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No sympathy for this devil...
20 February 2006
[indent]At 67, David Irving is going to jail. And there won't be many tears shed for him.
Irving is a historian, or rather a revisionist of history. The British author has written several works on World War II and Adolf Hitler's rise to power. In several, he has either downplayed or seriously denied the Holocaust.
Irving's early works were controversial, sympathetic to Germany, and while sometimes praised, were often criticized by real historians and specialists for their inaccuracies. In his two-part biography of Adolf Hitler (Hitler's War and The War Path), Irving denied Hitler knew anything about the Final Solution. This began his branding as a revisionist and Holocaust denier, even as a Nazi sympathizer.
His 1987 book, Churchill's War, portrayed Winston Churchill as "a debauched alcoholic, a coward, an unabashed racist, and a corrupt warmonger servile to the interests of international Jewry..." who sold out the British Empire and turned Britain against its "natural ally, Germany."
By this time, Irving had little popular support and no credibility among academic circles. Undaunted, he followed with a glowing biography of Hermann Goring in 1989.
But the smoldering embers burst into flames when he made a speech in Austria in 1989, followed by an interview in which he denied there were gas chambers in Auschwitz. Holocaust denial is a crime in Austria, and Irving was charged, but he left Austria before he could be arrested.
Pretty soon Irving was the new star in the firmament of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial. He was videotaped at a meeting in which he claimed, "more women died on the back seat of Edward Kennedy's car at Chappaquiddick than died in a gas chamber in Auschwitz."
But he lost a libel suit in the UK, in 2000, against American academic Deborah Lipstadt, who claimed Irving was a Holocaust denier. It was a landmark because it made the statement that Holocaust denial was not a valid view of history. Justice Charles Gray concluded that:
In Irving's libel suit, Richard Evans, professor of Modern History at Cambridge University said Irving had deliberately distorted and wilfully mistranslated documents, consciously used discredited testimony and falsified historical statistics. And, he concluded,
Irving's claims to be a historian had eroded like a sand-castle in the tide. Since no reputable historian would make such outrageous claims, Irving's books quickly lost any claim to credibility except among a tiny group of neo-Nazis for whom Irving has iconic status.
Irving appealed the ruling, and lost, which bankrupted him.
Irving returned to Austria this year to give a speech to a far-right university fraternity. The police caught him on a highway and he went to jail to await trial on the 1989 charge. In prison and at the trial, Irving claimed to have changed his views over the past decade, and now no longer denies the Holocaust happened.
But he refused to answer a question on the number of Jews killed in the Nazi camps, sidestepping the question by claiming he is not an expert in the Holocaust.
According to the BBC story, Irving admitted at his trial he had denied the Nazis had killed millions of Jews.
And that's why he's being sent to an Austrian prison for three years. The maximum penalty is ten - the Austrian judge was lenient. Poor Irving expected an acquital.
Holocaust denial is little more than window-dressing for anti-semitism. For the most part, it's been confined to the racist hate groups, the fringe element of the right-wing fanatics, the skinheads, some rabid fundamentalists and neo-Nazis.
Holocaust denial has a lot in common with other revisionist doctrines, like creationism, in that it attempts to deny verifiable truths and is usually violently aggressive towards its opponents. Its proponents are usually young, poorly-educated thugs and gang members, but sometimes the pro-Nazi sentiments are expressed by men like Ernst Zundel or the now mostly defunct racist organization, the Ku Klux Klan.
Zundel, whose rabid pseudo-philosophy has infected hundreds of gullible, like-minded racist followers, sits in a German prison where he awaits the verdict for his trial of 14 counts of inciting racism and hatred. Irving testified in Zundel's favour in the latter's trial in Canada, in 1988. Maybe he and Irving will become penpals.
Outside of a few skinheads, few will miss David Irving, or feel any sympathy for his conviction. True, putting Irving behind bars won't suddenly make the truth win out. In fact, it might even make Irving a martyr of the right-wing extremists who are his adoring fans.
Irving has often tried to defend his "opinions" on the basis of free speech. But with free speech comes a burden of responsibility. And if you abuse it, you pay the price, as Irving has now learned.
As Lord Janner, chair of the Holocaust Educational Trust said,
[/indent]
Irving is a historian, or rather a revisionist of history. The British author has written several works on World War II and Adolf Hitler's rise to power. In several, he has either downplayed or seriously denied the Holocaust.
