis had been trying to play down the number of dead to hide the ineffectiveness of air defenses. Later Irving revised the number up to 200,000 to a quarter million dead, basing this figure on a document that had clearly been doctored by adding a trailing "0" to the figure to increase the number -- rather than wanting to downplay the number of dead, the Nazis wanted to make it as high as possible to stoke outrage amongst the people.
Sadly, though Irving's figures are now known to be nonsense, they are the figures Kurt Vonnegut relied upon when he wrote Slaughterhouse Five. Since far more people will learn about Dresden from Vonnegut than reliable history books, Irving's lie will be stuck with us forever.
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