Warning : IRVING SITES

This has come up a couple of times in the last week, so I thought Forum members may find a pointer useful.

Mr Irving runs a very persuasive website which seems to link-in all over the ('net) place.

If you link in to something interesting, but see the words 'FOCAL POINT' or 'THE INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN FOR REAL HISTORY' in small print at the top or bottom of the page, be aware that you are a guest of David Irving !

Now, I am not promoting a politically-correct shunning of anything to do with Irving, but I am suggesting that, if you're suggesting a link, please make it clear whose website it is.

Rather like a Forum Health Warning, isn't it ?
THE SURGEON-GENERAL HAS DETERMINED...

 

I must be from another planest, but who in the hell is Irving?????

 

THANK YOU ALBERT! I wanted to post the exact same question but did not want to be looking dumb so I am glad I am not the only one.....

 

Thanks Martin,

This was necessary as Mr Irving has alot to say!And it changes with time...oh-hoh...

 

Sorry - Irving is infamous in Europe, maybe less so in the USA.

His career as a 'revisionist historian' started with 'The Destruction of Dresden' in 1963, followed by nearly 30 books including biographies of Goering, Goebbels, Milch, a study of the V-weapons ( 'The Mare's Nest' ) and, most famously, 'Hitler's War' (1975 ). He was also involved in the 'Hitler Diaries' episode, memorably denouncing the documents at a press conference.

But, in recent years, suspicion grew that his sympathies with Hitler and the Third Reich were becoming somewhat extreme ; this was heightened by American academic Deborah Lipstadt in her book 'Denying The Holocaust : The Growing Assault On Truth And Memory' (1993).

Irving decided to prosecute both Lipstadt and her publisher Penguin Books in the London High Court in early 2000. At the end of this unique case, which made front-page news in the UK, a High Court judge decided that Irving was 'anti-semitic, a holocaust denier. He is content to mix with neo-fascists and appears to share many of their racist and anti-semitic prejudices.Irving treated..historical evidence in a manner which fell far short of of the standard to be expected of a conscientious historian'.

Irving lost a fortune in costs, and is effectively disgraced ( as are his books ).

A fascinating book about the case, 'telling Lies About Hitler' by Richard J Evans ( expert witness for the defence ) appeared this year and includes a devastating examination of Irving's book about Dresden, and how important documentary evidence was suppressed or distorted to support Irving's thesis.

So - beware of his website !

 

I have read Telling Lies About Hitler and thoroughly enjoyed it. Evans notes that at one point Irving even addressed the Judge (Mr Justice Gray) as 'mein Fuhrer'. Hehe.

 

Is Mr. Irving a bad historian? I think he is, because he writes books in the way he sees the things and doesn't act neutrally. But are his books and websites wrong historically talking? I think that if they are, then we must avoid them. But if they have reliable information we may be able to use it. I think we are mature enough to avoid being persuaded by his views. You could read his books or websites, take the valuable stuff and then throw away his nazi views. Well, just my humble opinion.

 

That really was the point of the court case, Friedrich - Irving researches deeply and finds valuable historical information.

But then, he leaves bits out when citing, or simply ignores evidence which does not fit with his theories or views. In other words, he 'censors' the historical information without telling you, the reader, that he has done so.

After all, you are not seeing the documents - you are relying on the author to quote and use them correctly. And it has been proven in the High Court that Irving does not do this.

That's one of the reasons why the case was so important- it was a warning to other historians to be very careful. And I think we should be a little careful when citing Irving's work on this Forum - that's all.

 

Ive heard about Irving too, and he does leave out criticle info--just to be able to expand on his sick theorys. He wants to re-write history and also goes against the vets who were there. Irving is despicable. (My opinion because of what I have heard and learned about him)

 

Thanks for clearing, Martin. Now I see.

 

I heard about Irving as a holocaust denier which is unbelievable. I never read any books from him but I want to see the sites just to see his arguments. Does anyone has a link?

 

The problem with Irving is he makes his claims sound extremely reasonable. He selectively quotes, or mistranslates, or misrepresents or deliberately misinterprets original sources in such a way that unless you have access to those documents and a very detailed knowledge of them, you have no way to refute him.

Mr Justice Gray called him a racist, an antisemite, a Holocaust denier and a falsifier of history. Ian Kershaw, the well-respected Hitler biographer and historian of the Third Reich once used Irving's Hitler's War and felt obliged to hire 2 additional researchers to sift through every single one of Irving's claims before he felt safe quoting him in any of his works.

I will not be touching any of his work.

 

This is the real dilemma for any historian: There's no doubt, not everything Irving wrote is a flat lie; in fact many of his findings (espec. in his "early" years) are correct and solid history scholarship. But we know now that we can't be sure. So either you re-check any of Irving's claims (which expands your working efforts pretty much) or you completely ignore his findings (which might make your own work rather incomplete).

To make things even more complicated, Irving is just one of several "rouge" historians (Suvorov, many Soviet historians, Carell, the late Ambrose etc.).

Cheers,

 

Irving's 'early years' is a myth.

That's why the defence in the Penguin/Lipstadt case selected 'The Destruction of Dresden' for analysis - it was his first ever book.

And it was proven to contain much material that had been incorrectly interpreted, and other documents found by Irving had been ignored.

 

I've only read Irving's biography of Rommel, which I thought was rather good. Because of the subject it naturally avoided the issues of nazism for a large part and it was only much later that I found out about Irving's personal tendencies.

 

Too true, Andreas - I also enjoyed reading his biography of Goering.

This is the real tragedy - Irving is a very good writer ! His style is very interesting and 'readable', his disgrace is that the reader cannot 'trust' his books

 

I was thinking more of the missing "Goebbels diary" entries, who were believed to be lost until 1992. Irving found it in the Russian special archive and published parts of it in british newspaper The Sunday Times and the german news magazine Der Spiegel.

In the meantime, copies of the 1600 microfiches of diary entries are at the German Bundesarchiv and published by the Institut fuer Zeitgeschichte in Munich.

I read "Hitler's War", of course it's ridiculous to think that Hitler "knew nothing" of the Holocaust. Guess that was the time when Irving became completely lunatic to the historian society.

Cheers,

 

Again, yes, Irving discovered the missing Goebbels diaries but manipulated their content in his biography 'Goebbels'.

As an example, a sentence beginning '(The Fuhrer) wants an energetic policy against the jews...' omits this phrase because it doesn't 'fit' with Irving's theory of Hitler knowing nothing of the 'Final Solution', and so on....

Anyway, I have said quite enough on this topic - I'd recommend anyone interested to read Richard J Evans 'Telling Lies About Hitler'; a thought-provoking work not just about Irving but about the historiography of WWII in general.