Irving's early works were controversial, sympathetic to Germany, and while sometimes praised, were often criticized by real historians and specialists for their inaccuracies. In his two-part biography of Adolf Hitler (Hitler's War and The War Path), Irving denied Hitler knew anything about the Final Solution. This began his branding as a revisionist and Holocaust denier, even as a Nazi sympathizer.
His 1987 book, Churchill's War, portrayed Winston Churchill as "a debauched alcoholic, a coward, an unabashed racist, and a corrupt warmonger servile to the interests of international Jewry..." who sold out the British Empire and turned Britain against its "natural ally, Germany."
By this time, Irving had little popular support and no credibility among academic circles. Undaunted, he followed with a glowing biography of Hermann Goring in 1989.
But the smoldering embers burst into flames when he made a speech in Austria in 1989, followed by an interview in which he denied there were gas chambers in Auschwitz. Holocaust denial is a crime in Austria, and Irving was charged, but he left Austria before he could be arrested.
Pretty soon Irving was the new star in the firmament of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial. He was videotaped at a meeting in which he claimed, "more women died on the back seat of Edward Kennedy's car at Chappaquiddick than died in a gas chamber in Auschwitz."
But he lost a libel suit in the UK, in 2000, against American academic Deborah Lipstadt, who claimed Irving was a Holocaust denier. It was a landmark because it made the statement that Holocaust denial was not a valid view of history. Justice Charles Gray concluded that:
Quote
Irving has for his own ideological reasons persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence; that for the same reasons he has portrayed Hitler in an unwarrantedly favourable light, principally in relation to his attitude towards and responsibility for the treatment of the Jews; that he is an active Holocaust denier; that he is anti-Semitic and racist and that he associates with right-wing extremists who promote neo-Nazism.
In Irving's libel suit, Richard Evans, professor of Modern History at Cambridge University said Irving had deliberately distorted and wilfully mistranslated documents, consciously used discredited testimony and falsified historical statistics. And, he concluded,
Quote
Irving has fallen so far short of the standards of scholarship customary amongst historians that he does not deserve to be called a historian at all.
Irving's claims to be a historian had eroded like a sand-castle in the tide. Since no reputable historian would make such outrageous claims, Irving's books quickly lost any claim to credibility except among a tiny group of neo-Nazis for whom Irving has iconic status.
Irving appealed the ruling, and lost, which bankrupted him.
Irving returned to Austria this year to give a speech to a far-right university fraternity. The police caught him on a highway and he went to jail to await trial on the 1989 charge. In prison and at the trial, Irving claimed to have changed his views over the past decade, and now no longer denies the Holocaust happened.
But he refused to answer a question on the number of Jews killed in the Nazi camps, sidestepping the question by claiming he is not an expert in the Holocaust.
According to the BBC story, Irving admitted at his trial he had denied the Nazis had killed millions of Jews.
And that's why he's being sent to an Austrian prison for three years. The maximum penalty is ten - the Austrian judge was lenient. Poor Irving expected an acquital.
Holocaust denial is little more than window-dressing for anti-semitism. For the most part, it's been confined to the racist hate groups, the fringe element of the right-wing fanatics, the skinheads, some rabid fundamentalists and neo-Nazis.
Holocaust denial has a lot in common with other revisionist doctrines, like creationism, in that it attempts to deny verifiable truths and is usually violently aggressive towards its opponents. Its proponents are usually young, poorly-educated thugs and gang members, but sometimes the pro-Nazi sentiments are expressed by men like Ernst Zundel or the now mostly defunct racist organization, the Ku Klux Klan.
Zundel, whose rabid pseudo-philosophy has infected hundreds of gullible, like-minded racist followers, sits in a German prison where he awaits the verdict for his trial of 14 counts of inciting racism and hatred. Irving testified in Zundel's favour in the latter's trial in Canada, in 1988. Maybe he and Irving will become penpals.
Outside of a few skinheads, few will miss David Irving, or feel any sympathy for his conviction. True, putting Irving behind bars won't suddenly make the truth win out. In fact, it might even make Irving a martyr of the right-wing extremists who are his adoring fans.
Irving has often tried to defend his "opinions" on the basis of free speech. But with free speech comes a burden of responsibility. And if you abuse it, you pay the price, as Irving has now learned.
As Lord Janner, chair of the Holocaust Educational Trust said,
Quote
It is the conviction and not the sentence that matters. It sends a clear message to the world that we must not tolerate the denial of the mass murders of the Holocaust. The Nazis tried to wipe out an entire people... We must learn the lessons of the past to built a decent society for the future. Irving's conviction, especially in Austria which was a former Nazi country, is important and appropriate.
[/indent]
